Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #70 - Ricky Starks In WWE, Jey Uso vs. Gunther, Cena's WrestleMania Opponent, Randy Orton Return

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

https://cvvtix.com - Tickets are on sale now for INSIGHT LIVE in Toronto & Las Vegas with VIP Meet & Greet! Welcome to AskCVV #70! On this episode, Chris answers questions about Jey Uso picking Gunther as his WrestleMania opponent, who John Cena's opponent will be at WrestleMania, when Randy Orton will return, what's next for Cody Rhodes, the favor that Paul Heyman owes CM Punk and much more. If you have a question for next week's episode, leave a comment on Spotify or ask it on social media with the hashtag #AskCVV. Quote I'm thinking about: "If you never heal from what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you." Please support our sponsors! 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/?ref=tibcloux TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure! VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv HUEL: Get 15% off plus a FREE Gift for NEW customers with the code INSIGHT at https://huel.com ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at https://bluechew.com RHONE: Rhone’s premium performance clothing is made to move you. Use code CVV to save 20% at https://www.rhone.com/CVV MANSCAPED: Get 20% off plus free shipping when you use the code CHRISVAN at https://manscaped.com PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at https://plunge.com For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Fleet. Go. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. Happy Friday, my friends. I'm CVV. Chris Van Vleet, thank you for being a real one and for listening to an AskCV episode. And thank you for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. Yeah, you're a real one because you're listening to an AskCTVB episode. If you want to be a real, real one, I'll see you guys in about an hour. The real, real one stay all the way until the end.

I'm sure you're following already, but if by some chance you're not, hit a close line from hell on that follow button on Apple or Spotify, wherever it is that you're listening right now. We've got some huge interviews on the way. I am getting on a plane on Monday. I don't want to disclose where I'm going to because it might give it away. but I am flying to another part of the United States of America, and I have three big ones lined up on that day.

So we're just going to bang them out. Boom, boom, boom. You're going to want to make sure that you're subscribed because, man, I never want to give too much away. Let's just say one of those interviews is going to be pretty phenomenal. That's really all I can say. But you're going to want to be following the show so you don't miss out on that. Thank you to everyone who came out to the live show in Indianapolis, the first ever in sight live

with Carlito, who is the absolute perfect guest for our first live show. That episode dropped earlier this week. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's available on the podcast, of course, and it's available on YouTube as well. We've got three more live shows on the way. Two of them in my hometown in Toronto. I can't wait to be back there. One of them is the day before.

Elimination Chamber, one of them's the day. after Elimination Chamber. And then we got Las Vegas and WrestleMania Week. And I'm going to be hosting a show live from Circa Resort and Casino. It's part of Circamania. They've got a whole bunch of different live events and watch parties going on there. At Stadium Swim, it's this massive screen outside. It's like a pool party, but you're going to be watching WrestleMania on Saturday and Sunday.

So there's a whole bunch of stuff going on with Circa Mania. Tickets for all of the stuff. Oh, and also Circa has room deals going on as well. That's where I'm going to be staying for WrestleMania. It is a phenomenal, phenomenal hotel and resort and casino and all of the things. CVVTix.com will link you up with the correct places to grab tickets for all of these or to grab your hotel reservation for Circa. I will see you guys there.

CBVTIX.com. Welcome to Ask CVVVVN. number 70. Not a lot of people wore jersey number 70, by the way. The Zach Martin, Tim Thomas, and Len House edition. Some of these numbers are really easy, right? You think of certain numbers. You immediately think of a person. I have to dive deep on some of these, like really dive deep to figure out, like, who is the person most famous for wearing that number? And when you're getting into the 70s, you're talking a lot of NFL players. Handful of pro bowlers here and there. which is great. So shout out to those people for their great careers, but I keep saying this.

I've only got like 30 more of these. What do we do? I think after the 99, the Wayne Gretzky edition, I think we just no longer have fun with that. It'll just be welcome everybody to ask CVV number 114. On this episode, we're going to be answering your questions. I don't know. I just don't know what to do, which, but it's, it's been fun. We started this with 23. We started this with the Michael Jordan edition. We will take this all the way to 99 and then, I don't know, maybe something will come to me between now and then,

but it seems to me that at episode 100, this just fades away. All right, I guess episode 101 will be the Dalmatian edition. Okay. All right. We're on to something. This is the great thing about these Ask CVV episodes. Not only is it just me and you hanging out, but it's also just a stream of consciousness from my brain directly into this microphone for an hour.

So thank you for bearing with me on this one. If you have a question for next week's Ask CVV and you're listening on Spotify, leave that comment on Spotify. If you're not listening on Spotify, just leave it on social media with the hashtag Ask CVV or shoot me an email CVV at Chris Vanfleet.com. We'll start things off with this one from Sean underscore the underscore good. Sean the good on Instagram. Ask CVV 70. Do you think it was a good idea for Jay to pick Gunther?

I feel like this was kind of where it was heading. And with the match that they had the previous week on Saturday night's main event, I feel like they were teeing us up for this. But like we mentioned last week on AskCTVV 69, it wasn't a done deal. Like there was still the option to go again. against Cody, or maybe Gunther wasn't going to be the champion, which I suppose is still an option here. We don't know for certain if it's going to be Cody and Gunther, who are the champions going into WrestleMania. It feels like that's pretty much where this is at. But I think the

misconception here is that just because you win the Royal Rumble doesn't mean you get a main event shot at WrestleMania. You get a title shot at WrestleMania, but it's not a main event match. You get a title shot. So we now know one of the matches for Russellmania 41. It's going to be Gunther. And it's going to be the Yeet Master himself, J. Uso, for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. I don't see this being a main event. And the reason I say that is because there's so many other players here where we don't quite know, as of right now, mid-February, we don't quite know where they're going to fall into place here. And you can list off this. names with me as we go along here. But who's Cody's opponent going to be? Who's John Cena's

opponent going to be? Roman Raines, Seth Rollins, C.M. Punk. Is Randy Orton coming back? Is the Rock going to be part of this? They tried to have Rock Roman for two years in a row. Are we going to get Rock Roman this year? I don't know. It feels like the closer we get to April, the less likely that becomes. But I feel like there's a lot of different possibilities in there. And I don't think we can just look to the Royal Rumble and go, well, that person got eliminated by this other person. So now they're in a feud and that lines us up to WrestleMania. Sure, I guess that's one way to do it. But there are a lot of other paths that we could take here. Elimination Chamber is really going to start to clear things up. And I think specifically what happens with John Sina during that men's elimination chamber match.

And also, who wins that match? Because I don't think it's John Ciener. Sina winning that match. I've been saying this for a while and I'm going to continue to keep saying it until it is proven wrong. But I think that John Sina is going to have this very uphill battle to even get the 17th title shot, which I do think he will win. I think he will become a 17-time champion this year. And that will kind of be the story arc of John Sina's retirement tour. But I feel like it's going to be like, will he win it? Oh, he can't even get an opportunity to win it. So I don't think he wins Elimination Chamber, but then who does? And I think that a wild card here is, is Randy Orton a surprise entrant in the Elimination Chamber

match? Does something, do we get some funny business here where someone can't be part of the match or at the last second they're removed for the match? And then Randy Orton is, you know, who's going to be the last member of the Elimination Chamber match? Kind of like what happened in Survivor Series 2023 when Randy Orton returned. I feel like that's a possibility here. It just seems like with the injury that Randy Orton got taken out with,

which is totally a K-Fabe injury, the pile driver from Kevin Owens, it seemed more like Randy Orton was just getting some time off. It's not like Randy Orton had an actual injury that happened during a match that he's now healing up and trying to come back from. So it seems like he's ready to go wherever they're going to plug him in here. And I feel like they're going to be really strategically. that. So with that said, I feel like Randy Orton has a place at WrestleMania. But if you were to ask me right now, and thankfully no one asked me this this week on Ask CVV, I don't know what the two

main events would be. I don't know what night one, night two would be. I mean, we really only know this one match that we've got here right now. It's the World Heavyweight Championship match. I don't know where it goes from here. But we got a lot of different people in. We've got the potential for a three-way match with Seth Rollins and Roman Raines, maybe Cody in there. There's a lot of different things that could happen here. But I think that Jay Uso choosing Gunther is the right move. I think they've got a lot of time now to continue to build on the story that they have. And I don't know if people give Gunther enough credit for how much he puts over other talent with the way that he cuts promos.

and I think that something that I think goes unnoticed by the great heels is they end up building up the baby face by kind of tearing them down. Like that's, it's never just like, you suck and I'm going to beat you or you're ugly and I'm going to beat you. There's always some way of like building up the other person like, oh man, you're a great tag team wrestler and look at all the things you've done, but you can't do it on your own. or whatever the case may be. Gunther's really good at number one,

getting you invested, making you care about the story and the good guy and the bad guy in it. But he's also really good at like, after the match is done, like that person ends up being elevated as a result of that. And this was happening during his Intercontinental run.

Chad Gable is a perfect example of that, even though Chad Gable didn't win. He had this amazing storyline arc with Gunther and all of the things that went along with that, that even though he didn't win the championship, and I still think that he should have, he ended up coming out of that in a much better position. And I feel like that's going to be the case

with this whole Gunther and Jay Uso storyline. And I said it last week. I will continue to say it for the next many weeks, have a little bit of patience. I understand that Jay Uso may not be the most popular person with every single demographic of the fan base. Yeah, his audience skews younger and they love his entrance. They love his merch. They love his catchphrase. They also love the way that he wrestles in the ring. And there seems to be this, there seems to be this narrative that's

going around that Jay Uso isn't a good wrestler. What? Pardon me? Jay Uso's not a good wrestler? Like, I just don't understand that. I don't understand where you're coming from with that. have a little bit of patience with this storyline to see where this is headed and to see why he was specifically chosen to win the men's Royal Rumble. It could have been a lot of people that would have won that match. They chose Jay Uso for a reason. So let's see what that reason is. Give us some time.

We've got a little over two months to WrestleMania. There's still some time here for them to cook. So let them cook. and I feel like it's important to say that I don't really have an opinion one way or another about how this is going to go. All I'm saying is let's just have a teeny tiny bit of patience. Let's see how this plays out between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. And then if this doesn't pan out at WrestleMania, then we can look back and go, you know what, Jay Uso probably shouldn't have won the Royal Rumble. But let's just give it a tiny little bit of time.

That's all I'm saying. Let's just have a little bit of patience. And I know that is an extremely hard thing to ask of wrestling fans. But let's just see how this plays out. M. Res toll on Instagram. M.E.M.R.E. Z. T.L. M. Retzel. M. Retzel. In your opinion, is WWE starting to become too predictable again?

Brother, we just went through a whole thing here talking about how, surprised people were when Jay Uso won the Royal Rumble. Like I think if you looked at the list last week of, all right, who's probably going to win the Royal Rumble? Who, like when we looked at the odds on my bookie, who's probably going to win here? And I think a lot of people went, yeah, it's CM Punk. That was my pick. I said CM Punk.

If it's not CM Punk, John Sina. If it's not John Sina, Seth Rawlins, Roman Rains, can make a case for Drew McIntyre. Jay Uso was down there. Like, I think if you were making a list of if you had all 30 entrants and you knew them all in advance and then you were to rank them 1 to 30 of people most likely and least likely to win,

Jay Uso would have been like number five, number six, somewhere around there. And I know there's probably a few people that wanted him to win, but didn't think he would win. So do I think WWE's becoming too predictable again?

I think that you're looking at this from the wrong point of view. When you go into an action movie, you know the good guy is going to beat the bad guy, right? You know that when Tom Cruise goes into Mission Impossible, even though the mission is impossible, he will find a way to complete that mission. And when you go in to see a fast and furious movie as ridiculous as they've become, they're so much fun now. Well, they've always been fun, but they're just so ridiculously fun, you go in going, they're going to find a way to save the day the good guys will win. That's not always the case, but that is more often than not the case.

And I think that even when you go into a match where you're pretty sure who's going to win, like, for example, at the Royal Rumble, the latter match, which I thought was fantastic between Cody and Kevin Owens. We all went into that going, well, yeah, Cody Rose is going to win. And at this point, Cody Rose is going into WrestleMania as the WWE champion. But just because we knew who was going to win that match didn't take away from the excitement that surrounded it and the story that was told. And I think that that's the thing that sometimes people miss. Sure, you might be able to look at the card and go, all right, I can guess

four out of five of those matches. And quite often we do on the prediction shows here when we, the day before PLA. But I think that's missing the point. It's how are you going to get from A to be. Even if you're pretty sure of what the outcome's going to be, how are you going to get from A to B? And then we're thrown curveballs. Sometimes there's absolute complete curveballs that come out of nowhere and you go, oh, wow, wait, WrestleMania 30? The Undertaker lost? And that like still shakes us to our core or 11 years later. I think that there's moments like that, and that's what makes wrestling so exciting. I think the surprises are one of the best things about wrestling. But wrestling is it's a medium for storytelling. And even if you know, watching a romantic comedy that the guy

is going to fall in love with a girl, it's how do you get there? And I think that's the thing that seems to be missed in all this. So do I think that WWE is starting to become too predictable again? I don't think so. I think there was a point in time for quite a few years when we knew what the outcome of every Roman reigns title match was going to be, especially with the bloodline. being involved. You kind of knew there was going to be some funny business there and Roman Raines was going to walk out with the championship. I don't think we're there right now, but I think that we can just enjoy the show as it's happening. And again, I go back to that match with Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes. They did so many things in that ladder match that you'd never seen

in a ladder match before, which I thought was awesome. And if we're going to talk about the Royal Rumble as a PLE, I think that DIY versus Motor City Machine Guns was just a flip of the coin. Like really, either side could have won and the story would have progressed from there. So no, I don't think it's becoming too predictable at all. And I do think, as happens every WrestleMania season, there's a few surprises that I think we'll see between now and then. And I will talk about those and a few questions here. coach negbakes on Instagram.

Hey, CVV, who would you rather have Cody Face at Mania? Punk, Rock, or Sina? And I think if we look at what's likely of your options here, punk or Sina seem like they're the most likely. I don't feel like, wow, I don't think that Rock is part of that conversation. I think that another thing that we're, you know, the wild card we talked. talked about earlier is how does Randy Orton get thrown into this? And is Randy Orton the one who is the champion when John Sina wins his 17th championship? Because that's another big question. Does John Sina win the

WWE championship? Or does John Sina win the WWPE World Heavyweight Championship? Who would I rather personally? See, this is just me talking personally here. I think that if we're going to have John Sina in his very last WrestleMania, I think it's got to be a main event. And I think that we've got to somehow find a way for John Cena to earn that title shot against Cody at WrestleMania. That's the match that I personally want to see. I just think if it's John Cena's last WrestleMania, he's got to be one of the main events, whether it's Saturday night or it's Sunday night. John Cena has to be one of those main events. And I'm sure that if he's not,

they'll find a way to tell a great story with that, but that's the way that I see it. As we sit here right now, feels like the Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owen's story is done. So Cody kind of has a clean slate in front of him now. And I feel like certainly at Elimination Chamber, but maybe even before then, we start to see where that story is going to go.

I would love to see Cody and Sina be a great match and also be two of the, it could be a little bit of a passing of the torch, I feel like as well. But I don't know, like this John Sina retirement tour has me scratching my head a little bit. I'm just trying to figure out where it goes. I know there's only been two appearances on the John Sina retirement tour. I know that we're only six weeks into the new year. there's still a lot more time to go and a lot more appearances from John Sina. If he said he's given us 36 appearances, and we're counting here, there's 34 more to go.

So that means there's a lot of opportunities to have maybe some one-off matches, but certainly to ramp up some promotion into some stories and see where things go from here. I don't know. It'll be really interesting to see where that goes. And I think that for me, the two big questions at WrestleMania are, who does Cody face and who does John Cena face? And the answer may be each other or maybe two completely different opponents, but very curious there. George Baldwin on Facebook says, hey, CVV, what did you think about the backlash to Triple H being inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame? I mean, is there anybody that thinks that Triple H shouldn't go into the Hall of Fame?

And I saw some comments of like, oh, isn't he just inducting himself then? Like, if he's the one making the decisions, then isn't he putting himself in? But I think you're missing the point here that he waited this long. He didn't want to put himself in there. And that's why he hasn't been inducted up to this point after being forced into retirement because of the hard issues that he had. And you could see the genuine look of surprise on his face when Sean Michaels and the Undertaker announced that he was going to be headlining the class of 20.

25. There's no world where Triple H is not a WWE Hall of Famer. So, I mean, it's, it's overdue. It's long overdue. And I think that it probably took quite a lot of people behind the scenes, doing this all very quietly and kind of behind his back to make sure that this could get pushed through. Because you could definitely see that he was like, oh, man, you guys are, you guys are surprising me and also embarrassing me here. So it makes perfect sense. And does that mean, so if Triple H headlines this year, it's got to be John Cena next year. That one just kind of feels like a no-brainer. John Cena next year, then I don't even know why we're playing this game now, but then do we go to The Rock the year after that? I don't know. You know, you can, I'm curious

who inducts Triple H. I'm also curious who inducts John Cena. My bookie has odds on this. If you go there, the odds on favorite right now to induct Triple H is Sean Michaels, which makes a lot of sense. But if you sign up there, use the code CVV, a 100% welcome bonus. Arian underscore Delgado on Instagram, in your opinion, what's the best trait for a superstar to become a main eventer? I will borrow this quote from the Hall of Famer, Bully Ray, Baba Ray, whatever you want

call him, it's get over. That's it. That's the biggest thing. I remember this from an interview that I did with him seven years ago, eight years ago, and he's like two words, get over. That's it. It's get over. Because when you look at the main eventers through all the generations, not all of them have been the best in ring workers, but all of them have found a way to get over. So I think it's just find a way to get over. What is it? Is it catchphrase? Is it intensity with your promos? Something. So whatever it is, I think it's just find a way to get over, whether it's as a good guy or a bad guy, you want that crowd reaction. When your music hits, when you go out there, you want a crowd reaction. And that's it. I think it's just get over. It's literally as simple as that.

Martin Hayden left this one on Facebook. Hey, CVV, long-time listener, first-time commenter. Well, thank you, Martin, for being with us on this one. What do you think Paul Heyman's favor to CM Punk will be? It's a good question. I feel like it has to have something to do with mania. I also feel like it could have something to do with mania that ends up becoming a heel turn.

because Paul Heyman's always so good. Like Paul Heyman is an absolute legend, but he does his best work when he's a heel manager. So I feel like maybe, like CM Punk's getting some massive reactions. What happens if CM Punk does something dastardly? And then that aligns him with Paul Heyman, which then sends him on this just generational heel run. It seems like there could be.

something there. But there's two storylines that have been planted that have not really been revisited. And the CM Punk favor one is there. And it's kind of in the back of everybody's mind, like, oh, there's a favor here. Paul Heyman owes a favor to CM Punk. And if we're talking in storylines, how much pull does the Paul Hamon character have? Does the wise man have in story. In storylines. Like he can't be, he's not a general manager, he can't be making matches. So what could the favor be? Like, unless it's, the favor is screwing over somebody in a match, like someone who you would think is aligned with Paul Heyman. Maybe it's Roman Reigns. I don't know. Maybe does Roman Raines officially termed baby face? He's kind of a tweener now. Now he's been,

he was getting the massive booze. Now he's, you know, I don't think he's official. become a baby face, but there has to be something along with that. The other thing, the other storyline that was planted a while ago that has not really been revisited is what was the gift that the rock gave to Cody Rhodes? And does that play into any of this, or do we just have to pretend that never happened? Like, we'll never get an answer to that. Cody told me in an interview last July that there would be a payoff to that. We would eventually find out what that gift was. But I don't know. It just seems to me that with both of those storylines not being part of the week to week, certainly the rock gift thing. I feel like we're never going to get an answer to the

rock gift thing. So we should make stuff up at this point. Maybe the rock was just giving him $7. Maybe the Rock was giving him a ticket to see Jumanji 3 when it comes out. Race to which Mountain 3. But the favor, I think that if we don't get an answer about this favor by WrestleMania, I think we can throw that in the same category as the gift from the rock. We may not get an answer about that. See, I still think I know. I said that my pick to win the Royal Rumble was CM Punk, which would then give him a clear path

to WrestleMania. I don't know where that path is now. I'm sure we'll find out in the next few weeks. Does the favor play a factor? And do we even want to see CM Punk as a heel? It's really hard to boo CM Punk. It is. It's just so engaging when he gets on the mic.

It's just so hard. Braden Myers 40 on Spotify. Spotify says, ask CVV for the episode number four, episode number 70, the Ernie Stoutner edition, Stottner. Ernie Stottner? I don't know who that is. Should I look up who Ernie Stottner is? Okay. Football player for the Steelers along, what, drafted in 1950. How was I supposed to remember this? Played from 1950 to 1963. Okay. Deep. Deep. Deep. deep cut there. I like that. Who takes the title off Shinske? I actually do like Nacomor, but this reign seems to be going nowhere. I was hoping to see it on Gable, given that he's an American

hero, but it doesn't seem like they plan on moving on him anytime soon. I'm with you, Braden. I like Shinske. I don't know where this is going either. It seems to me, and maybe this is just a gut feeling, it feels like this isn't going to be a long title run. He's only defended the title once on TV. It was a match against LA night on SmackDown. He's only defended it once. And he wanted it Survivor Series back in November. I feel like at this point in time, like when you look at what's in front of him, whatever we're going to talk about here with who could be the next U.S. champ, this just feels like fantasy booking because it doesn't seem like anything's lined up right now. I don't know if this is going to be a long program. Maybe this ends up being like a one-off

match on Smackdown. Kind of like when Jay Uso beat Brom Breaker for the IC title on Raw. And I feel like if we're talking about who could take this, who could get this championship and then that would elevate them to the next level. There's a handful of names that pop into my head. Carmelo Hayes would be a great United States champion. And you said it. You're so right.

Chad Gable as well. And it would totally just play into everything that he's doing with his character and being the All-American. I'd love to see that. Dirty Dom, I feel like give Dirty Dom the United States Championship and it would just be magic. That would be a great one to see. If he was healthy, I'd love to see Bronson Reed in this opportunity. Like Bronson Reed, I know he talked a lot about the Intercontinental Championship.

Bronson Reed is the United States champion. That makes sense. And then if we're going to talk about somebody who's had it before, but I could see being back into that picture again, AJ Stiles has been the United States. champion before. I could see AJ Stiles being the United States champion again, giving us some just bangers of matches.

But yeah, I don't know where it's going with Shinska. And he came back. There was so much hype. He wins the title off of L.A. night. Then he goes like a few days layered to Japan and wrestles as the WWE United States champion in pro wrestling

Noah. It's amazing. And then it's like, where does it go from here? And I like this darker Nakamura. I think there's some real substance to it, but I just don't feel like he's being given anything to work with here or just, I don't know where the direction is for the United States championship. So I'm curious if that changes. Does he have a match?

Does he have a United States championship match at Elimination Chamber? Does he have a match against maybe one of the people that I just listed off there? Or where does it go from here? This is just, again, gut feeling. I don't see him as the United States champion. at WrestleMania time. I feel like between now and then there's a title change,

which then leads us to another match we can just at a completely different trajectory at WrestleMania. Very interested to see where that one goes. Noah Calvin emailed this one in. Hey, Chris, real, real one here since all the way back to 2017 after seeing you interview

Ring of Honor champion Cody Rhodes. That is, wow, that goes way back. That was actually the same day I did that interview with Baba Ray that I was, bully Ray that I was just talking about. I never know. Do I call him Baba Ray? Do I call him Baba? Do I call him bully?

In any case, it was the same day in Fort Lauderdale when he told me the get over. All right, back to the question here. That whole era of AJ Styles going to Japan and the Bullet Club blowing up got me back into wrestling and I've listened to your interviews ever since at every episode of AskCTVV. Well, thank you. Feels like hanging out with a buddy talking about wrestling. pop punk while I'm out running. Fantastic. First time writing in after all these episodes of listening and my question is, do you think you'd ever make a shirt with the phrase, how can you not be

romantic about pro wrestling? Love it. I love it every time you say it and I definitely buy one. Thank you for all the hours of great listening. It's amazing to see how far you've come. Very happy for you, RVV and your family, your friend, Noah. Well, thank you so much for the email, Noah, I hope you're having a great run right now. It would be a great shirt, but I can't take credit for that quote. That's the quote from Moneyball. How can you not get romantic? How can you not be romantic about baseball? That's all it is. And I feel like that certainly applies to pro wrestling. So I would love to make that shirt. I would wear that shirt myself, but I feel like I'd be very unoriginal if I was the one making that shirt. Maybe somebody who's listening wants to make that

shirt and put it out there. That'd be amazing. Send me a link. I would love to purchase that and wear that. But it also reminds me of when Cody returned to WWE and he tweeted out wrestling as a love story. And it's like, yeah. Like again, it goes back to the core idea of like, this is all about storytelling. But when did I, when did I, I was in an interview and I was recently saying, like, how can you not be romantic about pro wrestling? and it's so true. Like they're, I've cried watching wrestling. I've been angry watching wrestling. All the emotions you would have in a relationship you have with pro wrestling, you go through

the good times, you go through the bad times, you just stick it out. There's something that's just so beautiful about that. So Noah, I will not be making that shirt, but that is definitely one of my favorite phrases. And I will be saying that a lot because how can you not be romantic about pro wrestling? Richard Seymour left this one on Facebook. Hey, CVV, how do you feel about the sudden appearance of Ricky Starks in NXT? And do you think that we'll see Miro or Malachi Black back on the roster after Mania? I was so happy to see Ricky Starks in NXT. That was a legitimate surprise, too. because it was just the day before that it wasn't even confirmed.

It was just like kind of news floating out there, maybe even rumors floating out there, that he had been released, and also that Miro had been released from AEW. I was just so happy to not only see him back in his element, but everybody in the NXT arena knew exactly who he was, or chanting his name. And if you're not that familiar with Ricky Star,

Buckle up. The man cuts a mean promo, a main promo, and we just got a taste of that on Tuesday night. But I think the bigger thing here is he hadn't wrestled in so long. His last match in AEW was last March. And I understand that he was under contract. And I understand that that contract pays you whether you're on TV or you're not. But he said in the interview that we did, He just wanted to wrestle. Like he just wanted to wrestle. And if he's not being given the opportunity to wrestle with some sort of frequency for the company that he's employed by, then you can't just have him sit on the shelf. And that's the thing that I don't understand. If he doesn't want to sit at home and he's pitching ideas of like, I could work with this person or I could have a match with

this person. And we covered this during the interview. It came out in November if you want to go back and take a look at that. If he's pitching ideas, and he's still not being used. It's like, well, then what do you do? And I understand if we're just zooming out a lot here, wow, this person's, this person is upset about sitting at home and making copious amounts of money. I don't think that's the point here. The point is someone like Ricky Starks, for example, is in the prime of their career and they just want to work. They just want to go out there and cut promos and have matches and they're not being given the opportunity to. So if it's like if they're asking, hey, if I'm not going to be able to do that here, can you just let me go?

Can you let me go and see where I could go and do the thing that I want to do? So I'm just happy that Ricky Starks now has the opportunity to do what he's wanted to do for the last year. And we'll never know the full story of what happened between Ricky Starks and AEW. I think there's three sides to every story. there's this person's side, there's that person's side, and then somewhere in between, there's the truth. But at the end of the day, this is someone who is so incredibly talented, and I'm glad that they have an opportunity to showcase that somewhere. Mero and Malachi Black,

Alistair Black, whatever we're going to call them, Mero Rusev. I don't know if it's WV, but I think we'll see them back in a ring at some point in time real soon. they are in fact released and that is in fact true. And I just, this is the thing. I watch everything. I just want to see these people wrestle. And that's really what it comes down to. So Miro, Malachi, Ricky Starks.

I think there's a lot of opportunities for all three of them. Eddie Billy Chase, have you ever grown out a long beard? I see that you have a very nice beard in your profile photo here on Facebook. Excellent beard. Eddie Billy Chase. The longest I've grown it out for is maybe six weeks, 2020 when, look, everybody else was growing beards in the middle of the pandemic. So I grew it out. You can see it in a handful of interviews. I think Mo, it was probably the longest during the interview with Harry and Cross at that point in time. It was when he got released. And we're talking it completely every time. He had a shaved head. Or he was starting to grow his hair back from when he had

the shaved head. And I had this long beard. And it's just funny because you see Carrying Cross now with like really long hair. And it's funny to just take that screenshot and look at it now. And it's like, oh, yeah. Both of those guys look so different. But my beard grows in really dark. Like my hair is, my hair is dark brown. My wife likes to say it's black. It is not. Okay. When those little hairs fall into the sink, I look at them. They're dark, but they're dark brown. My beard, though, grows in black. Like it grows in real black. And when you go back and watch the Carrying Cross interview, it was done over Zoom, there's a lot of comments from people on YouTube being like, hey, did you use Jess for men on your beard? Or did you color your beard in with a Sharpie? Looks like you drew your beard in with a Sharpie. It's like, no, that's just how it grows in. And it was real. thick. It even got to the point, and this was a new thing for me, not a new thing for anybody who has had a beard for a while. I was actually getting my beard like, you know, getting it trimmed up at the barber. So not just like the haircut, like they would actually like shape my beard a little

bit, which was a whole new thing, lining it up and shaping it. That was a whole new experience for me. I liked it. I don't know if I'll be rocking a beard again anytime soon. Like the beard that you have looks like it took you a year or two to grow. I don't know if I want to be the guy who rocks a beard for more than a year, which again, looks great on you. I just, I do like the, I shave like once a week. That's it. You know, I shave, I shave once a week. Kyle Witt on Facebook, what was your favorite restaurant when you lived in Cincinnati or Cleveland? As a fellow Ohioan, I'd love to know. Congrats on the success, Chris. Well, Kyle. Oh, H. And then Kyle says, I-O. So I spent a lot more time in Cleveland than I did in Cincinnati. I lived in Cleveland for five years. I lived in Cincinnati for nine months. But a lot of those months were locked down, restaurants closed 2020 life. So in Cincinnati, Mad Tree Brewery was my go-to spot. Their wings, and more importantly, their pizza,

unbelievable. I went to Mad Tree Brewery in Cincinnati at like a silly amount of times for the short amount that I lived there. Also, dead low brewing, their wings were just phenomenal. And I remember specifically sitting in dead low brewing the like Friday, I think it was Friday the 13th. and it was like just as like things were starting to like the news was Friday the 13th. Let's probably back this up. Friday, March 13th of 2020. And it was the day when like the news was starting to come out of like, all right, this place is closing and then this place is closing and then they're going to close this. It's like, wait a second, what's going on in the world?

I remember sitting there on that day and eating their incredible chicken wings as this was all coming down and coming together. So as you're seeing, it's a bit of a theme. here. I love a good brewery. There's always, there's something so good about brewery food too. Rhine Geist Brewery as well for anybody who lives in Cincinnati. It's just such a great vibe there. And I know that this is nothing to do with Ohio or Cleveland or Cincinnati, but Brewery X in Orange County where I live now, it is the best pizza in California. I know that's a bold statement. I've only lived here for five years, but I eat their pizza like 50.

times a year. I might have a problem. In Cleveland, melt, melt bar and grilled, the grilled cheese sandwich restaurant. Amazing. Also, I love wings. If you haven't caught on, Quaker steak and Loub. Silly name, I know. And it's like a chain. It's not like a one-off spot. There's a lot of Quaker steaks. Quaker steak and lube. Their wing menu is just, it's deep. And they also have. Big Buck Hunter there. I don't want to pat myself in the back here. I don't want to toot my own horn too much. But if you and I are ever at a bar or a restaurant or a pub or a Davein Busters,

and there is a big buck hunter, you're going down. And I am likely setting the high score there. Just saying. And also Cleveland Chop. I live downtown. and there were not a lot of places that were open late. I worked a pretty late shift. I was on the 11 o'clock news.

I got into work. I was on the 4 o'clock news, the 5 o'clock news, the 6 o'clock news, the 10 o'clock news. So it wasn't done work until like after the 11 o'clock news. So like 1130. Not a lot of places were open.

Cleveland Chop, a great spot. Love that, like a block from where I lived on West 9th Street. If you know anything about downtown Cleveland, West 9th Street, a block away from West 6th Street, where all the fun happens. We have talked far too much about Ohio restaurants, Kyle. But I appreciate you sending this question. I just, look, I get excited about some things.

Get excited about pizza and chicken wings, all right? Mike Carey sent this one in on Facebook. Real, real one here. Out of all the interviews you've done, what is the one that kind of blew your mind, good or bad? Maybe you went in a certain, went in with a certain perspective, and then ended up just, and you put the mind-blown emoji.

Congrats on your family. Many blessings for y'all. I think I've mentioned it before, but the interviews I've done with Hornswoggle, especially the first interview I did with Hornswoggle, really surprised me because he didn't get a chance to really talk that much when he was in WWE. That guy is hilarious. I spent 77% of that interview just laughing.

like just just busting up and then when we that was interview was done over was that one that was that was in person then we did one over zoom then we did another one in person and I feel like I'm doing an event with him in Oshkos Oshkosh Wisconsin how do people say that how did Oshkosh Wisconsin wow he's doing a wrestling convention May 17th so maybe we have another round with Hornswoggle But not only are you just laughing, but then there's some like really sentimental moments too. He's just a natural born storyteller. And the stories just run the gamut from being like serious and heartfelt to just like

out of nowhere just hitting you with such funny little one-liners. So that I think that was one that really blew me away. that was one that was, yeah, that one was special. And I think the one most recently with Penta, that made me feel, I went into that, I didn't really have any expectations going into that. The last time I met Penta, and I even mentioned this in the interview, was at an MLW show years ago, six, six, seven years ago in Fort Lauderdale. And he didn't speak a lot of English.

It was basically his brother, Ray Phoenix, was the one speaking English, and he spoke enough to like, hello, nice to meet you. That was about it. So going into this, I'm like, well, what's his level of English like now? And for English to be a second language, but for him to have the grasp on it that he does, it was amazing. And you can just feel his passion with everything that he was talking about. And it's so hard to not root for him when you know how much this is. means to him. Then he also had that funny moment at the end. Like there were a lot of funny moments within it. But towards the end of the interview, I'm like, you know, a lot of your fan base who speak, who speak Spanish, they're listening right now. So could you give them a message in Spanish? He's like, oh, I don't speak Spanish. So it's like, so good. That's, that's definitely one where I went in going, I don't know what to expect here. And I walked out of that going, how can you not root for this guy. So if you haven't checked out any of those interviews, the Pento one is from just two weeks ago. I'd say go listen to the most recent Hornswoggle one, which was last April, I believe. Just

scroll back till you see Hornswaggle's name. Those are two. Those are two that really stand out from me. But I don't ever go into these with any sort of like preconceived notion of like, this interview is going to be serious or this interview is going to be funny. I just go into of like, if I bumped into this person out eating some of that delicious pizza at Mad Tree Brewing, if I was, if I bumped into them or if I was just going out for a beer, what would our conversation look like? What would be a few of the things we talk about, but like just in general, like, I don't know, like, what would the vibe be like? That's just kind of how I go into it of like, let's just chat. Let's just chat and see where the conversation goes. But appreciate that

question. I appreciate all the questions here. That is the last question on this. Ask CBV. Number 70, the Zach Martin, Tim Thomas, Lenhouse edition. Thank you for all of the questions that you sent in here. I would love to see your questions for Ask CVV number 71 and who wore Jersey number 71. We'll have to, none of them pop into my head immediately here. So we'll have to figure out who that is if you've got a question. And you're listening on. Spotify. I hope you're already following the show. Thank you for hitting that. Close line from hell on the follow button. But leave a comment on Spotify with your question for Ask CVV number 71. Leave it on social media using the hashtag AskCTVV or

shoot me an email at Chris Vanfleet. Jeez, it's late as I'm recording this. CVV at chrisfanfleet.com. I don't even know my own email address. It's crazy. we talked a lot about main events for WrestleMania here. If you're listening on Spotify, drop it in the comments. You're a real, real one for being here right now and listening all the way to the end.

And I appreciate you for that. Drop it in the comments. What's the main event you want to see? You could even give me two if you want because there's going to be two main events, but what's the main event that you want to see at WrestleMania 41? Just this person versus this person

and we'll know exactly what you're talking about there. DDP shared this quote on Instagram. this week, and I thought that this was so powerful and so profound. And I know that this is going to speak to somebody who's listening right now. If you never heal from what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you. Who, man, that's powerful. Be great. Be grateful, my friends.

Have an amazing weekend. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. we've got Ludwig Kaiser joining us on Tuesday. You won't want to miss it. We'll see you right back here on Tuesday for that one. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes.

So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast.

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