Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #32 - King & Queen Of The Ring Predictions, Double Or Nothing, 2-Night SummerSlam

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Welcome to another #AskCVV episode! On this one Chris gives his predictions for all of the matches at King And Queen Of The Ring, talks about the most interesting matches at AEW Double Or Nothing – and answers questions about the most exciting young stars in wrestling, the wrestling trading cards that he collects, thoughts on SummerSlam being a two-night event in 2026, when WrestleMania will be announced in London, how to find your passion, favorite TNA wrestler and much more! If you have a question that you want answered on the next one, send it in using the hashtag #AskCVV! Sponsors: PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/ PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT for a first deposit match up to $100! BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv BLUECHEW: Use the code INSIGHT to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh my goodness. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being with us. And thank you as always for helping to make Insight one of the top wrestling podcasts on the planet. Could you do me a favor? If you're listening to this right now

and you're one of the thousands of people who haven't hit follow yet, could you just take a second at some point today to just hit that follow button on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? or wherever you're listening to this. It helps the show so, so much. So thank you in advance for that. Welcome to Ask CVV number 32,

the Magic Johnson edition. Also the Shaquille O'Neill Edition. And, of course, since I'm a Cleveland Browns fan, and it is very difficult sometimes to be a Cleveland Browns fan. But the greatest running back of all time, war number 32, this is also the Jim Brown edition,

ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for being with us. What a weekend. We've gone ahead of ourselves here. If you live in the United States, happy Memorial Day weekend to you. And we've got King and Queen of the Ring and also Double or Nothing.

A lot going on here and a ton of questions to dive into on this episode of Ask CVV. Please send in your questions for the next one. using the hashtag Ask CVV or send an email, CVV at chrisfanbley.com. If you listen to the last one, I said, hey, drop a question or a comment if you're listening on Spotify. It's so cool to see those questions. The Q&A section of Spotify, it says, what did you think of this episode?

And I was like, oh, the record right now for the most comments we've had is like 41. You think we could beat that? Like, do you think we could get more than that? So I said, hey, you know, leave a comment on this. And you guys blew me away. You absolutely blew me away with all of the comments and questions that you left on there. The last Ask CVV got a hundred and twelve. I was like, 40's the record.

Can we beat that? You guys crushed it. A hundred and twelve. Can we beat that one? On this particular episode right now, if you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment, leave a question for the next, Ask CVV in there. Can we beat 112? I'm thinking we probably can.

And then can we beat The Undertaker. Right now, The Undertaker is the undisputed podcast champion. And huge congrats to Mark Callaway and the whole team at six feet under with their podcast. They're doing great work there. They're getting some amazing guests. I mean, of course, who's going to say no to The Undertaker, right? amazing. But I've got my eyes set on that number one spot and I can't do it alone. So with your help by listening to the show, following the show, leaving those ratings and reviews, leaving those

comments on Spotify. We're going to get there. There's no question in my mind that Insight will be the number one wrestling podcast on the planet at some point this year. And that's not just a victory for the show. That's a victory for all of us here. And I don't I know we're not going to hang on to that spot, right? Like, Undertaker is going to go back in there and be number one. But we will be at that top spot for at least a little while. And then I think we'll just trade spaces, you know, trade places and spaces and faces. But I don't know why I just turned into some sort of rhyme here, some rap.

But we'll trade places, I think, number one, too, with Undertaker for a little while there. But it's just a matter of time before we get to that number one space. Oh, baby. All right, let's dive into these questions here. A ton of them. I think we're going to answer more questions on this Ask CVV than we ever had before. So I believe that will make this the biggest Ask CVV episode in history. I don't know why this turned into a promo now, but I'm rolling with it.

The first one here is from Joe Hersky from Facebook. Hey, CVV. your interview with Swaggle the other day with King and Queen of the Ring happening this weekend. Who do you think is going to win? Let's do a full rundown of the entire card here for King and Queen of the Ring. It's so interesting because as we record this right now, we don't know the final matches for the King of the Ring Finals and the Queen of the Ring Finals. So we're just putting that out there right now.

This is clearly clearly being recorded before Smackdown has aired. So as we record this right now, it's Gunther versus either Randy Orton or Tomatanga for the King of the Ring finals. I was all in on Gunther winning this. If you recall, I made the prediction months ago before we even knew who was in the tournament. I said, I think Goonther is going to win. And then Triple H threw us a curveball this week. And he announced that the winner of the King of the Ring tournament and the Queen of the the ring tournament, we'll get a title shot against the champion on their brand.

And that changed everything for me. That's going to be the championship match happening at SummerSlam. So I went, oh, my goodness here, where do we go? You know, what happens? What's the match? And I could see Gunther winning this, but I think you could make a real strong case for a very solid main event at SummerSlam being Randy Orton versus Cody Rhodes. So I don't know where we go from this. I just, I think that Gunther could now be the money in the bank winner. That feels like something that could happen. Then he cashes in for the World Heavyweight Championship.

That certainly feels like a scenario we have here. But Randy Orton versus Cody Rhodes, I mean, that's a big match. That's a marquee match for a marquee PLE like SummerSlam. So I was all in on Gunther. And that has changed this week. That's just changed the last 24 hours. So my prediction for that match is going to be Randy Orton. Even though we don't officially know that Randy Orton's even in that final match,

but I think it's Randy Orton as the king of the ring. Then it goes on to be Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. the only reason that I would say right now that Gunther could win and perhaps maybe even should win is there something about having a heel King of the Ring that just works so well. It's like this pompous attitude that's attached to it. We've seen so many great heel King of the Rings, Booker T, Wade Barrett, and the list goes on and on. That's the only reason I could see that one happening, but it's such a tough call. But I'm going to go with Randy Orton on that one. Queen of the Ring, we don't know the match here either. It's Lyra Valcira versus the winner of

Nia Jax versus Bianca Bel Air. Again, here, the winner is going to get a championship shot against the champion on their brand at SummerSlam. I just feel like it's got to be, it's either Naya Jax or Bianca Bel Air. That sets up a much bigger main event match, a much bigger championship match at SummerSlam. So I think it's got to, I'm going to go with my prediction here being Nia Jax. And that then falls in line with what I was talking about with King of the Ring, where you get a heel, queen of the ring, you get a ton of heat on Nia Jacks. I think that that's the match there. So my prediction for queen of the ring is. going to be Nia Jacks. Then we move on to Chad Gable versus Sammy Zane versus Big Bronson

Reid for the Intercontinental Championship. And this one's, there's going to be a lot of components to this match. It's going to be a lot of things going on in this match if I were to predict this. I love how triple threats you don't need to pin the champion to win. So that's an element that needs to be like kind of thought about here. I could see Big Bronson Reed taking the pinfall here. my prediction is that Sammy Zane walks out of this match as the Intercontinental Championship, but what this match does is it sets up a deeper storyline for Chad Gable. I think Otis is going to cost Chad Gable to match in some form or fashion here. That's going to directly affect the relationship that Chad Gable has with Alpha Academy,

and I think he's going to cut ties with Alpha Academy, and then form a new heel faction of elite amateur wrestlers with the Creed Brothers. I mean, the Creed brothers and Chad Gable together is going to be pretty incredible. And what Chad Gable's doing right now reminds me so much of like 2006 TNA Kurt Engel, like this real intensity with everything that he does in the ring. And the fact that he can put on these bangers with absolutely anybody. I love it. So that's my prediction there.

And I think that this sets up something much bigger for Chad Gable. Chad Gable. Chad Gable is for sure an intercontinental champion at some point, maybe at some point this year, or a U.S. champion at some point this year. And I think that it would make sense for him in the next, call it year or two, to be in a position where he's at the top of the card, to be in a position where he's fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship. I am all in on Chad Gable, and I can't wait to see how this all shakes out.

And then as we look ahead to SummerSlam, there's got to be something big for him there. Becky Lynch versus Liv Morgan for the Women's World Heavyweight Championship. I just feel like this is a coin toss for me. You can make a strong case for either of them. Liv Morgan winning the championship here seems to line up with a storyline that when Mommy is healed, when Ria Ripley comes back, it sets up this match. She gets her revenge. Ria Ripley is injured because of Liv Morgan.

Ria Ripley is no longer the champion because of that injury caused by Liv Morgan. It sets up a great match. That one makes a lot of sense here. But Becky Lynch is just so dominant with everything that she has done in the past, everything that she's currently doing. She just won this championship like a month ago. So it feels like it might be too early for her to lose this.

But I really think this is flip a coin. and you could go really either way on this one. But my gut is telling me, I don't even know what my gut's telling me. I was just going to like pull a name out of the air here. I'm going to go with Becky Lynch. I'm going to go with Becky Lynch on this one. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've been pretty good.

I've been pretty good these last two paper views. I think I got, I think it was perfect on both of the last paper views that we predicted on here. So we'll see. Will this be the one that I get to come. completely wrong. On to the main event, I think we all know how this one's going to go, but this has the potential to be the match of the night. Cody Rhodes versus Logan Paul for the WWE Undisputed Championship. I can't wait to see this one. Logan Paul pulls out

all the stops in these matches. Cody Rhodes is operating on a whole other level right now, both in the ring with his work, on the mic, everything he's doing behind the scenes. this match is going to be great. I think we all know that Cody Rhodes is not losing the championship to Logan Paul, at least not yet. Cody Rose is going to be the champion for at least a few more months, if you ask me. So I'm so excited to see how all of this shakes out, and I'm excited to see what Logan Paul has up his sleeve,

because every single time he's in a match, it doesn't even matter what kind of match. Every time he's in a match, he does something that goes viral. And you know he's going to try to top all of the things that he's done in the past. He's going to try to top him here. So very excited to see what he has in store for us at King and Queen of the Rings. So there's my picks there. We'll run them down real quick here. Randy Orton, Nia Jacks, Sammy Zane, Becky Lynch, I think.

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or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, including EES system. Joseph Sanders on Facebook, says, what will be the match of the night for double or nothing? Ooh, that card is stacked, baby.

That card is so stacked. Main event there, swerve Strickland, defending the AEW World Championship against Christian Cage, who is doing the best work of his career. And I don't think I have dropped any hints about this yet. But, guys, I did an interview with Christian Cage this week. And it was so good. So keep an eye out for that in the next. Two weeks?

So good. But the match of the night, in my opinion, to answer your question directly here, it's going to be Roderick Strong versus Will Osprey. So Roderick Strong defending the AEW International Championship against Will Osprey. That match, those are two guys that can just go. Those are two guys that wind them up and they go. That match is going to be great. But there's so many really great matches on this card.

Adam Copeland, Malachi Black. of course the main event there. You also got Willow Nightingale versus Mercedes-Money. The Elite versus FTR, Darby Allen, and Brian Danielson, this eight-man match, four versus four. That's going to be a sneaky good match. So what a weekend for wrestling. Got so much stuff going on here this weekend.

Don't go gently 12 on Instagram. says, what was that code for Pureplank that you and Adam Copeland were talking about? Oh, the code was CVV. That is so simple. So it's in the description of this episode. I've also put it out on Instagram and several different places. But if you go to gopureplank.com, you use the code, CVV. You'll save yourself some dollars on Pure Plank, which is the thing that helped to get both Adam Copeland and Christian Cage into the best shape of their lives at 50 years I am looking at my Pure Plank right now. I use it every single day. I've always had a decently strong core, but man, this thing just kicks your butt in a big way. I love using it and I know that you

will too. So wherever you are in your fitness journey, PurePlank's going to be a real asset for you. So go check out GoPureplank.com. Use the code CVV to grab this wonderful magical piece of equipment for a nice little discount on there. Arkham underscore Avengers on Instagram. Two-night PLE, yay or nay, SummerSlam is now a two-night event. I don't know how I feel about that. I personally love it. I think that it allows for more matches to be, more stories to be told and more matches

to be had. So instead of us having these seven, eight, nine match PLEs, we now get four matches on one night, four matches on the other night, and more stories that are able to be told. I'm a big fan of this. I think what some people initially missed when this announcement was made that SummerSlam was going to be in Minneapolis, one of the big things that was missed here was this is happening in 2026. So this is happening two plus years from now. This is happening 26 months from. now. I think when people initially saw this announcement, they went, oh, it's in Minneapolis

next year. No, this is happening in two years. We still don't know where it's going to be next year. But this trend of these big PLEs happening in football stadiums, man, I am on board with this. My question is, where does it go next year? Detroit, last year, Cleveland, this year, Minneapolis in two years. So if we're staying in the Midwest here, where's it going to be? Is it Indianapolis? Is it Lambeau Field in Green Bay? Are we doing something in Buffalo, maybe? That'd be very interesting. A lot of options here, if we're going to stay in the Midwest, tons of options. But I would love to know. We'd just love to ask somebody, why did you announce 2026 without announcing 2025 first? I feel like you skipped over one here. And when does 2025 get announced? Probably not for a while.

because if you announce 2025 this week or next week, then the whole wave of excitement that you've had around 2026 just dies off because now the focus is on 2025. So I bet that 2025, the location for SummerSlam next year, probably won't be announced until around the Summer Slam of this year. So maybe August? This is just a guess, just my gut feeling here again. But I'm interested.

Two-night, PLE, yes. And I would hazard a guess that this isn't just going to be WrestleMania and SummerSlam doing two nights. This is probably going to be the big four. Because picture this. You do a two-night Royal Rumble. You've got a men's Royal Rumble on one night, women's Royal Rumble on another night. Feel like you could do the same thing with Survivor Series.

You could have the Survivor Series men's match on one night, Survivor Series women's match on another night and a whole bunch of other great stories that are told in there. I feel like this is just a matter of time before at least the four big ones, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Summer Slam, Survivor series are two nights and I love it. And if you aren't around to watch both nights, that's okay. You can catch up on the network later. You can catch the highlights on YouTube or Twitter or TikTok or Instagram. But if you want to, yeah, it's four weekends a year. if it ends up being that way. Four weekends a year where you have an entire weekend where you can watch wrestling,

I'm all for that. All for that. Max Carter on Facebook says, Hey, CV, I heard you say in a recent video that you collect trading cards. What are some of your favorites in your collection? So I recently, like very recently over the last few months, I collected cards when I was a kid, but I started collecting wrestling cards over the last few months.

here. I'm not just wrestling cards. I have some football cards as well. If you saw the video I did talking about arena club.com. If you go to arena club.com slash CVV, you can save some money there. I did one of their slab packs, and I pulled a Joe Borough rookie card. That's the very first card. The very first card in the pack. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. So I've got a Joe Burrow rookie card, which I love, very happy about that. Let me pull out. I've got quite a few here now. Got a Cody Rhodes, gem mint 10, rookie card. I've got, if you know anything about cards, I've got the Rocks,

1998, duo cards, WWF autograph. That's a fantastic card. It's the one where he has Road Dog up in like a fireman's carry. I have John Sina's rookie card, a PSA 9. This is a 2002 Fleer. It's, it's the funny thing is, if you've ever seen this card, it's John Cena doing I don't know what kind of

some sort of a flip or impasse or I don't know what this is to Jericho can't even see John Cena's face he's wearing red tights and red boots and you can tell it's Sina but barely see his face there I also have a Rick Flair 1982 wrestling All-Stars card

which I love and if you collect cards or if you know somebody who collects wrestling trading cards I am on the hunt for a 1982 Hulk Hogan Wrestling All-Stars. This is like the Grail card for wrestling card collectors. So if you have one or you know somebody who has one

and you are looking to sell your card, please send me a message or send me an email. CVV at chrisfamily.com. I would be very interested in chatting with you about purchasing your Hulk Hogan, 1982, wrestling all-stars cards. So please, shoot me a message. That is the one I am very much interested in obtaining

and bringing into my collection. Pass the Smack 18 on Twitter. These are such great usernames. Which young wrestler or wrestlers are you most excited about as we enter this new era of wrestling? There's so many. There are so many. And I love the fact that you've got guys like AJ Stiles and Randy Yorton who are doing this

and John Sina who are doing this in their 40s. That also means we've got this whole new crop of people whose age begins with a two who are ready and hungry to take things to the next level. And there's quite a few. Bronbreaker, of course, immediately comes to mind. Tiffany Stratton is insanely athletic. and like Braun and Tiffany have just been doing this a few years. I'm still so high on Austin theory.

People forget he's only 26 because he's been in WWE for five years. And he's done so much in his time. I mean, he's had segments in the ring with Stone Cold and Vince McMahon and the rock. Like he's so talented. He looks the part when he's done with this angle that they're doing right now with Grayson Waller, which I'm sure will turn into some sort of feud between the two of them. I can't wait for him to be a single star again.

Austin Theory has championship material, world championship material written all over him. So very high on him. He's 26. The same age as Bronbreaker, by the way. I don't know why for some reason Austin Theory is treated like he's older than Bronbreaker. And again, maybe it's because he's been in WWE longer. He's more of a veteran, perhaps, than Bronnbreaker. But they're the same age. Carmelo Hayes, another person who I think just has endless amounts of potential. I don't know if it's fair to say Ria Ripley because I feel like she's already there, but she's going to be carrying this new era for the next decade at least. So there's a lot.

The amount of people who are five or 10 years into their wrestling career or the amount of people whose age begins with a two who are currently. on the roster makes me so excited for what we've got in the future. There's so many talented young men and women who are doing it right now. I just can't wait to see what's next. Jennifer Wright on Instagram. What did you think of that first photo of The Rock on the set of the smashing machine? Smashing machine. I can't wait to see that movie. Jennifer, I am with you. I can't wait to see this movie. And if you saw the phone, photo. So the smashing machine, by the way, is about Mark Kerr. And it's an incredible story about

Mark Kerr, two-time UFC tournament champion. And he's got an amazing story. And the rock is playing him in this movie. This movie is from A-24. That's the same studio that did the Iron Claw. You already know how good the Iron Claw was. This movie's being directed by Benny Safdi, who is so talented. He directed. directed Good Times, starring Robert Pattinson with his brother Josh Safdi. Sadfee. Safty. If you haven't seen that, go check it out.

It's an amazing, maybe career best performance from Robert Pattinson. The Safty brothers also directed Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler. And that's a movie where Adam Sandler should have got an Oscar nomination for his performance. I told him that. When I saw him recently, I interviewed him for Murder Mystery 2. I also interviewed him for that animated movie, Leo, on Netflix. I said, you got robbed, sir. You should have got nominated for an Oscar for Uncut Jemps.

He's like, ah, it's very, very nice of you. Thank you. Well, not a great Adam Sandler impression, but you get the point. Benny Safdi is so good. And I think we're going to see a side of the rock in this movie that we haven't seen before. We're all familiar with the memes that the rock plays very similar. characters in a lot of the movies that he's in, the meme where it's, you know, the Rock wearing a tan button-up shirt.

And it's four different, it's four different screenshots from four different movies. And it says like, these are four different movies. This is the Rock and four different movies. And he looks like the exact same. We're all aware of that. I think this movie is going to show us something that we haven't seen from the Rock before. I think right now, and I know you did not have. Jennifer, but I'm going to go into this tangent. I think the Rock's best performance right now is

ballers. That character just had so much depth to it. And I think that if we start to see that type of dramatic acting, that type of subtlety in the way that he portrays that character and the the subtleties of that performance. If we see that in the smashing machine, I think we're all going to be looking at the rock in a completely different light. But if you haven't seen the photo I'm talking about, go check it out.

The rock has prosthetics on his face. He's wearing a wig, so he has hair. He looks a lot like Mark Kerr, at least in this one shot. So I know it's way too early to get excited about this. They barely started filming this movie. but when this does come out, all eyes are going to be on

not just the movie, but the Rock's performance in this movie. And I can't wait. Dark Wing Disc. This is from Kirby, who emailed this in. I've become a big LA Knight. Yeah, fan. He even said that.

Yeah, it's in brackets here. And I want to see him win a major title. But where do you think that fits in? Is it strictly with Priest and the World Heavyweight Championship? Cody seems to have guys to go against before his eventual Survivor Series team up with Roman and the Uso's against the Rock and the new bloodline. Well, that's very interesting there. And then the Rock at WrestleMania. It would be great to see him get a fair run with the title. Well, I think before

LA Knight, yeah, gets a chance at the WWE Championship or the World Championship, he needs to win a title. It is crazy that we're sitting here almost halfway through 2024 and L.A. Knight is not won any championship in WWE ever. I'd love to see him in a position to be winning the United States championship. That feels like it could happen at some point. If Logan Paul retains at SummerSlam, I think you could set something upwards. Logan Paul versus L.A. Knight, yeah, at some point down the line, I think you could see L.A. Knight wrestling for the Intercontinental Championship at some point, too. But I think he needs to win a title before he has put into the the title picture, like the major title picture.

He was so close. If you remember last year, money in the bank, there was so much excitement there as he's climbing the ladder. He's one rung away from grabbing it and it doesn't happen. The crowd was at a fever pitch. It just feels like the excitement that was surrounding LA night that we had in the middle of last year, towards the end of last year, it seems to have died down a little bit. Let's bring that back.

There's still nobody that's more exciting out there. when their music hits. Like there's just a certain swagger that he has to him. And the way that he walks to the ring, the way that he cuts his promos, the crowd loves him. L.A. Knight would be a fantastic money in the bank winner. I'm not making any early predictions right now

because, again, if Gunther doesn't win King of the Ring, I make a real strong case for him being money in the bank winner. But I think that L.A. Knight, yeah, needs to win a title first before he's in the world title picture. And people seem to forget, I've pointed this out many times, but people seem to forget that L.A. Knight slash Eli Drake is a former world champion. Two-time TNA, heavyweight champion. People seem to forget this.

So he's already been a world champion. He's already been the guy. And he was the guy when there was only one championship in that company. You know, right now in WWE, two world champions, right? Two world champions, two guys, if you will. And also for the women, two women. So there's like, there's two people in TNA when he was the champ. There was only one.

It was just him. And he was that person. So I think people, when they say, like, he needs to win a world title, he's already done that. But he needs to win a title in WWE. week. And Kirby, I think it needs to happen this year. When I interviewed him on December 31st last year, and the interview came out the first week of the year, we talked about how like one of the big things, one of his goals for the year is to win a championship and that needs to happen. Tommy G emailed this one and, hey, Chris, was what was something in wrestling that you believed

was real when you were growing up, but was actually K-Fabe? When I was a kid, I thought Yoko Zuna was from It blew my mind when I realized years later that he wasn't. Thanks for answering this question. I'm with you on that one. There's a meme. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's the idea that Scott Hall isn't Cuban and Yokozuna isn't from Japan. I can't believe anything now.

The Yoko Zuna one surprised because I didn't find that out until years later, years later. Another one that's really interesting to me. It's like a vivid memory from my childhood. Wrestling would be on when we would go to my grandparents' house. And these are the grandparents on my mother's side. My mom was born in Greece. My mom is Macedonian. So born in a Macedonian part of Greece.

And there's a long history there. But she's Macedonian. That side of my family is Macedonian. She moved over to Canada when she was four years old. When we would go to my grandparents' house on that side, my Baba and Detto, my Ditto would just always have something on TV, whether it was, it was always sports, whether it was hockey, of course, because, you know, growing up in Canada, or it was baseball, sometimes it was football, and sometimes on Saturdays, it was wrestling. So this would be like

early 90s. I remember being at my Baba and Dettos house, and wrestling was on, and we're looking at these larger than life characters at that time. And I remember my uncle saying, do you know what an undertaker is? And I'm like, yeah, it's that guy. It's like, no, no, but do you know what an undertaker does? And I remember him explaining to me the profession of being an undertaker. I just thought it was a name, because I'm whatever, you know, eight or nine or ten years old at that time. I just thought it was a name. I just thought like the undertaker was his name. And then he told me, oh, no, an undertaker's like someone who like helps to bury dead people. It's like, oh, wow, I didn't realize that.

That's like a core memory for some reason. And this was before I was like a hardcore wrestling fan. I became a hardcore wrestling fan a few years later with the attitude era. But I don't know if it's that, I don't know if that directly answers your question of like thinking that was real. But like I didn't think the Undertaker was actually a dead person. But I didn't realize that the Undertaker was like. both his name and his occupation.

That's just something that I'll never forget. Christian 07 Luna sent this in on Instagram. Who's your favorite TNA slash impact wrestler? Okay, so all time here, all time favorite TNA wrestler, hands down, it's A.J. Stiles. And A.J. Stiles is the reason I became a huge TNA fan. Who's the match between A.J. Stiles and Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels at Unbreakable 05.

That was like, that match just changed my whole perception of like what was possible in a match. We had seen some cool stuff like with the Hardys and Edging Christian and the Dudleys, the latter matches that they had and the TLC matches that they had. But that three-way match, which up until very recently was the only five-star match in TNA history, according to Dave Meltzer, that match just changed my whole perception of it. So AJ Stiles, all-time favorite TNA wrestler, currently Josh Alexander or Moose. And both of them for very different reasons, but both of them are, oh my gosh, so talented.

If you've never seen a Josh Alexander match, go to YouTube right now, type in Josh Alexander versus and just hit enter and watch any match. He is so good. And he wrestles with this real intensity. Like you really believe everything that Josh Alexander is doing is real. Moose moves so well for being, what is he, 6'6 and 270. I might be off by a few pounds there, but he's a big dude. And the way he sells actually reminds me a lot of Brock Lesnar.

And I feel like Brock Lesnar is a completely underrated seller. Brock Leser for being 6-3 and 295 pounds sells like he's like getting shot by like a shotgun. Like he sells in such a big way and he's always done this. Like go back to Brock Leser's debut when he's taking those nasty chair shots from the Hardy Boys. The way he's selling those and the way he still does now, Moose does that. And Moose does that being even taller than Brock Lesnar. Moose really was the face of TNA and still is the face of TNA but when he was uh you know for the last handful of years you know being champion and then chasing for the championship now being the

champion again yeah it just feels like when he's in the ring and when he's in a match it means something so yeah go go if you don't know if you're not familiar with their work go look at Josh Alexander versus anybody. Go look at Moose versus Alex Shelley from Hard to Kill of this year. And, and look for me in the front row of that sitting front row there of that one. That's such a great, great show. Jaden Drink All says, this is on Instagram. How do you find your passion? That's a great, great question, Jaden. I've always believed that passions, is something you wake up and like it's just there. I feel like passion is something you've got to figure out. And I think the easiest way to figure it out is does it excites you when you do it?

Does it light you up when you think about it? Because like think about the days when your alarm goes off at 6 a.m. to go to work or 6 a.m. to go to school. And you are just dreading it. You hit snooze. And then you hit snooze again and then you hit snooze again. And now you've got to rush to get ready and get out the door. But then think of those days when your alarm goes off at the same time at 6 a.m. but you're doing something you're excited about. And you boom, jump out of bed and you're ready to go. That is the seed of passion right there. So I think that you find your passion by trying a lot of different things. You find your passion by if something's interesting to you, lean into it a little bit. Find out is that for you? Do you like doing that? Does it light you up?

Does it get you excited when you do it? If it doesn't, that's okay. Move on to the next thing. You've got time. I don't know how old you are, Jaden, but unless you're like 70 something, you've got time. You've got time to figure this out. You've got time to put into these things that maybe spark a little bit of an interest in you. So I think that that's how you find your passion. For me, I'm very aware that I was lucky to find my passion for broadcasting and my passion for telling stories, because that's really what's at the root of broadcasting is the idea that you're telling stories. I'm aware that I was lucky to find that early. I originally found it when I was four years old and I would have a tape recorder and pretend to be the radio DJs that I heard on the

radio. But I just always loved the idea of like turning on the TV and those were the people that were entertaining us. Those are the people that were telling us stories. And as I got into high school, I was fortunate enough to be the vice president and my student council in my final year of high school. And that meant that I got to do the morning announcements. That meant that I hosted the talent show and host the fashion show. And for me, I just loved having a microphone in my hand and being able to elicit a response from anybody who was in the audience. And I just, I leaned into that a lot. and realized, oh, this is where I feel most comfortable. Like, I know a lot of people have a fear of public speaking.

And for me, it just always excited me. Getting up in front of whether it was 10 people or 100 people or 1,000 people, that always just really excited me. So I think the short answer is lean into the things that excite you and try a lot of different things and see what you really love. Brian sent this one in from email. He says, hey, Chris, my friends and I ran into you outside the Allstate Arena at Survivor Series, my first PLE in Chicago last November. One of my friends was dressed in a colorful suit like Seth Rollins.

Ah, I remember that. That was a great suit. At the time, I had only been a listener for a handful of months, but it was a big surprise to see you. My question is, what match stipulation is your favorite? For me, I got to go with the Ultimate X match in TNA. tons of action, and I feel like that match is in a tier of its own. Love insight and feeling like a part of the community when I listen. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Brian. You are part of the community. Appreciate you asking this question, and it was great running into you and your friends in Chicago. Ultimate X is a really good pick for this. If you've never seen an Ultimate X match, it's kind of like a ladder match, but they have cables above the ring that are in an X, and in that middle of that X where the two cables meet, the championship hangs.

And you need to retrieve the championship. Both feet need to hit the canvas for you to win that match. It is exciting and it's exhilarating. And it just takes things to another level because you've got the cables involved now and you've got elements where like you can hang off the cables and do moves off the cables. Really good stuff there. I think my favorite match is just a good old-fashioned ladder match. When I see a ladder match being announced, or I know that there's going to be a ladder match on the card,

and I'm not just talking about WWE or AEW or TNA. Like, go to an indie show and there's a ladder match. Like, buckle up. You know you're going to be in for something good here. There's just so much potential with doing moves off the ladder, using the ladder as a weapon, using two ladders, landing moves onto the ladder. and we've been seeing great ladder matches now, my goodness, going back to WrestleMania 10

and Razor versus Sean. So, like, we've been, and I mean, even before that, there's been great ladder matches, but that's kind of the iconic moment that, like, changed everyone's perspective of like, oh, this is what could happen in a ladder match. So for the last 30 years, the bar just keeps getting raised higher and higher and higher.

So now every time there's a ladder match, or a money in the bank. I think people sometimes forget that a money in the bank match is a ladder match. It's funny how like ladder matches are in a category of their own and then money in the bank seems to be in a category of its own. They're both ladder matches. Just something different is at stake here. So ladder match for me. Love, love a good ladder match. I've always been a fan of like huge athleticism. And I think that especially when you get like, really athletic people like a like a ricochet or like an AJ styles in a match it's like okay I'm just going to watch that person

because you know at some point during this match they're going to do something mind blowing jays naughty wood hey this is this is one of our Spotify questions so jays naughty wood thank you for sending this in on Spotify as a casual as a casual wrestling watcher I watch specific matches slash cards based on who's it. A.W. has got me on Wardlow, Hook, Darby, and Copeland. Who do I watch for in WWE to get pulled in? Well, there is, there's a lot. There's a lot of people that you could be watching in WWB to get pulled in. Off the top of my head here, if you're tuning in and you're seeing this person in the ring, I would stop and continue to watch. Cody Rhodes is doing some

masterful work right now. Drew McIntyre is doing the best work of his career, for sure. Whether that's in the ring or it's on the mic, Drew McIntyre is fantastic. Ria Ripley, when she's, I mean, obviously you can't see her now because she's injured, but Ria Rippley's work is so good. Randy Orton, and then Randy Orton has been consistently incredible for 20 years. If Randy Orton is in a match, you better not be changing the channel. You better not be changing the channel. be turning off the TV, you better be watching. And Chad Gable, I know I mentioned earlier, it's like a 2006 TNA Kurt Engel, but Chad Gable, so good. Look, there's so many other people, like Rickashay. If you see Rickettsay in a match versus really anybody, you know that there's

going to be something just bonkers going on there. So there's just a handful of names. I know there's going to be a whole bunch of other people here that I didn't mention, but I think for me that's a short list. And you've got a great list here from AEW. Wardlow, Hook, Darby, Adam Copeland. I'm surprised that Swerve Strickland isn't on that list. And also surprised that Christian Cage isn't on that list just based on the promo work alone that he's doing. He's just a devious heel right now. Some of the things that he says in these promos, I seriously have no idea how they're letting him get away with this. It's wild. Ben, Benfica, Benfica 1002. Another one on Spotify. Please leave your questions in the Q&A section on Spotify. It's so cool to see these. What specifically makes Paul Heyman so good as a manager?

You've brought him up a couple times recently aside other stars. Why aren't there more Paul Hamans? He seems like a kingmaker for WWE. Well, I think when you just look at the history of Paul Heyman, He's been in the business for so long. He was doing work with WCW and WWE, and then he started ECW. And ECW is such a disruptive force during the 90s. Like it was this small little startup with a very, very small budget.

And when they started out, no TV deal turned into them getting a national TV deal with the new TNN. Do you remember the new TN? The new TNN then became Spike TV at some point later on, but the Nashville network, TN, that's where I watched it in Canada. But just the mind that Paul Heyman has for the business is, it's in a league of its own.

He just has this mind for what works. He just, he knows what works. And I think the thing that makes him so great as an on-screen character is that Everything he does is believable. Like, even when he's not the main focus, even when he's not the one cutting a promo, just look at him in the background of any segment with the bloodline. He's doing something that adds to the scene. He's doing something that pushes the story forward.

And that's something that it's just such a unique quality. And it's something that obviously comes with time and him being around the business for, you know, his entire career. but it's also something that he just lives and breathes and eats and sleeps this business. And why aren't there anymore, Paul Heyman's? Well, because Paul Heyman is one of one. There aren't going to be other Paul Hamans. There's going to be other people that are great managers.

And there have been, of course, over the history of wrestling. But there's never going to be another Paul Heyman. And the cool thing about being a manager is, you know, there's really no expiry date on it. when you're a wrestler, at some point, your body is going to say, you can't do this anymore. For Paul Heyman, he could do this for another 30 years. And I think we'd all be really happy if that was the case. So Paul Heyman, when he aligns himself with somebody, when you become a Paul Heyman guy, for the most part, there's obviously been a few misses in there,

but he elevates you to a whole other level. and you're absolutely right when you say that he's a kingmaker for WWE. Roman Raines turning heel. Yeah, okay. I get it. Roman Rain's turning heel with Paul Heyman as his manager. Oh my goodness. Now we're cooking.

That just changes things. Like Brock Lesnar obviously would have had an amazing career on his own. Brock Lesnar with Paul Heyman, well, that just changes everything. going back to the facial expressions. Just watch. Just watch the like 10 seconds after the Undertaker gets pinned, the street gets broken at Russellmania 30. Just watch the interaction between Paul Heyman and Brock Lezzer.

Those 10 seconds, 20 seconds, that sums up right there, why Paul Heyman is so good at what he does. Jonathan Wong emailed this one in. Hey, Chris, missed. Mr. CVV, hearing you talk about the gym last week, it made me wonder, what's the three most embarrassing songs in your playlist? Thanks for being so awesome. Oh, Jonathan, I don't know. Oh, man, I don't know. Let me just take a little sip of water here. I don't know if you want me to, I mean, there's some pretty embarrassing ones.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I love the song Summer Girls by LFO. It's a 1999, one-hit wonder from the boy band LFO. New kids on the block had a bunch of hits. Chinese food makes me sick. If you know the song, now it's stuck in your head. I know every word to that song. I love that song so much. The band that I was in in college,

we covered that song as kind of like a pop punk slash rock song. No, it was very silly. But yeah, I know every word of that song to that one. That for sure. That's on the embarrassing playlist. I have a, I have a BTS song in my playlist, Dynamite. I love pop music. My wife makes fun of me mercilessly for this.

I, like, love a good pop song. I also, like, so there's two, BTS Dynamite. And I really love the. new New Kids on the Block song. It's, yeah, new kids on the block has a new album,

if you can believe that. And I've loved New Kids since I was like a kid. But the new, new kids song has been stuck in my head since I first heard it. It's called Just Kids. Give you a little taste of it here as I pull up Spotify.

It's so poppy. And we're still just kids from when I'm Okay, okay, no, we're singing. There you go. Three very embarrassing songs that I'm not, I'm not embarrassed to admit that they are on my playlist. Although most of the time, if you were to grab one of my AirPods, if you saw me at the gym, if you were to grab one of my earpods and put it in your ear, for the most part, I'm listening to a podcast or I'm listening to an audio book, which is strange, right, that I'm getting pumped up at the gym by listening to people talk. But I just, I don't know, I want to make the most of that time.

And instead of for me listening to the same BTS song for the 414th time, I'd rather try to learn something by listening to an audio book at like one and a half speed or listening to a podcast with someone who I look up to or someone that I can learn from, that's generally what I'm going to be listening to. Grant A. Bowen emailed this in. Thank you, Grant, for the question. Do you think it will be Roman versus Rock at WrestleMania? My name is Grant, and I'm 11 years old.

Grant, I appreciate you listening to the show. Appreciate you listening right now. You're awesome, Grant. It's May. It's May of 2024 right now. But I feel like, you know, the Rock will obviously wrestle again. That was not the Rock's last match. and the Rock showed us in that match at WrestleMania 40 that he can still go.

Rock did not miss a single step. I have to think that because Rock v. Roman didn't happen this year at WrestleMania, and they very badly wanted that to happen and the fans had another plan and we ended up getting one of the greatest WrestleMania main events of all time as a result, I think, yes, Roman versus Rock, WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas. It feels like that's what we're lining up for. And we saw how the Rock was able to do the amazing character work that he did with the final boss. The final boss versus Roman Raines, man, that means Roman would turn face. Roman is a baby face. Again, it's going to be very interesting. But I do believe that between,

now and next year's WrestleMania, that's what it's got to be. Or is it the rock? You know, does the rock turn face here? I don't know. But obviously, it's not going to be heel versus heel. I feel like the rock needs to stay. Rock needs to stay as a heel. And then a Roman can be a good guy.

And then we kind of go from there. Roman's so talented. I feel like, you know, when he's able to do what he's best at, he's just it's just incredible to see i don't know when we'll see him again that's the cool thing is he could come back in a month he could come back in six months and kind of keeps us on the edge of our seat going when's it going to happen because you know it's going to happen it's not a matter of if it's going to happen it's a matter of when is that going to happen carter coffman also sent this in on spotify hey chris what russalman is

did you get to witness live? I went to Philadelphia for WrestleMania 40, and man, it was the best day of my life. He really made me feel like a kid again. Love the pod. Yeah, Carter, how good was WrestleMania 40 live? Especially if you were there in night two. Night one, it was just a little bit cold.

A little bit cold in that open air arena, open air stadium. But WrestleMania 40, that was a good one. So I have been to WrestleMania 18, WrestleMania 27, 29, 30, 31, 31, 32, 33, 33, 34, 35. Obviously, nobody went to 36. Then I went, obviously, the streak continued. I guess my streak was broken, right?

Everybody's WrestleMania streak was broken. But then continued on 37, 38, 39, 40. So I think it's 13 WrestleMania as I've been to. Already planning to go to WrestleMania 41. So if you are going to WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, Carter, I will see you there. See all of you guys there. Nicole Morales.

Well, this is interesting. This is my wife's account, but my name is Mike. So Mike Morales, I guess. Do you think because the recent foreign PLEs have been happening and how well they've done, do you think WrestleMania will ever be held outside of North America?

When? Mike, thank you so much for leaving this question on Spotify. I appreciate you. Thank you for even doing it from your wife's account. So cool. So hi to Mike and hi to Nicole. it's just a matter of time. There is no reason that John Sina would have gone out for that segment and Money in the Bank in London to just talk about WrestleMania being in London. It's going

to happen in London. It's just a matter of when. So is it WrestleMania 42? Is it WrestleMania 43? I have to think it's one of the next few WrestleMania. So we already know next year it's in Vegas. Feels like 42 or 43 is going to be in London. Again, those will just have to figure out the timing of this. So, and look, they do this with the timing of all of the paper views that happen outside of North America.

I still call them paper views. Is that okay? I know they're PLEs, but I still call them paper views. This has happened with all the PLEs outside of North America, where if it happens, you know, if it happens at eight o'clock local time, it's happening at, you know, maybe it's 2 p.m. Maybe it's 2 a.m. if it's Australia, that's what they'd have to figure out here. So if it's 8 o'clock in London, that's 3 o'clock East Coast time and then noon Pacific time, that could work. That could work. But I guess the question then becomes, is WrestleMania a daytime event

in America. And then I think the question beyond that is, are they even catering to an American audience anymore? Does that matter anymore? Because it mattered for a long time. It doesn't seem to be mattering as much anymore under TKO. So many of these events are happening in other countries, and we love to see it. When you give a country that hasn't had a PLE either in a long time or ever, you see what happens. We saw it happen at backlash this year. We saw it happen at backlash last year. And when

WrestleMania is in London, it's going to be the loudest WrestleMania that we've ever seen. It's just a fact. It's a matter of fact. Mike Morales. Here we are. The final question here.

Thank you guys so much for sending in all of the questions that you sent in for this one. It's always so fun hanging out with you guys. I love these. So appreciate you being here and appreciate you for listening to the show and following the show, wherever you happen to be listening to this. Matt's movie reviews sent this one in on Twitter.

It's at Matt's Movie Rev. What are your favorite movies about pro wrestling? My favorite movie about pro wrestling, hands down, is the wrestler. I really think that Mickey Rourke should have won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance. He was nominated. He won the Golden Globe and he won the BAFTA. He did not win the Oscar. Oscar, that went to Sean Penn for the movie Milk. But the depiction that he had of just the world of

indie wrestling and his fall from grace being a massive star to like live in life on the Indies and trying to get by and all the struggles that he had. And you can definitely see there's an amalgamation of a lot of wrestlers that we know and love in the character that he played as Rain to the Ram. And there's something that's so heartbreaking about that because we all know it's the sad truth about a lot of people who when they're past their prime, they just can't let go of that drug that is the crowd reaction, that drug that is the pop from the live audience. And also, sometimes the drugs that are literal drugs. There's so many layers of that movie and I love it. In terms of a much lighter movie, Ready to Rumble is just so fun.

I remember watching that when it came out. And it's Ready to Rumble. It's just a fun movie. David Arquette plays that role so well. He's just like so funny and irreverent and goofy. But again, I could rewatch

the wrestler a lot. Marissa Tomey is so good in that movie too. Yeah. That's my number one movie about wrestling for sure. Again, guys, appreciate you. for being with us on this one.

What a huge weekend we have ahead of us. And if you're going to be watching King and Queen of the Ring and you think you know who's going to win, make a little bit of money on it. Go to MyBooky. Use the promo code CVV when you sign up and you'll get a 50% bonus on your first deposit. So if you put in 100 bucks, now you've got $150. You can bet on King and Queen of the Ring. Yeah, yeah, you heard that right.

You can bet on PLEs at my book. dot AG. You can also bet on other things there. Like, you can bet on the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson fight. And you may not like the odds, but my bookie says that Jake Paul's going to win that fight. The odds are in his favor. So that means if you think Mike Tyson's going to win, you have the potential to make a decent amount of money by betting on him and the odds that he has. So go check out my bookie.orgie.org. Use the promo code CVV when you sign up and you'll get that 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Appreciate you guys for being here. I'm going to use the same quote that I end the episode with on Tuesday because it's something that's just been

really sticking in my head over the last week or so since I heard it. And it was from my friend Sam Weber who said this. And she was repeating this from like a preschool teacher or something like that. It's my wife's friend Sam, obviously now our friend Sam. Sam. Now our friend Sam. don't yuck other people's yums. It's so applicable when you're a fan of wrestling. Oh, you like that? Oh, you watched that? Oh, man.

I really thought I liked you, but then I found out you watched that or you like that. Don't yuck other people's yums. If somebody likes something, let them like it. Let people like what they like. And if you don't like it or you don't like it, you don't understand why someone else likes it, that's okay. Just allow people to like what they like. So that quote has spoken to me so much.

Don't yuck other people's yums. Be great, be grateful. Have an amazing weekend. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. 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 this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.