Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #73 - John Cena Turns Heel, Elimination Chamber Thoughts, Rhea Ripley Lost To Iyo Sky, Best International PLE

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

https://cvvtix.com - Get your tickets for INSIGHT LIVE in Las Vegas with VIP Meet & Greet!Welcome to AskCVV #73! On this episode Chris Van Vliet breaks down John Cena's heel turn at Elimination Chamber and where it goes from here, he also answers questions about whether we will see a match between John Cena and The Rock, Easter eggs we may have missed from Bad Blood, Triple H telling us to have some patience, the best international PLE of all time, why WWE doesn't use Titan Trons and much more!   Quote I'm thinking about: “Stop complaining about the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t put in. The only way to become more successful than most people is to be willing to do something most people aren’t willing to do.”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/insightto 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

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Fleet. Happy Friday, my friends. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet, what an intro there by Downstate. I love how it just gets you pumped up every single time. Thank you for being with us on this one. And thank you, as always, for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet.

I'm sure you're already following the show because you're here. You're a real one. You're listening to an Ask CVV episode. But if by chance it has slipped your mind, hit a power bomb on that follow button on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this right now so you don't miss out on anything that we have on the way. What a week that we've had in wrestling. My goodness, there is a lot to talk about on this one. Man, I don't know. I don't know if. we're going to have enough time to break all this down. There's so many things here. There's so many questions. There's just a lot going on right now. And I think that it is, it is evident where we're at right now in wrestling, that it is starting to go well beyond just the wrestling world. Like I saw

Major League Baseball making a reference to the John Cena turn on their Instagram. John Stewart was talking about the John Cena and Rock thing going on here. Like this is big. And this feels to me a lot like how things were in the attitude era where you would see maybe not all of it, maybe not every storyline, but you would see little things that would bleed through into the mainstream. And I just got to say, as a wrestling fan, it's exciting. And I just love that we're in on this, right? We've been wrestling fans for a long time. We're in on this. And it's cool seeing people on the outside experiencing something this big, a storyline this big in wrestling for the first time. It's amazing. I'll tell you what else is amazing. The turnout at the last two Insight Live

events, we had a blast in Toronto last weekend. Friday, live with Natty, then Sunday with all three members of the Hurt Syndicate. It was amazing. So thank you if you were one of the people who was there live. If you were one of the people who bought the VIP tickets and we got to hang out after the show for a little meet and greet, I appreciate you. We've still got just a handful of tickets left for the VIP show, Insight Live, April 17th during Russellmania Week. We're going to be live from Circa Resort and Casino, grab those tickets at CVVTX.com, CVVTiX.com. And we'll be announcing the guests, I'd say in a handful of weeks here. I'm working on nailing down who that guest is going to be,

but we're going to have a blast no matter who it is. So I can't wait to see you guys there. I know a lot of people that are listening are going to be in Las Vegas for WrestleMania 41. And I also feel like there are a lot of people that might have been on the fence about going to WrestleMania 41. And with everything that just happened at Elimination Chamber, you're like, well, geez, how can I not be there?

It was already going to be John Sina's last match, but how could I not be there for heal John Sina taking on Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship? That's going to be one of those that I think you just, you won't want to miss it. So welcome, my friends, to Ask CVV number 73, the Joke Thomas, Michael Ryder, and Dennis Rodman when he played for the Lakers edition. If you've got a question for next week and you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment on Spotify, or send it in on social media using that hashtag ask CVV or shoot me an email CVV at Chris VanVleet.com. I think I said last week I was pretty confident in my elimination chamber predictions. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get three out of four right here. Even though I, Bianca Bel Air, like, yeah, that match could have gone really anyway, the Jade Cargo were

turn. Amazing. The roof almost came off a Roger setter when she came out. Incredible. So three for four. I was three for four with my elimination chamber picks. I feel like if we go back, I haven't been keeping official score here, but if we go back to when I started doing these predictions, I've got to be like 90%. Something like that. It's been cool going through the odds from my bookie. Of course, use the code CVV when you sign up. You'll get a lovely welcome bonus when you do. But If you've been kind of following along with the predictions I've been making, I've got to say, they've been pretty good. Not trying to turn heel on you guys here and pat myself on the back,

but I'm just saying, like, those predictions have been rather solid. But I also love being wrong. And I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong. I didn't see the John Seale, John Cena Heel turn coming. I didn't think they'd have time to do it this year. I've been saying that for months and months and months. but we will break all of that down. Got quite a few questions about that,

but we've got a lot to get into. So let's start off with Brandon Smith, V-T-T-O-N-C on Instagram. Brandon says, He'll Sina, question mark? He's following everything he said to you about turning heel. He's not showing up to the events

beside paper views. And he just demanded a spot of the chamber. He's also committing to skipping more shows and doing his movies instead. He was laying down. almost the entire match tonight and wasn't being featured at all. It's funny. All the signs were there. All the signs were there. And when I did that interview with John Cena last February, I've shared it out recently. I've seen it in a lot of different places. I asked him like,

when, how close were you to turning heel? If you haven't seen the clip, I'm going to kind of summarize it for you. He said, real close. And I said, what time period? He said, right before Roxena 1. So that would have been 2012 is when we had Roxena 1, WrestleMania 28. And he said, basically he would start doing

all the things that are the opposite of what he does now. Instead of showing up all the time, he would show up less. He would start demanding his spot. And it's just so funny. All of these things are there. Look at the press conference

where he demanded his spot at the Royal Royal Rumble. he demanded his spot in elimination chamber. That's not something that John Sina would have done any time leading up to this. And everybody, myself included, just chalked it up to, well, he's John Sina. He's not going to wrestle that many matches this year. It makes sense for him to insert himself into that match. But then we look at the Royal Rumble.

He didn't do a lot in the Royal Rumble. And again, one of the people who said it, but the general consensus was, of course he's not doing that much. How could John Sina get injured on his retirement tour? We don't want that to happen. So we're okay with John Sina doing less as long as he remains healthy until December. But then you start looking at other things here. And like the fact that as soon as Seth Rallin stomped on CM Punk, John Sina like ran to put his submission hold,

ran to put the hold on CM Punk to win the elimination chamber match. That's not something that Babyface, John Sina would do. And again, I didn't think this would happen, but this just shows how unpredictable of a time we are in right now. Really, truly, anything goes in the Triple H era of WWE. And that's what makes it so exciting. John Sina was a baby face for 21 years, three months and 23 days, a total of 7,786 days. John Sina was a baby face longer than some people who are listening to this have been alive. It's amazing.

It is easily the biggest heel turn in WWE history. Of course, Hulk Hogan was the biggest heel turn in WCW history. There's no argument about either of those. This was truly a where were you when it happened moment. It's exactly what this is. And what's so interesting is that when you look at the press conference afterwards, Triple H comes in there and he says, quote, patience is hard to come by.

That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Who's the guy who's been saying, have a little bit of patience for the last several months? Triple H is saying patience is hard to come by. Triple H also said that Triple H was saying that John Sina wanted to push himself in this final run.

And look, it would have been easy for John Sina to go out there, play the greatest hits, smile for the audience, hit his five moves to Doom, and keep moving on. I'm sure that at some point in time he would have won that 17th championship

and then I'm sure at some point in time he would have lost it. But John Sina wanted to stir things up. And I love that. John Sina wanted to challenge himself. And John Sina wanted to see, I think, what was possible. And I feel like this has been in the works for a long time. And John Sina said something to me off camera. So that interview was February of last year. He was promoting Ricky Stinnicki, which is a great movie. Go check it out

if you haven't seen it. If you're looking for a laugh this weekend, go look for Ricky Stenickey and just sit back and enjoy it. John Sina and Zach Affron together, amazing. But he said something to me off camera. He said like something to the effect. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect of like, just wait until you see what we have in store. And obviously, this is February. His retirement tour hadn't been announced yet.

That ended up getting announced in July, also in Toronto, by the way, and money in the bank. I assumed when I saw that he was announcing his retirement, that's what he had in mind. But maybe, maybe he was referring to like, like it's going to be a retirement tour and I'm also going to turn heel. I don't know. Could be. But it's just so interesting because go back. If you haven't seen that clip of John Cena talking about his heel turn, it's like a three minute clip. He goes very in depth about that. And he says

that they had new music ready to go. He said that they had, he had like low cut singlets, so all new attire ready to go. And I, I feel like maybe it's not the low-cut singlets, but we're going to see John Sina wearing something very different. We're going to see a whole new swagger out of him. He's not going to be talking to Stu anymore. I'm sure Stu, the cameraman, very disappointed in John Sina. But we're going to see a whole new John Sina.

The next time that we are supposed to see John Sina, the next time he is announced for an appearance, is March 17th in Brussels. This is part of the WWE European tour. Then we'll see him on Raw the next two weeks as well. So then March 24th, there in Glasgow, Scotland, then March 31st, London, England. I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. That episode on March 17th, just because John Cena's going to be announced, that's

going to be one of the most watched episodes of Raw all year. I think it'll be tough to beat January 6th in the debut of Raw on Netflix, because the numbers were massive on that. But everybody's just asking. why. Like, why did this happen? Why did you do this? And where do we go from here? And I think the fact that John Sina is simply announced, like, he could literally come out and say nothing, which is what he did at the press conference, and we'll get to that in a minute. But John Sina just being out there is going to draw so many eyeballs. And it's also going to draw a lot of new eyeballs and a lot of lapsed

fans as well. And by the way, if you're curious, they've announced a few other dates for John Sina. according to www.com, he's also going to be in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Friday, May 30th, Lexington, Kentucky, Friday, June 13th, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, Friday, June 20th. So in addition to WrestleMania 41. So there's at least seven dates that we know that John Cena is going to be out there. So if you live in any of those cities, this is going to be your last time to see John Cena out there live. I'm excited about this. I am so excited about this.

And why are people still acting like the rock doesn't know what he's doing? Like the rock is just going out there and making this up as he goes. Like all of the people who said that the rock just came out and, quote, stood there and did nothing at bad blood in October? Yeah, I'm looking at you. There have been so many little hints and, so many little Easter eggs that have been there the whole time. And all you had to do was look a little bit deeper.

It was just amazing to me how many people were like, what a waste of the rock at bad blood. Well, how silly do you look now that all of it's adding up together? All of it makes sense now. CM Punk even hinted at this. Like, CM Punk's always kind of been pretty accurate about Cody's future. and remember when they were chatting on Raw and CM Punk's words were like a good friend will always stab you in the front?

You know, that's exactly what John Cena did. Like, all of the hints are there. This just feels like, this feels like one of those movies where you're seeing, you're seeing the story unfold. You're seeing the plot unfold. You're seeing everything right in front of you, but doesn't make sense because you don't have enough context for it. And then the movie ends and you go,

it was there all along. You know, I'm thinking of like any movie with a twist, like six cents or any Christopher Nolan movie. And like I'm thinking of specifically the prestige when that movie ends and you're like, ah, I don't want to ruin it for anybody. It's a wonderful movie. I highly recommend it.

But when that movie comes to an end, you go, oh my gosh. Like they told us. They told us the plot in the first five minutes. but you didn't know it because it didn't make sense. It didn't make, you didn't have enough context to put it all together. But I do have a serious question now that John's seen as a heel. How are people all of a sudden able to see him now?

Like the top comment on every match or every social media clip or every interview was something about this person's talking to themselves or it's a floating hat or it's a floating suit. Those comments are gone now, like completely gone. There might be one or two still, but the idea, like, that used to be the number one comma and everyone would post some variation of that. That's gone. So, like, did it all, all it took for us to see John Sina was him becoming a bad guy? Very, very interesting. And I can't wait to see where this goes.

It was, it caught me off guard in the best way possible. But it was, man, what a moment. What a moment. Adam Reed, A. Reed 1428 on Instagram, says, Hey, Chris, with that surprising turn by Sina, can he really go out as a bad guy? I think he eventually turns on the rock to maybe set up a final time match,

Sina versus Rock at Summer Slammer Survivor Series. What do you think? I'm with you, Adam. I don't think he goes out as a heel. And the whole thing I was saying all along was, I don't think he'll have time to turn heel. And I will also say this. he was asked at the press conference at Money in the Bank.

So last July he was asked of the press conference, could we see a heel term? It was actually my friend Liam Crowley that asked him that. And John Cena said something along the lines of like, you know, he's been a baby face his whole career. It seems to make the most sense. Something like that certainly didn't say,

I'm open to anything. You know, keep your eyes open because it could happen. But made it seem very clear that like, he's going to keep doing what he's doing, like going to keep doing what got him here. I foresee this heel turn being six months max, like somewhere around six months max,

so like five, six, seven months, something like that. I would think he turns baby face at some point in time and goes out as a baby face losing a match to whoever they might be. I still firmly believe that'll be Randy Orton. But who knows now? And that's what that's the best thing.

about wrestling is like we can come up with all the predictions we want right now in March, but by the time December rolls around, we could be looking at a completely different landscape in wrestling. I don't think that all of this is happening with The Rock to just play some authoritarian figure or some manager type figure here. It feels to me like the Rock wrestles in a match in 2025. Maybe that's a match at WrestleMania. you could see some sort of a, you could see some sort of a four-way match here, kind of like last year that leads into something else.

I don't know if that's the case. Rock could have a singles match at WrestleMania, possibly, I guess. But it seems like they could be setting up for something later on this year. I don't feel like the Rock is back in this prominent of a role to not wrestle in 2025. Rocksina would be great or Roxena along with maybe two other people.

Like I said, maybe some sort of a tag team match. That could be a real possibility here as well. But it's just so excited, everything counts now. Everything counts and anything can happen. Like long gone or the predictable days of like, oh man, well, I know exactly what's going to happen. here, like, that is, that is not happening anymore. And I think overshadowed by John Cena's heel turn at Elimination Chambers, the fact that Jade Cargill return, setting something up there for Russellmania, and Randy Orton returned. And boy, you got a feel for Randy Orton.

You got to feel for him. He's had two huge returns over the last year and a half, both of them overshadowed by the biggest news in the entire industry that happens slightly later on that night. CM Punk returning at Survivor Series 2023 and now John Cena turning heel for the first time. Well, not the first time, but the first time in 7,700 days. Wild. I'm very curious as if Randy Orton, Kevin Owens at WrestleMania, that could certainly be a match. I don't know. Rob Knight on Facebook says, hard hitting an in-depth one here.

Okay. Here we go. Question number one. giving the turn of events that transpired at the chamber. Where were you? And what was your reaction to arguably the now second biggest healing heel turn in history that that of Hulk Hogan dropping the leg on that no good, stinky macho man to become the third member of the New World Order?

Manny season is cooking with peanut oil now, my friend. And question number two, when does Chris Sharp turn heel? Well, there's actually a video of my reaction to John Cena. turning heel. I was sitting next to muscle man, Malcolm, who you might know from YouTube. He's awesome. He had a great time. I was with him at smash wrestling earlier in the night. And then we walked over together to Rogers Center and sat next to each other for the festivities that were at Elimination Chamber. And he was filming quite a few of the reactions and we were given some predictions along the way. Our reactions are vastly different. Like he's in total shock of like,

oh my gosh, no, what's happening? I was just sitting there and actually, like, I was, like, I I was so present in that moment. My phone was in my pocket. I was literally just taking it in as it was happening. And he cuts to me, if you look at the video on his Instagram, I'm smiling. I'm not smiling because I'm enjoying what's going on. Like, yeah, man, Cody Rose deserved it. I'm not smiling because of that.

I'm smiling because, like, it was just so beautifully executed. It was a masterpiece. And I'm smiling because it's like, I can't believe I'm here witnessing this live. So it was just like, what? Like, it was like watching a, watching an artist at work. And I'm sitting there going, oh my gosh. Like, I can't, I can't believe WW is going for this and doing this and going all in on this.

And I can't believe I'm here for this too. So that was my reaction to it of like, wow. Like, sure, there might have been a handful of people. that might have seen this coming, but people have been calling for Heel Cody for a while now. They want to see Codlander or Cody Rhodes version of Homelander. They've been calling that for calling for a long time. I pointed out last week on Ask CVV that that just seemed too obvious. It was a red herring, and that's exactly what it ended up being. It was like right there in front of us, which was trying to get us to ignore what was actually going to happen. I also heard a lot of

people saying maybe it's CM Punk. Maybe that's ties into the favor with Paul Heyman, which I still think there's that's going to be something they circle back around to between now and WrestleMania. At least I hope so. What's the gift? I'm going to keep talking about this until we get an answer. What was the gift that the rock gave to Cody Rhodes? Are we ever going to get an answer for that? But my reaction was just like, I can't believe they're doing it. And it just made the John Cena retirement tour, have, so much more substance to it now. It makes it that much more meaningful. Because it went from like, John Cena is in my town. I've got to see him before I can never see him again, even though you can't see him. But you've got to go and show up and be there because he's not coming to your town again.

It went from that to also like still John Cena's in my town. Got to go out and see the show because I won't see him again. And also, what's he going to do now? what's the other layer of this story that we're going to get? And I think that that's what makes this so, so special. And I would have, I would have to guess that John Cena is very excited about this and very excited about the reaction that this has got, not just in wrestling, but outside of wrestling as well. He's got the chance to flex some new muscles here. He's got the chance to test some things out.

And on top of that, kind of like what we're seeing with The Rock right now, we've got the chance for both of them who are veteran actors and not just veteran wrestlers as well, but veteran actors who are really good at manipulating emotions and getting you to feel something, that's the person who has turned heel. And I'm saying that that's like one deeper than a wrestler turning heel. This is a professional actor and professional wrestler turning heel. I've had a lot of people give me credit that I do not deserve for calling this last February. I said during an interview with John Sina, you know, the rock's a heel now.

Could you imagine a world where both the rock and John Sina are healed at the same time? And then Sina says, well, that's supposed to happen. Like that's supposed to happen. Then he gives an answer that is a variation of that famous quote from, Aaron Eckert's character in The Dark Night, where he says, you either die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. He talks about how every good person also has bad things that happen. They also make bad decisions. Not everybody is completely virtuous all the time, and he's spelling this all out for us. I did not call this, okay? At that point in time,

13 months ago, I didn't know if John Cena would wrestle again. I assumed he would, but nothing was announced. All I was saying was, man, who would have thought that the rock would turn heel in this to be like a lasting thing? Could you imagine? Man, you're talking about being a heel and telling me this great story from when it was supposed to happen from 2012. What if John Cena could also be a heel as well?

I didn't think that they'd be teamed up together and who even knows what this means? I've heard some people saying that they're going to build a faction from this. I don't know. The Rock hinted that Travis Scott is actually going to be part of this, not just a one-off, that he's now part of this faction, kind of in a way that Dennis Rodman was part of the NWO. I would love to see how that goes. And I know there's already a lot of people rolling their eyes. To you, I just say, have a little bit of patience. Okay. Have just a little bit of patience to see how that part of this equation is going to play. So look, wrestling fans love a great movie about wrestling. Have you seen the trailer yet for Queen of the Ring?

This tells the incredible true story of Mildred Burke, a single mother from the Midwest who had one dream, and that was to become a professional wrestler. But this was the 1930s, and women's wrestling was outlawed across the country. That didn't stop Mildred. She defied the odds. She trained in secret, and she fought her way to the top, proving that women did,

along in the ring. And she made history by becoming a champion and paving the way for every woman in wrestling today. It stars Emily Betricards and Walton Goggins. You'll also see some familiar faces in there like Tony Storm, Camille, Naomi, and Jim Cornett. Make sure you watch Queen of the Ring when it opens up in theaters nationwide on March 7th. Matt Stearns on Facebook says, Chris, you were in the interview room when John Cena walked in.

What were you feeling? Describe the environment, etc. Yes, I was in the room for the press conference, following Elimination Chamber. And if you watched it all the way to the end, the Rock, gave me a shout out. It was wild. Yeah, what's up, Chris? And then the broadcast went off the air. That was cool. I was sitting like the third row. It was next to Sam Roberts, actually. Sam Roberts asked the Rock a few great questions. But it was so cool. The Rock's like, hey, what's up, Chris? And Rock, if you're listening to this. Thank you. You're awesome. I, still hoping that we do an interview at some point this year for the smashing machine, which looks amazing. I think we're going to see a whole other side of the rock from that

performance. But when John Cena walked in, I think that I didn't know what was going to happen because all we've ever seen from John Cena over the last 21 years or so is someone who's smiling, happy go lucky, like going to make a joke. year or there. I was wondering, like, is he going to tow this line like the rock's been towing where he says some healish things, but he's also kind of nice to you? And I'm walking this really fine line of like, he's a bad guy, but he does some baby face things. And at the same time, and I think again, going back to I can't believe people are still questioning the rock and his motives and like wondering if he knows what he's doing. He talked about that during the press

conference of like, yeah, when everybody thought that I was just being a nice guy for that premier episode of raw on Netflix and I was shouting out the Netflix people, there were, there were more layers to that. Like this is, the final boss is, is not just like a heel version of the rock. It's like he's a heel, like corporate version of himself. Like think of like a C-suite employee at a company. CEO, C. COO, CCO, whatever you want to call it. That's who he is. He's a suit for lack of a better term,

even though he wears vests with no shirt underneath and no sleeves. He's in that level, though. What I mean by that is he's a C-suite, like, high-level executive. So there's, I think there's some elements of it where he smiles to your face, and then he talks bad things about you behind your back. And I think that he was kind of hinting at that. So I was wondering, is that what we're going to be? get from John Sina? Like, are we going to get John Sina the man talking about his performance of like,

yeah, I went out there and I did what I did. When he came out and he started kind of fiddling with the microphone, I'm like, what, what's he doing here? Like, is he going to hold the microphone during this press conference? And I just happened to be filming it. And he picked up the microphone and he dropped it and he walked out. And that was a statement. That was John Sina's first statement since turning heel. It was a complete mic drop. And I posted that video on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. And that video, I'm scrolling to it right now, that video has six million views on TikTok. That video on Instagram has, I think it's less, but it's still quite a lot of views.

That video on, that video has 680,000 views on Instagram. Like, that's a moment. All of these, all of these are moments. And when he went out, when he walked out of the room, we always kind of turn to each other and went, oh man like like this is serious and you've seen in the past john sina doesn't half ass anything john sina goes all the way in uh here's a perfect example of that think of how in depth john sina got with his trash talk during roxena one especially a little bit in roxina too but like he was like taking some real shots at the rock.

Like it got personal there. It got so personal that there was like animosity behind the scenes. Like this wasn't just in character like the rock and John Sina, Dwayne Johnson and John Sina had issues with each other. John Sina is fully committed. And I think that's what we're going to see with this heel run, which would make me think, I've seen the memes online.

I'm sure you have too. I don't think we're going to be seeing any make a wish appearances over the next nine months. Because I just can't see John Cena breaking heel. I could be wrong, and I'd be happy to be wrong. I was also talking to John Cena about getting him on the podcast at some point this year. I don't know if that's going to happen anymore unless I talk to this character of John Cena, and he's just heelish and corporate and mean to me the whole time. But it's so early right now.

It hasn't even been a week since this happened. We don't really know what his motivations are. We don't know what his end goal is. I think that we'll start to be able to peel back the layers of the onion, especially after his first appearance on March 17th. Also, I know it's not announced, but Ross at Madison Square Garden on Monday. And I had previously mentioned that there's something special about when

WWE goes to Madison Square Garden. I'm not saying it's going to happen. But boy, that would be a moment if John Sina returned at Madison Square Garden, especially considering everything that happened last Saturday night. I'm sure you already know this, but I'll say it anyway. The 2008 Royal Rumble, John Sina's incredible return when nobody thought he'd be able to make it back in time. That was in Madison Square Garden. So one of the greatest Royal Rumble moments ever. That was in Madison Square Garden. It's a special building. A lot of amazing history has been made there. I know he hasn't been announced for it.

But that would be a lovely surprise to see. I don't know if John's seen his schedule would allow for that. But it could happen. But other than that, March 17th, then March 24th, then March 31st, I think we'll start to get a feel for what is this? Is he just, is he the Rock's teammate in this? Does he share the same values as the Rock now? I don't know.

But I just get the feeling that when Sina's heel, he's going to be all the way in on being heel. And I think that those make-a-wish appearances, the charity stuff, I think that's out the window right now. That's just what my gut says. I could be wrong. Maybe he plays both sides kind of like the rock. But the look on his face. I've seen the squid games meme where it's like John Cena before and after. We're like smiling at the start of elimination chamber and then his like angry look, his stern look at the end of it. I think we're just going to get that.

We're going to get this, that version of John Cena for a while now. And I'm here for it. Email here from Matt Schiller. He says, hey, Chris, real, real one here. Additional real because I also listen to the mid show ads. Oh my goodness. thank you. You can add another reel on there. You can be a real, real, real, real one if you click on the links in the show notes. It's the easiest way to support the show. And then if you

end up actually using one of the services or buying a product from those, that's amazing. Like if it fits your lifestyle, incredible. But the fact that you listen to those, I appreciate you. During his post show press conference with you in the room, Triple H said, does it feel feel like we're on, does it feel like we're in WrestleMania season yet or something that effect? Yeah, I think it was, do you feel like we're on the road to WrestleMania yet? I feel like that lines up with your advice to always be patient.

My question is, why does it seem like fans, especially online, are always looking to have WrestleMania fully mapped out before February is over, especially now that elimination chamber determines two of the major matches. Shouldn't fans expect the seven week period after that event to be where all of the other pieces fall into place? love listening to your podcast while on runs. Maybe a hot take, but the Ask CVV episodes are my favorite.

Ooh, that is a fiery hot take. Matt, I appreciate you writing in. And I agree with you. And I will keep preaching this as long as you keep listening to these episodes. Patience, let's just watch this play out. I don't know how many more times I can say it, but guys, we're only like 40 minutes into the movie right now. There are still so many other plot twists.

and character arcs that we need to see. And I just never understand that. Like, if you, if you started a movie on Netflix or Max or Hulu or Amazon Prime or wherever it is, if you started a movie and then you got tired and went to bed after 40 minutes, you wouldn't be going to bed angry that you didn't have the answers to who did it or why this character did that thing or whatever, you would just go, oh, well, when I wake up tomorrow, I'll watch the end of the movie,

and those answers shall be revealed. Right? That's how it works. And maybe people just have PTSD from so many years of Vince McMahon booking and a lot of loose ends, never being tied up, that you still feel like that's going to happen here. Like that if you don't get an answer immediately,

it may never be answered again. And sure, I can understand that. But I think you also need to realize that the track record with Triple H in charge over the last, it's almost been three years. I think we look at SummerSlam 2022 in Nashville. That's kind of the line in the sand.

That was the first show where Triple H fully had the book and was fully deciding what would happen with the storylines and the characters. I think you can look at not everything, but you can look at the majority of things since then, until now, we've got a lot of answers, and we've also got a lot of great stuff. So I can understand that in the past, there were some times

when we did not get loose ends tied up, we did not get storylines playing out in any sort of way that made any sort of sense. I understand that. But it's different now. It has been different for a little while here. So when we don't have a full WrestleMania card by February, we should just be treating that like we're 40 minutes in the movie. Okay, well, we've got 60 days until WrestleMania. Let's see how this plays out between now and then. And I,

it baffles me that people don't have the patience for that. Like, if things aren't mapped out between now and like the week before WrestleMania, that's still okay. Like, that's the part I don't understand here, is you've got plenty of time for this to build up. WrestleMania is April 19th and 20th. It is the first week of March right now. We've still got plenty of time for this to play out.

And I'm really curious. And maybe somebody listening to this can drop a comment on Spotify and let me know, how long do we need to be removed from the, call it Vince McMahon era, till we can have a little bit of faith and a little bit of trust in what's going on here. Because there have been so many beautiful curb balls that are thrown our way. How long do you need? Like, does it need to be five years removed? Does it need to be 10 years removed?

Does it need to be a full generation, like 20 years removed? Like all of the superstars that were there when Vince McMan was there? Do all of them need to have moved, be moved on? in doing other things or retired? Is that where we need to be with it? I'm genuinely curious. I'm here for the ride. Like, I think people forget that at the end of the day, and Adam Pierce is so good at reminding people on Facebook all the time, this is a television show. Like, Adam Pierce makes a weekly post where he's like, thank you for tuning into our television program. And I don't know why people can't remember that. Like, this is a storyline. There are fluid things going

on. Some storylines may be advanced next week. Some storylines may be advanced in three weeks. Some storylines. There's some things where they thought that this was going to go in a great direction and maybe it hasn't and now it's going to have to switch gears and they're going to have to go in a whole new direction. A great example of that and no disrespect to him. But Shinske Nakamura's U.S. title run, I don't think has gone the way they wanted to go. And it feels like it's a few It would take a lot to kind of bring that one back on the rails. I like the darker Shinska Nakamura character. I just don't think that him holding the U.S. title has done anything for him or for the U.S. title.

I think that that's one of those where I feel like if there was a new U.S. champ between now and WrestleMania, I wouldn't be surprised. If that one, that's one where it's like, okay, we tried this thing. It didn't really work. So we're going to go in a different direction here. But have a little bit of patience, guys. Have a little bit of patience. And we will see how all of this lines up for April 19th and 20th.

Scott McNeil on Facebook says, Hey, CVV, is everything okay with Ria Ripley? Why did she drop the title to EO Sky on Raw this past Monday? I don't know what's personally going on with Ria Ripley. Nothing that I've heard, but I'm not exactly like. I'm not a news guy. I don't get scoops like that. But I think that this is just another example of anything can happen in this era of

WWE. And I've been saying that for a while. Like, this is, this is just reaffirming that you can't miss Raw. You can't miss Smackdown. Titles don't only change hands at a PLE. And we're starting to see that more often than we ever did.

in the older era. You saw it with Jay Uso winning the Intercontinental Championship from Bronbreaker on a random raw in Ontario, California that I happened to be there for. I was like, no way. Like when he kicked out and then he went up to the top rope and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's going to win. Like Jay Uso is going to win right here with like very little buildup. Crazy.

I love it. I think that that's what this is. It's another reminder of like every show matters here. everything counts. So that's what I think this is. Maybe it's setting up for a three-way match at WrestleMania, possibly. But I think it's just another one of those like, you got to tune in. You got to tune in because you never know what might happen.

Ben Schlotens on Spotify. I hope I said your last name, right? S-H-H-O-L-T-E-N-S. Ben Schlotens. Do you sometimes miss the old school video packages that they played during entrances? I'm thinking Brockless or Randiorton, Seamus, etc. With random videos of them yelling, flexing and match highlights, nowadays was just logos on a screen. Yeah, Titan Trons. I totally miss Titan Trons. And I noticed something at Elimination Chamber. I don't know if you've noticed this before as well, but there is someone that still has a Titan Tron right now.

There's one superstar that still has a Titan-Tron. And it's Logan Paul. Maybe that was his call. Maybe he was going, man, I miss old-school Titan-Tron's any chance I could have one. But he has, like I call it an old-school 90s, early 2000s like Titan-Tron, where it's the looping video of his moves. I miss Titan-Tron. I used to love Titan-Tron.

I would download them on my computer. And if you're around the same age as me, you know exactly what I'm talking about. someone would have a new entrance theme and you would download it and like it would still have crowd noise and sometimes it would have like JR or King's voice over like a small section of it looping sometimes and then I would download the Titan Trons that go along with them. I'm a big fan of that part of the presentation. I get that in this era of WWE and branding what they want is as soon as the person's music hits, you can look at the screen.

oh, that's Liv Morgan. Oh, that's Randy Orton or whoever it might be. And they've got their branding behind them for the entire entrance as they're walking out. I understand that. But there's something about it. And maybe it's just nostalgia. I don't know. There's a big argument I talk about a lot between nostalgia pulling you so hard one way and recency bias pulling you so hard the other way. And you've got to figure out like which one am I adhering to here. Is it nostalgia or is it recency bias? Because with those entrances, Titan-Tron's make a lot of sense, but also if you just strip away your biases, biases,

what they do now makes a lot of sense too for just the visual of the superstar coming out, of the wrestler coming out. But I missed them. But that was an interesting little tidbit of like, oh, look at this. Logan Paul has a Titan-Tron. I wonder if any of you guys noticed that.

If you did, drop a comment on Spotify. couldn't have been the only one that saw that. Echo underscore Juliet Bravo on Instagram says, Best International PLE that isn't backlash. I know. Very easy to choose Leon France or Puerto Rico because the crowd, the backlash crowds were insane. Just absolutely insane.

I may be biased. I may be very biased here, but I think it's WrestleMania. There have only been two WrestleMania's that have been outside of the United States, two international WrestleManiaes, if you will,

both of them in Toronto, WrestleMania 6 and WrestleMania 18, both of them at Rogers Center, which is where we saw Elimination Chamber this past Saturday. I don't have to go through the entire card here. Obviously, you know it's

Rock Hogan as the big match, which was not the main event. Crazy. The main event was Triple H defeating Chris Jericho. But when you look at some of these other matches here. And I'm not saying these were the greatest matches of all time. But when you just look at the star power that was on this WrestleMania, it was Stone Cold defeating Scott Hall, Edge beating Booker T and wrestling over shampoo. That's a real thing. Undertaker defeating Rick Flair,

Kurt Angle defeating Kane, DDP, defeating Christian, RVD, defeating William Regal, Maven defeating Gold Dust and Spike Dudley being part of that match. That's it for me. I know it's a biased answer. I know that someone in the UK is going, well, what about whatever in London? Yeah, I'm sure that was great. But this is Ask CVV. This isn't ask whatever your initials are.

This is Ask CVV. And I didn't even answer the question earlier. Someone said, well, Chris Sharp ever turned a heel. Well, Chris Sharp is a heel. Chris Van Fleet's the baby face. Chris Sharp is an awful man. I would never want to bring him out. I don't want to bring that side of me out anymore.

Wouldn't need him on here talking about how great he is and how there's 1.8 billion views on his YouTube channel. And still, for some reason, people don't hit subscribe. Crazy. Unbelievable. I'm giving you all this free entertainment. And people don't even have the audacity to click a button.

It's wild. Like 8 billion people on earth. And I've got almost a quarter of that in views. People don't even hit the damn subscribe button. It's stupid as that's what it is. I wouldn't want to bring Chris Sharp back. Yeah, Chris Van Fleet's a, he's a baby face. We don't want, we don't want Chris Sharp around here.

I feel like we got a little taste of Chris Sharp there. I should have thrown in some bigger words. That's what Chris Sharp like to do. put in large words that you guys wouldn't be able to understand. You're so stupid and uneducated. And all you're doing is wasting your time right now, listening to somebody else living their dreams, talking to the greatest celebrities and wrestlers on the planet.

You're living your dreams through this other person on this podcast. Wild. Yeah, we wouldn't want to bring Chris Sharp back. Nobody wants to hear from him. WrestleMania 18 is the answer to the question. It's Ghost Boy 98 on Spotify. Ask CVV number 73, the Shelton Cooper edition. What led to you being put in the sharpshooter by Natalia at your live show?

She talked about it on social media out of nowhere when we were, she was announced as a guest, and then she put out a video on Instagram, and she said, oh, I can't wait to see you guys at the show. Maybe I'll put Chris in the sharpshoot, and I'm watching this video. And I'm like, what? I didn't know that. I did not agree to this. And then I went all the way through the entire interview without bringing it up. And she's like, oh, you think you can escape.

You think you can weasel your way out of that sharpshooter? And it's funny, she had these high heels on. She took her heels off and gave me the sharpshooter barefoot. I lasted like at least two, two and a half seconds before I tapped out. Yeah, pretty proud of that. But it made for some great photos. Because it's funny, it's this juxtaposition of like, if you took the photo from the right side of the stage, she's smiling and having the greatest time. And if you took the photo from the left side of the stage, I've got agony on my face and I'm in all kinds of pain because I'm in the sharpshooter, which by the way, that's got to be a bucket list item being put in the sharpshooter by a member of the Hart family.

crazy. And then on Sunday's show, we did the Q&A, the very last question of the Q&A with the Hurt Syndicate. Brother asks, hey, since Chris was put in the sharpshooter by Natalia on Friday, do you think Bobby Lashley could put the Hurt lock on Chris right now? And I'm like, oh my gosh, no. The crowd starts cheering. The crowd then starts chanting. We hurt people. We heard people. What a great entrance theme that is. So Bobby comes over, grabs one arm, goes to grab the other arm, and MVP. I'm so glad he was there. MVP came in and saved the day. He's like, no, you want to see this guy get put in the hurt lock. You got to pay up. We're not doing that for free. And that was the end of the episode. And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you, MVP. Thank you. That could have hurt a lot.

So both of those episodes will be out on audio and also on YouTube, I think in the next week or so. I got to look at the schedule and figure that out. But so much fun. And I think it also just, it reinforces that you don't want to miss a live show. You don't want to miss a live episode of Insights. So if you're going to be in Las Vegas, grab those tickets before there are no tickets to grab. These other shows have sold out. You don't want this one to sell out as well.

Chris Downey on Facebook. By the way, great name. Never met a Chris I don't like. Hey, Chris, have you ever gigged or would you ever, would you ever to see exactly what it feels like? No, I can't say I've ever made myself intentionally bleed. I'll save that for the professionals. No, I certainly have never done that and I don't care to do that to know what it feels like.

But I'll tell you a story. there was a guy in my high school when I was doing backyard wrestling. And there was a group of eight to 10 of us who were hardcore fans. And this is like late 90s, early 2000. Like I graduated in 2001. There was a group of us. We were hardcore wrestling fans. And I won't say this guy's name.

But he decided that he wanted to see what it would feel like. And I guess look like if he bladed. and he was very embarrassed about it. And if you're listening to this, I'm not using your name. It's okay. I think he was really embarrassed about it because he went in the bathroom

with a razor blade, cut his forehead, and he cut it way too much and ended up having to go to the hospital and get stitches. And he came to school the next day with like, I don't remember how many it was, but it was like 14 stitches in his forehead.

Like this was a big line. picture from like the center of your like forehead like just below the hair line like all the way across to like where your temple is like a big line and if you've seen it videos of any wrestlers gigging it's usually just a poke it's usually like a poke of the corner of the razor blade or like a quick little slit i guess everybody has their own technique maven even made a whole video about that i love maven it's awesome but no i've never done this but this this guy did and I was trying to get him like what's the story and I'd heard through the great vine what had happened here and he's like I don't want to talk about it I'm like like what

like you took a razor blade and cut your forehead it's like I do it I don't want to I don't want to talk about it but he had the stitches in his forehead I'm sure to this day 20 plus years later he still has quite the scar on his head and I think that if I were to if I was ever thinking about doing it, which I wasn't, and I never have, that is a nice reminder to not do it. Because it was not only like, not only was it like, all right, now he had stitches in his face for the next however long and the stitches were there a week or whatever. Then followed by the scar in his head forever, it's also on top of that, the story that goes along with it for like his friends and then also whoever else knew the story of like, that's the guy who cut himself

in the head with a razor blade. And I just, I'll never forget that. So Chris, great name. Not something. No, not something I would do. Paul underscore Abbott, 1981 on Instagram. Not much of a question. Just a big up to HBK making it right a full 18 years after kicking poor Stan. And I love that the internet never forgets. And I love that wrestling fans never forget. So in case you missed it, Sean Spears won the NXT North American Championship on Tuesday. And that, by the way, is Sean Spears' first major championship in a major wrestling company. So it's no secret. Sean Spears is a good friend. I love that guy. It is well overdue that his hard work and everything he's put into this business is paying off. So super happy for him. And I love that 18 years later,

fans know, right? Fans remember the moment. Sean Spears even talked about it on my podcast. The last time he was on a few months ago, talked about like why his name was Stan and the whole thing. Go check out the episode if you don't know what I'm talking about. But they went back backstage. The camera catches them backstage. And Sean Michaels goes for the handshake. And Sean Spears just walks away and it's like, yes. Like talk about long-term storytelling. Obviously a joke. We're not signing up for a match with Sean Michaels,

but I just appreciate that it's like, again, everything counts. And we've gotten to the point in wrestling where fans are not treated like they're dumb anymore. Like, fans are going to remember that. Fans know that moment. It's an iconic moment. It's a viral moment.

It gets brought up like every week. And I just appreciate that they are acknowledging like, oh, hey, you guys know. Even if you weren't watching wrestling back then, you've seen the clips, you're in the know, you get it. And we're going to acknowledge that. So I appreciate it. And hats off to Sean Spears. Well, well deserved.

Dylan Wallace wrote this one in on Instagram, Dylan. WALLIS 93. Hey, CVV, I got to ask you, out of Santino and Mr. Garvey, of course, the substitute teacher on Key and Peel, who would pronounce your name better? My money is on Santino. So if you don't know what we're talking about here, obviously Santino has his history of mispronouncing people's names. A John Chana, Baptista, and so on and so on, Ray Masquito. And Mr. Garvey, the substitute teacher, Jake Quellen, A-A-Ron. I mean, there's not a single person on earth now named Aaron who hasn't been called A-A-A-Ron. And if your name is Aaron and you're listening to this, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I interviewed Kagan Michael Key years ago for their movie, Kiano, which is a hilarious movie. I interviewed him and Jordan Peel together. And I said, how do you think the substitute teacher would pronounce my name? And he said, you mean Chi-Rice? I said, that's not my name. Terrice, say it. Say it correctly. And he's doing the whole bit with me.

It was so funny. That video's gotten tens of millions of views online. So who would pronounce it better? The thing is, neither of them have said my last name yet. The substitute teacher would just, I think, just butcher it. Chi Rice Van Vliette, Van Vliéye, Van Vliyet? I don't know. And Santina would make it hilarious.

I'm going to have to ask Santino. Next time he's on the show, I'm going to have to ask him. How would Santino say my name? A chideyce. I think he would really put an emphasis on the rice. That's a really good question. Perhaps the best question I've been asked all year. I don't know, Dylan.

We're going to have to find out. Maybe there's a moment where I'm doing something with King and Michael Key again. And I can ask him, how would you say my last name? I'm actually going to a movie premiere tonight. I'm going to the movie premiere of Queen of the Queen of the, The Ring, which is, look, we're wrestling fans. We love a great wrestling story. We love a great wrestling movie. This is one of them. So if you love great movies about wrestling, you're going to want to check out, Queen of the Ring opens in theaters nationwide this weekend. Maybe he'll be there.

He's been in a few other events in Hollywood that I've been to, so maybe I'll see him there. The movie's about Mildred Burke, right? In 1930s, women aren't allowed to wrestle. She defies all the odds, she does it, she becomes the first female athlete to make a million dollars. Crazy that it was in wrestling that she did that. Maybe I'll see Kegan Michael Key and I can ask him that exact question. And then we will know the answer. So I'm going to put this in the pending category and I will get back to you when I have the answer to this one. And that, my friends, is the final question for Ask CVV number 73, the Joe Thomas, Michael Ryder and Dennis Rodman on the latest. Lakers edition. Thank you for all the great questions on here. We've got a lot more to dig into

John Cena's heel turned. I love it. And I just feel like it has opened the door to so many other things. I can't wait to see where it goes from here. I'm also really interested. I'm sure by next Friday we'll already have an even clearer picture of where things are going for WrestleMania. Is it going to be Logan Paul and CM Punk? Is that that kind of feels like where we're at here? Is it going to be, is Roman Raines going to be part of this? Maybe it's CM Punk and Seth Rallin. I mean, that's a possibility. Maybe Romans thrown into that. I don't know. And that's what's so exciting is there's so many different ways that this could unfold. And I love it. I love it so, so much. I saw a quote this week that really spoke to me. So I'm going to share it with you here.

Stop complaining about the results you didn't get from the work. You didn't put. put in. The only way to become more successful than most people is to be willing to do something that most people aren't willing to do. And sometimes, and I've learned this from my own personal experience, sometimes it's just the little things. Sometimes it's just doing slightly more than what other people aren't willing to do. Be great. Be grateful. Have a fantastic weekend. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. Big pop a pump! joins us on Tuesday. You don't want to miss it.

We'll see you right back here for that. 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.