My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 315 - 'CM PUNK IS BACK' EMERGENCY POD WITH JARED CARRABIS

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

It's a From The Top Rope reunion in the Basement today! Robbie Fox and Jared Carrabis hop in front of a couple mics for a BONUS EPISODE to discuss the return of CM Punk at Survivor Series! What will the future hold for Punk? Who will his first feud be with? Was Seth Rollins' reaction a work or shoot?! All of these questions AND MORE are answered in this podcast! #CMPunk #WWE #AEW ****************************************  Subscribe to My Mom's Basement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIeZ96PqdsJYQ7DFLRx6MHw My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome back to My Mom's Basement, but not really My Mom's Basement, kind of My Mom's Basement. It's really an emergency from the top rope with myself and Jared Karabas. Because CM Punk is back. I can't believe we're talking about this again. CM Punk is back in the WWE after nearly a decade spent away. Returned to Survivor Series last night. Jared, how are we? I'm still on cloud nine.

I still can't believe it. Like, I don't know about you, but I mean, obviously you're watching it live. I was watching it live i was watching it live i have spent this entire day on tiktok watching people react to it over and over and over and over and over again i have seen videos of people that were there i'm watching all the streamers i'm watching fans at home that were watching it live that were recording themselves like if you watch cm punk return last night and record yourself i've seen it at this point dude i wish i had my reaction because during the main event they're chanting cm punk and they're chanting cm punk and i turned to

my girlfriend and i'm like ah these fucking idiots in the crowd i'm like scoffing at them i'm like they're ruining the main event by chanting for a guy who's definitely not coming out and she's like there's no chance he's coming out i'm like there's no chance he's coming out i truly i know there was all the speculation around it i thought there was not a shred of doubt in my mind that he was not coming out i was like i would be more stunned than anything ever if he came out get to the end of the match his music hits my girlfriend's just like oh there you go and i'm like no no no i'm like i can't believe she's like i guess he is coming out you know she doesn't understand the significance obviously but it cracked me up the dichotomy of that did you think there was any chance he was coming out last night no dude like all right so i'll walk you through

like the the timeline of emotions when i thought slash knew he's not coming back is when he posted the hell in a cell devil thing on his instagram i was like now he's just fucking with us like yeah like you blew it like like before i was like there's a 15 to 20 chance that you know because every day there would be reports that they're not even talking oh they might be talking oh he's in meetings oh those meetings never took place like it was going back and forth every single day but when he posted that on his story i was like you fucking troll like you like i know you love to troll and you love to like lean into it but you leaned into it too heavy to where like if you are coming back like you blew it like either way i was like it's it that's when

i was like it's not happening and then the day of like i had people over and then when they do the angle of like oh we don't know if randy's here and we're all sitting there being like why would you do that like where is this going same thing thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like if he's there, like you're setting up Randy for failure. You know what I thought though? I understood it. When I thought about this, you don't want Randy Orton to come back his music hits.

And then he gets in a cage for a few minutes. You know, you want like a return pop, I guess they wanted like almost a surprise pop, which they kind of got when they sent Rhea out. But when you did that, I was like, Oh man, we've been hearing those same reports you're talking about have said like WWE wants to make it clear that CM Punk is not coming back. They don't want fans to get their hopes up. So that's why they like pre-announced Randy Orton as the partner.

And that made sense. Don't buy tickets thinking that you're going to see Punk. You're going to see Randy and you're going to like it. So when they did the surprise thing, I was like, man i i don't like that the crowd's chanting for cm punk because he's definitely not coming back and you should just pay attention to the matches in the ring but i kind of get it because you're doing the surprise angle and then the way they did it he just and and triple h loves to do this when he hits the fucking little ticker at the bottom where it looks like the show's about to be over and i swear it it

lingered for just a bit too long where i was like maybe triple h is gonna pull something at the end of this pay-per-view i still didn't think it was punk and then when the static and cult of personality hits the wide shot they had on where you see the jumbotron says cm punk right away too it was just like what the fuck it was even then i said i didn't know i didn't till he walked out you you can't until he walks i was like what grayson waller's gonna walk out and i'm gonna fucking punch a hole through my laptop right now but no i texted kevin this morning kfc i said i think this might have been the most stunned i've ever been barring the streak ending i put the streak ending number one but i think this is number two in my entire lifetime of watching wrestling.

It's two different shock factors, though. Like when I was watching the streak ending, it's like one, two, three. And then you're just like, you're almost so stunned that you laugh. You're like, what? What? But they thought it went wrong, thought they're going to restart the match or something. Yeah. Cool.

Because they didn't play Lesnar's music yeah they they let it simmer for a sec yeah so i was like did they just fuck up like what just happened like there's no way like they're gonna restart the match like there's something coming with this his music hit punk's music hit and i'm just like i i didn't believe my eyes like i thought because i saw the ticker like everyone like we pointed out the ticker like ah there's the ticker it's over and then when punk's music hit i thought that it was like oh like we're like here's like a a flashback to cm punk because we're coming out with this new cm punk documentary like i didn't even think it was the same fucking show. And then we're freaking out.

Like, everyone in my house is freaking out. Two of my friends, they have to be up at 5 o'clock in the morning. Oh, man. So they left. They left at, like, 930. And I sarcastically, as he was leaving, he was like, all right, we got to go. We got to be up.

And I was like, oh, so you're going to miss CM Punk later? And he's like, all right, we gotta, we gotta go. We gotta be up. And I was like, Oh, so you're going to miss CM Punk later. He's like, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but like the people that were still there freaking the fuck out. My girlfriend was sitting on my lap, sleeping on my chest, like a baby. And she fell asleep at the beginning of war games. So like, you spread around hit her with an RKO when punk came out,

everyone is still talking so like i was like we can communicate she's not gonna wake up like she's a rock and then punk came out and i was like oh my god she's like what the fuck is going on like it was insane like i still don't think that i've come down from it like it's one of those things that you i i probably re-watched that clip first of all like immediately when people left i went to bed and i just put on the wwe youtube channel and they had the clip of it like when it first dropped and i just would rewind and rewind and like i watched it 500 times last night and then i watched it a million times today like i can't i

can't get enough of the first like minute 30 of that clip the pop is so good it's it's so because it was such a surprise it's crazy that they kept it under wraps as well as they did because of all the speculation like for months there's been like you said the articles and this or that and is he going is he not going they're not interested and from all of the normally reputable credible sources i don't think they were wrong at any point they said the deal came together like maybe yesterday. I've seen some people saying maybe they had their first conversation even 10 days ago, and he signed on the dotted line yesterday. It is crazy that they were able to keep that in the room. Apparently, it was just like Punk, Triple H, and Nick Khan.

I'm sure at some point some more people knew they said that reportedly the competitors in the war games match that main evented the show were told before right before they went out yes which has to be like crazy in your mind where you're like we're about to destroy our bodies and barely anyone is going to be talking about it tomorrow it's the kind of thing where at the end of that show it's like oh well fuck that's going to be the talking point but now Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre also are weaved into this story because Drew McIntyre stormed out after the match like before Punk's return even happened just stormed out out of the ring which made sense like storyline wise he's a heel on their judgment day yeah and he doesn't even like these people he just teamed up with so I didn't make a big deal out of that but some people are saying went right to the locker room

stormed out and left i've seen melzer saying he doesn't think that's it works i know mcintyre's contract is up soon he hasn't re-signed maybe he just got told about punk and was like fuck the salary cap just fucking you know we just lost some room in that i'm sure i don't know if that's true or not seth rollins had much more of a public freak out. I would say when the music hit, he threw the belt against the cage. He starts yelling at the ref. Did you know he starts,

he goes outside, he starts flipping punk off and going, fuck you, fuck you. And it's so over the top that my gut went to like, this has to be a work, right? I mean,

we know Seth doesn't like punk in real life but we got a classic work or shoot this is why punk being back is the best by the way because we have moments like this where we're actually debating is this a work or a shoot what do you think when i first saw the clip i was like this is a shoot, brother. Like, this is real. And before we came on here, it sucks because all the clips are gone. But we interviewed Seth Rollins in, what, 2019, I want to say? Maybe 2018 even? We were in HQ3. Okay, yeah.

It was probably 2019. Yeah, so it was somewhere around that time. And I forget what the setup was to the question because i know that the the uh clip that goes viral now is when he's like yeah go away phil bye bye like that one that was cancer yeah yeah like that was recently pretty recently that was after he came back from i think aw i think he made his aw return by that point um i think that was i think that was nick houseman asking him like do you think punk could come to wwe during the first suspension okay yeah yeah yeah so that was like stay away yeah he did like

almost a trump voice stay away you're a cancer yeah yeah so i i forget what the setup was to the question but i remember saying something along the lines of like, we don't have to say his name, but something, something, something. And I was referring to punk and Seth Rollins is response was no, you can say his name. Fuck him. Like fuck CM punk,

blah, blah, blah. He's just like going off on it. Like he's the one that said his name, not me. Cause he knew what I was talking about. Uh,

I was very taken aback by that because as you know, uh, WWE, WWE interviews, like they're not allowed to swear we can't swear when we ask some questions usually like a person in the room on the line yeah yeah there's someone sitting in on it and he went off on cm punk and this is before he came back so unless i mean i don't think that he's working it four years out. I think he genuinely dislikes him. So when I saw that clip, my first reaction was like, this is real.

But obviously, they want you to think it's real because they didn't show it on camera. But they know. Like, it's a PLE. They know that there's plenty of WWE influencers that that are sitting right there like brock lesnar guy was right there like there was a bunch of dudes that have tiktok accounts with a bunch of like they knew it was going to get captured and posted the moment everyone's filming beauty of it yeah yeah everyone has their camera out the moment cult of personality hits yeah yeah and and i think i don't it's it's like am i giving them too much credit for knowing that it

would be filmed and posted and go viral so it's like we still got it out there like people like we we set up the angle we trusted that the audience would film this and post it so that it's out there but i mean that is kind of just i don't. Maybe it's wishful thinking where, because they didn't record it. Like how, and he's dropping F-bombs. He's dropping F-bombs, flipping the bird. I feel like it better be a work. That's how, like, if it's not a work, it's crazy behavior from Seth Rollins.

But I think Seth Rollins is a fucking pros pro. He's a father at this point. He was told before the War Games match. So he knew it was happening. Like, he was told before the war games match so he knew it was happening like what was he thinking the whole war games match i can't wait to fucking flip that guy off and tell him i don't like him come on seth rollins is what 35 36 years old at this point well there was a report he acts like that didn't melzer or someone else had a report that he went looking for punk backstage after and people were like it was awkward that he was acting well yeah i think it was sean ross sapp i wrote this down reported that

in gorilla position seth had to be ushered away by triple h and michael cole that was also a funny part of the clip michael cole was the one holding him back yeah he was yeah he was not happy about punk's appearance punk was said to have looked confused by it and at least to people in the area it was said to be an awkward scene. Let me ask you this. Maybe again, I'm giving him too much credit. Is there any chance Triple H pulled Drew and set the side before the pay-per-view and said, Hey, why don't you just work your way out? Like throughout the arena after the match, just keep kayfabe for just a little bit longer.

Drew, you get to leave right away. Just grab your gear, get out of there, and make people think you're pissed. Seth, go after Punk and Gorilla. Punk will know. Maybe you get that AEW, oh my God, is there going to be brawls? You get everyone talking about it. We're talking about it like this, work or shoot. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit.

I feel like that would be a smart move. Why not tell Drew, hey, don't shower as soon as you get to the back shower when you get to the hotel. And now you got people talking about you get the dirt sheets talking about your contract is up. Is he going to sign? Is he going to resign? Like it's punk 2011 all over again.

You could run that angle with Drew and him pissed that punk came in like there's options. And the other thing, too, did you watch the press conference after i didn't watch it but i watched clips i watched the clip of triple h talking about punk and i watched the clip of cody going up and reading the stats again being like sorry it's the evp in me yeah yeah yeah so one of the things that triple h said that stood out to me was he's like you know we did this war games match and he compared it to like an action movie it's like well an action movie that just has a bunch of explosions and no story it's like that's garbage so you can have a great action movie that tells a story is like i think that there were a

lot of uh storylines in this war games match and we answered some questions and then we posed some more questions so that's how his brain works is yeah you know like obviously you have the rkl from the top of the cage spot like there's some cool spots in that match and they still played into like the randy orton callback to like jay uso like you know the bloodline is the one that like put me out so like there is that like you're telling little stories in between and everything and i mean i i think back to uh you know survivor series when you had the montreal screw job who who was riding shotgun to all that triple h was right there like he knows like he he saw the whole thing unfold and how that built vince mcmahon as a star and like it it so i think his

brain does work that way where vince's may or may not work that way where it's like all right you know what happens on camera is you know it is what it is because do you remember i forget i forget who was involved but they tried something where there was like a fight in the parking lot this was like a year like within the last couple years there was like a fight in the parking lot this was like a year like within the last couple years there was like a fight in the parking lot before raw or smackdown but it was filmed on a cell phone and they tried to pass it off like it was like fan footage or something yeah i think that triple h is starting to think that way where it's like you know everyone has a camera and we have all these people that are reporting on wrestling now like let's use that to our

advantage because it's not how he came up like it's not like that's not how it went i mean he knows now because of uh the uh the click incident there was one fucking guy with a camera and like now he's that fucking guy yeah like so like but now everyone has a camera. And I think he's smart enough to think that way and have it be more of a reality based product. Because that's what that's what gets me. Like when I tweeted out the CM Punk thing, you know, many people were like, I haven't watched wrestling since he left. And now, like, I'm back. Like, they don't even know about, like, the AEW drama. It's like like AEW is like an island that doesn't exist to fans that are only loyal to wwe

or maybe stop watching years ago it's crazy too the difference between this and his aew return they're both so awesome but this one has that shocking factor where like the aew return we pretty much knew he was coming back it was like wrestling's worst kept secret this was the best kept secret when it comes to the aew run in general how did you feel about it i i mean obviously it's disappointing in terms of like injuries suspensions shit like that but overall i felt like he delivered some great promos some great matches mjf my favorite feud and uh match he had was the one with eddie kingston which isn't even that long i think it's like a 12 minute match but were you a fan of the aw run some of it i mean like the the eddie kingston promos were great um but i think where i didn't love it was when it became real and i felt

like he was getting disrespected i know there are a lot of people out there like oh cm punk's a piece of shit and like he deserved it and he got treated how he deserved to be treated but i think to me obviously being a big punk mark uh i didn't like the aspect of how like he was a veteran in a room full of young guys that i genuinely believe he wanted to help that didn't want his help that were like all right see you later old man like you're you know you're part of the past and we're trying to leapfrog you whereas like they didn't see through what he was actually trying to do like yeah i'm here like trying to think um you know like it's not the perfect comparison but like you know if like back in like 2019 2018 when you know if i'm like

screaming at someone in the barstool office it's like i'm trying to draw attention so that like we both get elevated here but if your feelings actually get hurt well now i look like an asshole and you hate me in real life and now no one benefits from this but if you get that it's a work then like we can both draw attention to ourselves and and and put some eyeballs on us and i feel like that's what happened with him there was he went there to help people and feelings got hurt and real things were said and it was just maybe on both sides yeah maybe on both sides like feelings were hurt for sure but i don't want to call it a gigantic waste of time but it's almost like oh we ruined the good surprise on you like like when he came

back last night there was part of me that was like fuck i wish he never went to adw like we saw some cool matches and you know maybe there were some quote-unquote dream matches that happened like i loved it like his last match was against joe like it was cool to see that especially in front of like a crowd that size great match but in terms of like you know being dormant for a decade it would have been way cooler not that it wasn't cool it's fucking awesome but yeah no it would have been way cooler if like you know he was just ufc doing horror movies and then bam i'm back in wwe after all this time and it is almost a decade it was someone pointed out that it's like nine years to the day or not to the day, but to the week since the podcast came out. It was like the Thanksgiving podcast. Yep.

Almost a decade later. The biggest difference is Vince is pretty much not involved at this point. We know he's still on the TKO board and whatnot. But the reports are that Ari Emanuel, I think who runs uh wme and tko is like if i hire you to do a job i want you doing that job and he feels that way about triple h being the creative guy in wwe so he's like vince why don't you take a little step out i don't think ari's a big vince guy so i think triple h is just some cementing his legacy as basically the olive branch guy. Bruno Sam Martino getting him into the Hall of Fame.

Ultimate Warrior getting him into the Hall of Fame. And now CM Punk getting him back. It's insane that Triple H is the one to mend all of the bridges that Vince burnt down. Sting. Sting. Another one. That's like he was the key to getting Sting back. Triple H.

Give this guy his respect and the picture he tweeted you talked about your eyes deceiving you the picture he tweeted where he's like hell is frozen over yeah yeah or whatever i was staring at that my dog shout out my dog face she threw up in the middle of the night last night woke me up threw up at four in the morning i just couldn't stop scrolling when i when i cleaned up to throw up i was like oh my god and i just kept looking at that picture and I was like, I'm not dreaming. Right. This is fucking, this is re this ain't AI. This isn't Photoshop that happened. Right. Like I could not fathom that it happened. And it's like impossible to explain that to people who don't get it,

who weren't there through it all. I saw this guy garrett kidney had a great thread about how like there's a direct correlation in the pipe bomb in aew existing like punk created a certain type of wrestling fan or at least created it within wwe mainstream audiences pointed things out that people hadn't picked up on if they weren't on forums and hardcore wrestling fans that became a certain style of wrestling a certain generation of wrestlers and eventually i think led to the creation of aew he eventually goes there he has a run it doesn't go well and now he's back in wwe it is so mind-blowing you can't explain it to people that don't get it yeah and i think you have to be a real diehard wrestling fan to have hope i think because if you're if you if you were like a wrestling fan that kind of came into it uh in like 2011 2012 it's like all right so i started watching wrestling in the early 2010s and cm punk is red hot he's your favorite and then he goes away

and like you're probably thinking oh like there's there's no chance that he'll come back but in pro wrestling like i will never say never ever like he's the one example like when brett by the way we should when brett hart came back and had that moment in the ring with sean which i didn't know until very recently that like that was like a real moment that they saw each other like they hadn't spoken since the screw job and they saw each other in catering and i think sean went up to brett and started talking to him brett was like save it for the ring so like what we saw was their first real interaction since that shit went down so get it like the names that we mentioned those returns getting those getting the brett and sean moment and now punk coming back and hogan hogan fucking

sued mr mcmahon he's i mean he's been in and out of the hall of fame nine times like there's just like in pro wrestling doesn't matter how bad it gets how ugly it gets the fact that punk is back is the one where i thought he could be the exception to the rule. But I mean, fuck, I think, but when people say, Oh,

it's because he thought he was going to be the exception to the rule too. I think he wanted to be, but then, but then you get older. Like when you're in your thirties and you think you're going to live forever. Now he's fucking in his mid forties. He's got the gray hairs. Like he's like talking even a couple of years ago,

though, like an AEW, he's got the gray hairs. Like he's like talking even a couple of years ago, though, like an AEW, he's talking like, fuck that. He said to MJF, the clip is going viral again today. Like grass is greener on the other side. You want to main event night four of a buy one,

get one free extravaganza. And it's like, now it looks like he might main event night one. Cause that seems like the obvious thing to do. There are obviously those clips that are going to go viral. There's the clip where I said, like, I, you you know i left pro wrestling and today i'm returning to pro wrestling when he came back to aw yeah those clips are out there he also posted on his uh on his instagram feel like the enemy of my enemy is my friend or whatever yeah i think that's his mindset

at this point i think in his mind exactly i think a year ago he was like fuck wwe blood money saudi arabia you know you're saying suck that blood money dick to them is yeah is he gonna go wrestle in saudi arabia after i don't i don't know those clips are obviously going to be out there i assume he'll address them but i think he's in like a all right you don't want me i'm gonna fucking bury you mode yeah yeah and that's a great place to be i i think like i think he's he's that's that's what i was gonna ask you if if if aw never exists we probably don't see punk back in wwe again like i think his experience had to go so poorly in aw

to where he was like i'm not like my passion for the business has reignited but not here like now i feel like this like this sucks but i still have it left in me and i still want to do this but not here can i go back there and like make amends like he had to what uh kiss and make up with the ms uh i'm sure a lot of people backstage i think yeah like there were and he's got friends backstage it's not like nobody likes him like that's the thing about punk is he's very polarizing in that there's people that hate him but there's also people that love him and he had people that loved him in aew he had his own like squad of people in aew that were super cool and we very much like punk he's always been super cool to us so it's always like when those probably because we never talked to him about wrestling maybe we talked to him about

like horror movies mostly yeah our movies and baseball i've never talked to him about wrestling ever yeah and that might be why we've had such great interaction i don't i don't know but that's why it's awkward always when like the punk brawl out stories go out or brawl in you know it's like i don't want to fucking talk about this i don't want to blog about this i like punk i want them to like me like but you know i got friends that don't like them i got uh friends that have met them and don't like them that i think will work with them in wwe and it'll be amazing like i think everyone is going to be in that mode of like let's make some money and i think this is even a good spot for aew to be in like let's see what tony khan and aws got with their backs against the wall like

at this point i think it's fair to say the momentum is swung widely in wwe's favor especially cody rhodes and cm punk like two of the guys that were like aew's true like not homegrown obviously but like cody was aew for that first year or two and then punk was like oh my god this is the next generation of aew this next phase and they made him the guy twice and in injuries and obviously like faulted that but i think this is like like you said like turn a new leaf punk wants to bury them and let's see what happens i'm ready to get my heart broken a third time i said i i'm not i don't think that we're headed there i i think that he's had that moment of all right um maybe he does in a way regret the the amount of time that he took away because i think he did come back yeah you wanted to try ufc that's fine give it a shot but i think maybe he has regrets about the time

that he took away because in aew like yeah his body did break down it's like i wasted a lot of prime years of my career like i do still love this i didn't love the circumstances that existed for me when I was doing it, but I still love professional wrestling. So I, people kept talking about like, Oh, like now there's like so many dream matches that we can have. Like, I don't even think that it's like a dream match situation.

Like I want to see him versus Seth Rollins, which we're probably going to get at the rumble. Obviously at some point, like it's a new opponent for Roman and I would love to see his last match be against John Cena. Like I would love to see his last match be against John Cena. I would love to run that back. That would be awesome, yeah. Tie that loose end.

It's not even like, oh, we can have a match against Shinsuke Nakamura. I don't give a fuck. I don't need to see him against LA Knight, which I think would be cool. I thought about it. Yeah, it'd be a great match. But that's not one of the dream matches. It'd be a good program. It'd be a good program because they're on the mic you can tell the ms story with him like you can make

it real like kind of like what's going on with jay uso right now where it's like oh you've pissed off so many people and we didn't forget about it like you can do that same thing with punk and never run out of opponents how would you book him like coming in do you go face heel tweener like i think in terms of wrestling you use him very sparingly almost roman reigns schedule because i agree you know his body we don't know where it's at and i don't mean that a disrespectful way i mean that in a let's get as much as we can out of punk way yeah because i think now is the question of if we're headed for seth and punk the Rumble, does Seth still have the title? Because I think I think we'll have the title until Mania, to be honest.

And I think that'll probably be the night one Mania main event. If I had to put my money on it now, I think it's Seth and Punk. You're going to have him lose his first match. No, no, no. I. Maybe. Maybe that's the story you tell. I don't know.

I don't know if you can do that. I don't know. It's tough. It's tough. But you want Punk to come in and just, yeah, I guess, like best in the world. You want him to beat Seth right away. I maybe he goes into mania as, as champ, but I think it's punk and Seth.

I just, from a business sense and point of view and the way that title has been booked, I would prefer it to be like punk and Kevin Owens who they have like a public history with their ring of honor pass and stuff. And I feel like their promos would be it'd be a better program leading up to it maybe a better match too but i i just feel like that's where they're going we've seen punk cena so many times but like not like this not like when they're both at the back end like it's like there's no in that program no one gets hurt no one really benefits like they're both hall of famers they both multi-time champions and it's like no one needs the rub so you don't know what that outcome is going to be let me ask

you this what if punk's first match isn't like a one-on-one at the rumble what if he's in the rumble you couldn't get him thrown out in his first match and that sets up a mania match very easily it's not the same as like you get someone to you know he eliminates someone they fucking run on uh in the ring behind him and like do a dirty move or something that i think is would be more acceptable than getting him pinned in his first match also let me throw this out there is there a chance they fucking say let's strike while the iron is hot stone cold steve austin versus cm punk night one wrestlemania that's the dream match like that's the ultimate dream match and like stone cold put on a pretty fucking good match with kevin owens at wrestlemania that's the dream match like that's the ultimate dream match and like

stone cold put on a pretty fucking good match with kevin owens at wrestlemania a couple years ago yeah you can do a very similar match to that where you have the he's drinking beers he's doing atv stunts kind of a smoke and mirrors like street fight punk does very well in street fights his summer slam street fight against brock is one of my favorites ever i think you could do that match and it obviously could be a wrestlemania main event like that's worthy of night two if you wanted to do it there yeah that's that's the ultimate dream match because we've been i mean we've been talking about that for over 10 years now like when they were they were promoting uh wwe 2k13 and doing the interview with punk and austin and everyone thought we were going to get that match 10 years ago and they did

their first face off backstage in 2011 i think yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah because it was when stone cold had the shirt that punk eventually wore for the pipe bomb. But Punk was doing the what thing to Austin. Yeah, he's like, what? What? Yeah. Do you think it'd create a super villain origin story in real life if Punk got Reigns instead of Cody this year? I don't. They're going to split them up.

I don't think we. On different brands, you think well i mean on different nights of wrestlemania oh yeah i agree i think cody main events night two against reigns and punk will main event night one against whoever you want him to be in there against if he wants the main event against otis you let him made a fan against otis does he go over i mean like this is the whole thing is oh man you you whined and cried for getting your WrestleMania main event. And now you're going to get it. Like now he's built up and he had the stock before, which they kind of just fucked him his first run. Now he has the stock to be like, obviously, I'm going to be a WrestleMania main event. It's just a matter of against who he cares if he goes over.

I can't. I don't know i don't think so because if i think i asked daniel bryan or someone asked daniel bryan what his like most satisfying proudest moment was and he said it was putting kofi over and the rest of me and he made it he's like i think we told like an amazing story there was a great lead up like that was very much intentional everything we did i think punk would feel the same way about like even putting over like kofi like one of his friends or something oh yeah but who is that person that he could work and put over and be like thank i'm glad that that guy went over yeah i don't know who punk would

want to elevate yeah maybe that'll i mean that that'll also like rear its head in coming weeks he's gonna be on Raw on Monday, apparently. And in AEW, we didn't know who Punk's like click would be. And he eventually found his little like Brody King, Dan Housen, all the punk rockers. Yeah, probably. Oh, did he? Yeah, because Dan Housen just made his return. Shout out Dan Housen.

That was great. After like another like a year and a half of uh injury he was off for a while yeah he made yeah he said something like thanks for making my return like memorable for like six days or whatever that's funny i love dan hausen calls him pepsi phil and and punk bought dan hausen an amazing fantasy original appearance of spider-man which is like a holy grail for comic book collectors yeah i did this holly guy to his friends yeah i mean you bought joey mercury a fucking house yeah he did are they still cool or no i don't know like the line the line that mercury had in the documentary was i don't know if i don't know if i'm his best friend but he's

my best friend yeah but that documentary was also like 10 years ago. 12, I think. Yeah, even longer. Another random punk dream match I wrote down that I want to see is Punk Gunther. I fucking love Gunther. I'm trying to think of any big men that punk worked that was interesting. I mean, the Undertaker match. Well, I think Brock. Like the Undertaker undertaker match brock yeah as an underdog punk is like definitely a different

fiery wrestler that i think is cool and you work like he works the fucking mma leg kicks and that kind of shit yeah wonder who the first dude will be against like it'll probably be set it'll probably be set but you want to get there at the rumble you got time like are they gonna are they gonna build this for the next two months just in promos or is he gonna have a match on raw at some or on smackdown at some point i think he's gonna come back cut a promo i think he's gonna go away i don't think we're gonna see that much of him leading up to the rumble maybe we probably should yeah i think they're gonna save him like i don't think he's gonna be like oh it's

friday night smackdown cm punk versus fucking i don't uh what are those uh the brisango knockoff guys oh uh yes what is their thing i don't even know man it's bad i they're not bad it's bad that i don't know it but yeah yeah the guests like they're not gonna just like have him do like throw it guys wwe dancing fools dancing fools oh my god that was actually the name of uh disco inferno and alex wright's tag team in WCW, the Dancing Fools. What? Yeah. I don't remember that.

I wasn't at WCW, by the way. That's just a random thought I had. You meet him? No, just on Twitter. I read his takes sometimes. I'm like, this guy's a fucking... He likes to tell people how to wrestle. It's like, bro, you're Disco Inferno.

Shut up. What's his name in real life? Disco Inferno? Yeah. Is his handle Disco Inferno, or does he go by whatever? inferno shut up what's his name in real life disco inferno yeah i don't know is this handle disco inferno or does he go by whatever it's like the real disco glenn glenn gerbetty i don't know um any other thoughts on the pay-per-view overall i thought it was good pay-per-view i know you texted me that i was like i i, obviously like punk was in the back of my head the whole time. It was cool to see Randy.

He looks fucking huge. He was taking full advantage of not getting tested that year and a half for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That RKO was awesome. EO sky jumping off the cage in the trash can was one of the more hysterical visuals I've ever seen.

Yeah. I thought both war games matches delivered. I thought both. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. I think Randy's in the best shape of his career right now because he's had yeah i thought both war games matches delivered i thought both yeah pretty good yeah i think randy's in the best shape of his career right now because he's had times where he was big he's had times

where he was cut he's both right now he is that this is the best randy i think we've ever seen and i i think i'm glad that people are appreciating randy for uh being one of the greatest of all time and still being able to enjoy him at the top of his game like he's like 43 years old like you look at some of the fucking people that came up there like john cena is fucking balding on the back of his head like dave batista has white hair now uh rick flair looks like the crypt keeper well batista is like 10 years older than orton batista is older than triple h batista's old yeah but i'm just talking about like dudes from his era yeah he still looks like he's in his prime like it's not like randy orton is not a nostalgia act randy orton looks and acts a part of someone that's in the prime of their career, and yet he's been around since, what, like 2002?

I think so. That's about right, yeah. Did you notice Jey Uso give a, oh, shit, when he looked up and saw that they were about to do the RKO? Yeah, yeah, he did. And he was, oh, shit. And I was like, oh, that's great. That was all of us realizing this spot they were about to do there. Yeah.

Thought Rhea looked like a beast in her match. Yeah, was like, oh, that's great. That was all of us realizing this spot they were about to do there. Yeah. Um, thought real looked like a beast in her match. Um, look very cool. Yeah. I felt like she was inspired. Did I text you what I thought she was inspired by? No,

she had makeup like just on one side of her mouth kind of going off. More like the singer of black veil brides. Remember that band? No, I don't. They they're they're like a 2000s metal band that a lot of people think are super cringy but i know ria is like a legit fan of them i actually like some of their music too i think you probably would too um and the singer would always wear like just one side kind of stitches i think i don't know if anyone pointed

that out but i thought she was inspired by that. Tell you what, one match that I didn't really enjoy on the show, Santos Escobar and Dragon Lee. Yeah, I was stunned by and I didn't think it was necessarily their fault. Yeah, I thought it was more of a whoever produced this match, not to like point blame on people. Dragon Lee is so much fun as a flippy lucha guy why not book him in a fucking eight minute match where he gets to do all his flips and he gets the crowd going crazy he does the flip over the top this was like a 15 minute they felt like a 15 minute match at least where he took the heat 90 percent of it he was just getting beat up the whole time a couple flips and the crowd was like into it when he did do a flip but like strange booking nobody nobody comes to see santos escobar and dragon lee

do like a rest hold match it was weird and it was like uh the protagonist was ray mysterio who wasn't there yeah and carlito yeah both of them weren't there like here's more about for sure yeah it's like the the animosity was directed towards ray mysterio who was not in the building yeah so just felt weird um let me ask you this before we get out of here as well you're doing a barstool podcast right now black friday cyber monday weekend is any part of you worried because i'm not gonna lie there's a part of me that's like jared's gonna get in trouble for not promoting merch for doing this even though he doesn't work with us anymore i still get anxiety every black friday i'm like i feel like i gotta be promoting merch like i just uh i wake up you could buy this 20 off what i'm wearing because

i have anxiety about it too i know people are unfollowing me because i'm tweeting too much that's okay like i'm just tweeting as much as i can like a machine gun tweeting it off machine gun carl anderson yeah you uh you trade followers for not being on dave's radar 100 times absolutely absolutely i saw gaz tweeted that people hadn't promoted and i was like guys learn from my mistakes. I died for your sins. Just all you got to do is on what not to do. Yeah. All you got to do is throw in a few tweets, make a funny video, anything, and you'll stay out of the crosshairs. Do you know who it was that didn't promote?

I don't. And I actually am not going to lie. I snooped around a little bit trying to find out, and I still don't know. I assume we'll find out tomorrow. Cyber Monday. I assume Dave is going to be in the office and that's usually when it's, I assume, I don't know if he'll be in the office,

but we're doing like the telethon like we normally do. So yeah, you would think. Yeah. Also, I wanted to put this out there for any old school fans of from the top rope. Jared mentioned it before we lost some of the files.

Like if you go to the page right now, I think there's like four episodes still up there. I believe they were probably taken down due to copyright. We used from the top by Motley crew as our theme. And then we would intro every wrestler with their theme. So we had at least two cases of copyright in every episode. If you still have the episodes downloaded, get in touch with me or Jared on Twitter. Jared will send you to me. We want to get some of those

old interviews back. And I definitely have some hard drives, but I don't know if I have all of them. So reach out if you've got some episodes downloaded. I know some people definitely do because I've gotten tweets over the years, like I'm relistening to some old episodes. So if you're able to do that, you're probably able to send them. There's also websites that have them even if they were pulled elsewhere. Like if they were pulled from... Like archived. Yeah, like yeah.

Because they obviously got rid of all the Section 10 episodes. And like they exist somewhere. There's some website where they still exist. It would be nice to have back to repost old clips like jared just mentioned about seth now that we're allowed to talk about jared again yeah that's true and uh we have two interviews with sam punk well you have three i think i think i have three at least but we did an interview together i think we did two interviews together maybe we did one of them in studio and then i think we did another one over yeah zoom to promote uh his movie the left devil left something devil devil inside me i thought it was something on

the third floor girl on the third floor girl on the third floor yeah that's it i was thinking house on the left house on the left movie that's yeah they remade it it's an original from like the 70s maybe yeah yeah there you go so get in touch with us if you have those old episodes maybe we'll do some uh future content now that punk is back i know your fury towards wrestling is back yeah i mean i i i didn't watch crown jewel, but that's probably like the first PLE. I haven't watched pretty good show to be honest in 10 years.

I don't know. I just, it was on at noon. Yeah. That's weird. And they kind of treat those like they're not canon in a weird way. Yeah. Like there was no storyline development.

Like there was no crazy matches or any crazy spots so i just didn't have the desire to go back and watch it again but yeah i usually don't miss the peelies and we need to get our shit together so that we can get to the rumble that's right we're gonna go to the rumble we're planning a boys trip every year where we're gonna go to the royal rumble wherever it is visit new spots you'll be wearing that shirt cm punk's gonna be there that's fucked up to think about i haven't seen it because every time that i've been to aw either with you or in boston he hasn't been on the card i still know he was on the card no he was on the card when we went to aw but he didn't wrestle he came out and cut a promo against the Islanders. Remember? No, he was like a heel. Yeah.

When we went, it was, uh, MJF on long Island. I remember, I remember. Uh, punk came out to MJS music. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And he cut a total heel promo. He was a face at the time and like crowds did not have any backlash towards them at the time, but he was a heel on long Island. he was feuding with mjf yeah very well that was what i was going to ask you do you think he's still going to get a strong reaction um on the

positive end of the spectrum when he's not in chicago i don't know i think my guts is no you don't think so i think he's gonna get a cena reaction not like not more booze than cheers but i think you're gonna get like a let's go punk punk sucks type deal i'm not gonna love that i think that i think they might play into that i don't know based on all the reactions that i've seen from all the people that film themselves people seem to be really excited yeah in the first four hours there was at least 27 million views on his return that being said people get excited over turns look back at royal rumble 2008 john cena gets one of the biggest pops ever and then he gets booed as he wins the match so it's like i don't know i don't know it'll be it'll be interesting to monitor he'll

apparently be on raw there's rumors that he's going to be a free agent that could go between brands i think that would probably be for the best i think they'd be smart just do a you know a couple punk matches a year at the big premium events to have them cut promos on the shows that you need them on yeah so look out for and look out for for more from the Top Rope content. If you want more from the Top Rope content, you know how you could get it. Buy some Black Friday merch, 20%.

Yeah. Bye-bye. Cyber Monday. Yeah. What was the old Taboo Tuesday? All of it, 20%. All of it. Buy yourself some.

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