My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 326 - CM PUNK IS HURT (FROM THE TOP ROPE WITH JARED CARRABIS)

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Robbie and Carrabis break down the Royal Rumble, CM Punk's injury, and the Road to WrestleMania. Plus, they debate whether or not Cody Rhodes should "finish the story" this year and if The Rock would be a more interesting opponent for Roman Reigns. #WrestleMania #WWE #CMPunk ****************************************  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. All right, welcome back to My Mom's Basement presented by Barstool Sports, but not really My Mom's Basement today, From the Top Rope today. We've got another emergency edition of From the Top Rope with Jared Karabas, The Rocket, as always, joining me to talk Graps. Jared, how are we feeling? I know you're probably not feeling great today. I mean, the second that the Rumble, no, it was the next day.

It was the day after the Rumble. I texted you. I said, I am available for media. I needed an outlet. I needed a place to talk about it. I'm sick. I think even it's gotten worse, right? Like, it's like, I feel like when i said that to you that was just

about the rumble result it wasn't even about the punk injury yet like things have gotten worse since i since i told you i needed a place to come talk about this shit so you didn't like that you didn't like cody winning the rumble at all i don't like cody wait what what yeah i'm not yeah i i let's get right into it why why don't i like cody yeah i did you like him before he went to aw is it the aw thing that you don't like no no no i i so when cody's i guess uh when his special came out I was like alright I like I keep going back and forth on it I don't like being told what I should care about I don't

like that like when so I'm as big of a Roman guy as Roman guys get and when fans were booing Roman Reigns for being like pushed down their throat like I got it. Like I was like,

like this feels awkward and uncomfortable for me because I kind of agree. Like I didn't like what Roman was doing when the fans were booing him unmercifully. Now I feel like Cody is doing that, but everyone's like, yay. So now for like, I'm coming from a place of like,

why the fuck did you boo me roman when i was being forced and now you're cheering cody when cody's being forced what's the difference i don't get it i don't think i i don't think it's the same because i think when cody came in it was immediately like oh my god the crowd is so happy to have him here and he's gotten amazing reactions in every city they go to. Roman at the time was getting, people hated him in every city they went to. And they were like, this is the baby. Why were we getting booed? Why?

I want to know why. Because it didn't, it didn't match. What he was trying to portray didn't match who he was. Who, what are you, who he's playing right now? The head of the table. That's Roman Reigns. Suffer and suck a tash. That was not Roman Reigns.

And they were trying to force it on him with Cody. I feel stories like amazing because it's real. He actually left the WWE. He's actually trying to finish the story that his dad never finished. It's like the iron claw in real life in that way. But, you know, without some of the trauma that,

uh, the Von Eric family went through there. I think this is like, perfect. This is what I wanted to happen in the rumble. I was like, please God have Cody win. Cody has to be the one to take the title off roman there's nobody else it could be there's nobody else it could be but you you think cody's finishing his story at wrestlemania

if he doesn't i'm gonna be so livid bro i will i think i said it before i will january 6th at the wwe headquarters like i don't i need this story finished do you think that cody goes into wrestlemania 40 as a favorite yes i hope so i mean like i know the hogan record is far further away and they probably do want reigns to but you can't push it because it's reached the point where he can only lose the title at wrestlemania only wrestlemania you cannot have him drop the belt that survivor series summer slam the rumble you can't have him drop it to the rock and you're not doing cody verse uh roman three times in a row at wrestlemania it has to happen this year.

It has to because also it should have happened last year. I think it absolutely should have, knowing how the year has played out especially. Roman's feuds with the Usos, the Bloodline, that was all non-title related, really. We didn't need the title for the line at SummerSlam. It still could have been the main event. Now, Cody, on the other hand,

he's felt like he's in limbo since WrestleMania. If his feud with Brock had the title attached to it, I think even more people care. I agree. So I agree to a point where I didn't want him, obviously, to lose the title at WrestleMania last year. But knowing how this year played out, it's like, all right, yeah, then that would have made more sense. I just thought that there was more juice in the bloodline storyline but it really peaked at the rumble last year the rumble last year like the the pop of sammy turning on roman i thought like that was the start of like holy fuck like. Like, where is it going to go from here? And then it didn't really,

it didn't live up to the hype after that. Like that was the peak. I thought that that Sammy turning on Roman was going to open up a whole year long program of like, where are we going from here? Like, this is exciting. But then like Jay's turn,

like the baby, like Jay's baby face run has been like, yeah, like I've enjoyed it but getting away from like any bloodline stuff i don't know that i've loved jay on his own jimmy turning i like him roman i like him on his own but like the fact that he's completely detached from any bloodline hijinks i don't love. And then they have Jimmy turn on Roman. And then his fucking, his theme music is like, fuck my family.

I'm on my own now. And, and, but then like it lasted for two weeks and then he's back in the bloodline. It just felt very sloppy in terms of the build and the storytelling. And now Jimmy went from like, like he, like the Uso'sos were unbelievable like it

was awesome just as much watching roman as it was the usos and they've turned jimmy into a fucking stooge where he's just out there being he's the fucking he's the pat patterson gerald briscoe of the corporation like what are we doing with jimmy do you think they were trying to keep him and jay apart from each other obviously they were one and two in the rumble which i thought that was a cool move do you think they were trying to be like we're gonna keep pushing that off because that match has to happen at wrestlemania i think that's a wrestlemania worthy match i think it'll happen this year too i agree that that's what they were doing but like at least the only they kept it relevant by having them one and two in the rumble why wouldn't you have team jimmy

versus team jay at survivor series oh that would have been good yeah that would have been why didn't you do that yeah the fuck like that that felt like a no-brainer to me i thought the second that there was a rift between jimmy and jay and you're looking at the calendar you're like we are seven or eight months away from Wrestlemania I think at the time it was like nine months it's like we're nine months away from Wrestlemania uh how are we gonna keep this not like we don't want to give the audience what we're trying to give them at Wrestlemania but how do we keep it fresh and keep it going all right Jimmy Teammy team j versus team jimmy at survivor series why the fuck didn't you do that but whatever i mean it was cool to see them one

and two at the rumble though but i mean you yeah i thought that was great yeah they put him on the back burner for the judgment day kind of the judgment day has kind of stepped into the role that the bloodline was in of like the big faction every week on raw which we heard that that was going to happen before they even they were like wwe sees judgment day is the next bloodline i don't think they've ever gotten to there yet but ria and dom are doing a really good job every week i mean they've just i'm not i'm not saying that i don't like it but they literally just looked at the bloodline they're like oh they added a funny guy who's the funny guy that we're gonna add and it's like all right yeah like our truth is the perfect like our truth made the rumble for me because i was so disappointed to see he was the best part of

the men's rumble and the women he was a great part of the women's rumble too yeah he came out in the women's him coming in do you see the video of him entering the arena with his luggage and everything he just looks at the camera he's like happy wrestlemania day his simplest wellness comedy works so well from him his delivery his acting everything him asking for the hot tag and the rumble and getting it and the crowd popping for it that was so fucking good this guy's been so funny for so he's been funny for decades in the w so long so long and the best part about our truth's comedy is like there will be certain guys that they do something funny in wwe and they're like oh that got a big reaction now i'll just do that all the time like our truth is doing all kinds of like if he does something that's

hilarious it's like all right that was funny but what else can i do that's funny like he's not just doing the same thing over and over and over again. But, yeah, even, like, doing, like, the John Cena thing, I can't tell because, like, I was fucking – I was hammered for the rumble. So I was dying laughing when he was doing that. I couldn't tell how much of that was alcohol influence. But that was the standout moment of the rumble was our truth. But, yeah, they're kind of just taking the bloodline concept but like i don't know like who is who's the roman reigns of judgment day is it damien or is it finn baller i can't really tell

at this point they don't really have one which i thought should have been more of the blood or the judgment judgment day storyline should be the fight for power because like they don't really have that clear clear they say so-and-so is the leader so-and-so is the leader but like Rhea's kind of like to me Rhea should be the leader of that thing yeah she's been doing the best work over the last year having Dom as her like little guy on the side like that's perfect so yeah I don't know the joy I like the Judgment Day I like what they're doing with R-Truth but yeah they're definitely they haven't reached the peak of the bloodline.

They're not even close to that. No, and I don't think that they're capable of it, which is fine because I think they've reached the tier right below it. Yeah. But to your point, like Rhea is the star of that group. Like her pop. She's a she's a heel and she gets that baby face like tweener pop when she does come out i think the fans have kind of gravitated towards her and like the whole like have you been to a wwe show since dom started to get this nuclear heat oh yeah yeah and it's nuclear it really is

i can't think of anyone that's come close like in terms of that loud crowd reaction on the negative honestly besides roman at the fucking philly rumble to make a weird familial connection in a roundabout way i think it might be vicky guerrero might be the last one to get a reaction like that where they literally will not let her get a word in. And it's just like the second that music hits, everyone's like, oh, fuck this. And it's like fun to hate, you know? Like I think people are coming around on Dom because when he first started

and he was still a baby face with Ray, the talk was he's green, he's green. Everyone's saying that. Now I think people are appreciating how good he is at being the chicken shit heel and they're loving to hate him. Yes, yes. It is, that's like one of the draws appreciating how good he is at being the chicken shit heel and they're loving to hate him yes yes it is uh that's like one of the draws where you know you go to a wwe show back in the 90s like

well stone cold's there i gotta see someone get a stunner like it's like one of the boxes that you absolutely have to check if you're going to see a show live in person now it's like oh i can't wait to boo the fuck out of dom mysterio like that's that's one of the boxes that a fan is looking to check if you're just going to see them live but anyways i i love what the judgment day is doing i don't who's the other fucking guy who's the random i can do without him i know that he's like a lifelong friend of finn baller and that's the only reason why he's in there oh i know I know. I, and I constantly am forgetting his name. J J J T is a JT something.

I don't even know that we don't know you guys doing a wrestling podcast. We don't know one of the members of the judgment day, but he's got to get out of the judgment day. Like it's just no offense, but it is not clicking. It's not working there. No. And I get that.

And like, I'm pretty sure it didn't, there was like a part of the storyline along the way where someone lost the match or he lost the match to kick him out of the judgment day and then he was just back in the judgment day the next week and they never explained why like it wasn't jd mcdonough that's jd mcdonough jt jd mcdonough that's right jd mcdonough yeah yeah i'm sure he's a nice guy but i just don't get what purpose you serve he he's honestly the purpose that he serves is the pinfall guy. Like whenever judgment day has like a,

a tag match or like a three on three, it's like, you're the guy that's going to take the pinfall so that Finn and Damien still look strong. Yeah. Um, so we touched on it, but the rumble as a whole,

I wasn't thrilled with the men's rumble. At least I didn't think was great. We didn't really get a lot of surprises. Andrade was kind of the big surprise. Braun breaker came up from NXT, which he had a good showing in the rumble i thought i thought he looked great i still cannot believe that they're not letting him use the steiner name and he's made braun breaker a name at this point but like he's a steiner he's wearing the steiner gear he looks exactly like a steiner and that's like one of

the biggest wrestling families in the history of wrestling why not let him use that i found out that he was a steiner the night of the rumble i didn't know that well when he walked out and you looked at his face you're like that well i mean i yeah i like i had people over for the rumble and uh someone someone made a comment about like yeah that's uh steiner's kid and i was like yeah i know he looks just like him he's like no no that that is i thought he was just like making fun of him i was like oh i had no idea i've known who braun breaker is for a while because uh jimmy stewart interviewed him so like that's what put him on my radar like anyone that like jimmy like jimmy's like the fucking uh he's like the mlb prospects guy like

like he'll just if he brings up like someone i don't know who anyone in nxt is until like he's like oh i love braun breaker like i'm like okay until like, he's like, Oh, I love Braun breaker. Like I'm like, okay. All right. So he's on my radar now. I had no idea that he was a Steiner. Who's his dad. Rick, I believe Rick Stein.

Okay. Got it. Um, he was taking Brock's spot allegedly because the whole Vince McMahon lawsuit, Brock was a big part of that and they had to get him the fuck out of the rumble. So allegedly Brock was supposed to eliminate all those people and then get eliminated by Dom and they were going to work a match at the elimination chamber yeah now cool does Braun just come to the main roster and take his spot in general I could see Braun versus Dom at elimination chamber and then something like Braun versus Gunther at Mania because they had that face

off and the crowd loved it the crowd responded very well to it so i don't know i feel like braun's done everything there is to do in nxt get him up on the main roster by now yeah i yes but then you also have to figure the casual fan that's like who is this guy why do i care if he faces off against dom like if you're not watching NXT, then I mean, even like the stuff that like Dom has done in NXT has been super interesting and like fun to watch, but like not everyone is watching both,

especially when you're asking fans to watch three hours on Monday and two hours on Friday. And if they're huge wrestling fans, they're watching AEW on Wednesdays and Fridays too. There's a lot of wrestling right now. It's not, not a problem for wrestling fans. I'll take as much wrestling as you can give me but it is a lot of content and then the big thing from the rumble go ahead what I was just gonna say uh I think I told you

this a few weeks ago the only time I watch NXT is when I forget that it's Tuesday like I'm like I'll like sit down what was it there was like a holiday it was like, I'll like sit down. What was it? There was like a holiday. It was like around Christmas. So like the whole like WWE schedule got mixed up and like there was no live raw on Monday or whatever it was. And I sat down. I was like, oh, Monday Night Raw. And I was like, this is fucking NXT. Like, oh, it's Tuesday. That's why.

The big storyline coming out of the Rumble, though, and it's a real life life storyline is that cm punk was injured in the midst of them he's only in the match for like 10 minutes but he took a future shock ddt from drew mcintyre and tore his triceps for the second time in two years i think the torn triceps was the injury he had the night brawl out happened also broke his foot in aew people are calling him injury prone this that the next thing i wrote. I'm like, I'm not even worried about fucking injury prone labels like that. I'm just bummed. This felt like literally the perfect timing, the perfect match for WrestleMania. He comes into the company and Survivor Series after all the drama and AEW after 10 years spent away, and he's finally going to get his WrestleMania main event.

We got two nights now. He can main event with Seth. They have the built-in real life storyline there and then it all gets taken away from us by uh good old drew mcintyre who if we're being honest drew is playing this perfect right he'll i assume punk gave him the okay to you know fucking literally dance on his grave the way he's doing it on twitter and stuff but really really just a bummer i hit to wrestlemania season i am i'm devastated uh i mean uh like to to cross over to what i do primarily the red socks are fucking awful the owners aren't spending money and i'm like wrestling is my escape from how shitty my normal existence is and then punk

gets hurt like i i mean i waited 10 years like i know like some guys go away and then they come back and you're not really thinking it's just like on to the next and whatever like i mean i basically you know i filled that time being a huge roman guy ride or die uh it's not like there was nothing for me while punk was gone but punk was always on the back of my mind about like one day like are we gonna see it are we gonna see it like i and and all the times that he said never ever like i'm never coming back like i didn't fucking believe him and he might have meant that in the moment but there's just way too many examples all All the examples. Like, I don't think that there's one example of someone leaving on bad terms and not coming back.

Even the most terrible terms like Bret Hart was like, Vince McMahon killed my brother. And then he came back. Like there's, there's not much that can happen that will make someone be like, I am never coming back. Um, I,

I surely, I left the door open for punk to be that first guy, just because I know how stubborn he can be, but eventually old age will soften you. And I think that that's what happened. It's like, and I'm sure that he's probably having those thoughts now of man, if I wasn't so stubborn, like how many years where of my prime, where my body was able to do this, did I waste just being stubborn? And I'm sure he's having those thoughts right now

i mean like the foot injury that was just a freak accident he's a fucking idiot for jumping into the stands or whatever i'm sure he regrets that but as far as like wear and tear and like you know popping your tricep twice uh that feels like you know your body is is is failing you like you're just um you have physical limitations in your mid-40s that you obviously didn't experience in your 30s your early 30s and i mean he wrestled so much there's so many miles on his body from uh the bingo halls and the ring of honors and all that shit but it's just it's sad like i felt felt it was a gut punch because I did wait those 10 years. Like I fucking waited patiently for those 10 years. And then I wish I wish we recorded the reactions to his return.

Like I was shocked, stunned, like borderline emotional seeing him actually come back. I didn't believe my eyes. I thought it was a troll, like a cruel. Like I thought that they like I thought that they like cut to commercial and that that was like a replay or something. There's no way that this is happening. I did not fucking believe it um so to have that moment and you know see him come back at the rumble like to me like yeah like it was his first televised match was like the rumble but like it's the rumble it's not a match it's different to me

so like i didn't get the satisfaction of like a true punk return just for through the rumble like it was gonna be that fucking pop when it's 90 000 people and call it the personality obviously i don't think that this is the end like i don't think he's gonna have a moment where he comes back and says like i'm retiring like my body can't handle it i think he'll be back in whatever they'll bring him back in four to six months which is the recovery time but we're gonna have to wait a whole fucking year to get that wrestlemania moment and by then like what will the landscape be like will it make sense for punk to main event because you know like shit happens like daniel bryan was a fucking squash match in wrestlemania what was it 27 fucking nine the night before yeah yeah yeah yeah absolute squash match and then it went from that to this guy better main event wrestlemania and he better win

like yeah after you just don't know a year is a long time in the wrestling world to where i mean look at sammy zane i mean they it's not like he got to cap that story off, but like Sami Zayn was a complete afterthought in the wrestling fans minds to like a very prominent figure in the main event scene to main eventing one of the rowdiest main events that we've seen in quite some time, like probably since wanting the bank 2011 that that Roman match. So that's kind of where I get worried is like, you have the return in November and like CM Punk is hot and we need this main event. All right. Well, who the fuck, like a year after the following WrestleMania, are people still going to want that as badly?

Like, it depends on how well they, they got to play the injury storyline. They have to do like Cody recovering from his pec injury and coming back and winning the rumble. Like I feel like fans will get behind punk in that way. If you present it the right way, maybe a WWE network documentary about his fucking road to recovery,

you know, joining the rumble, winning the rumble. I think that can work. I also think if Cody's champ by then, like that could be a fucking wrestlemania main event right there cody rhodes versus cm punk yeah bleed in some of that brawl out stuff you see cody after he won he did like the two kisses like that and then one for the

gun and everyone's like he shot out the bucks and kenny right after throwing punk over the top rope so i don't know like even there's the clip from raw that they tweeted today of punk crying after his promo which was great and amazing like very emotional real promo he goes back to grill and he tells cody like finish your story go do it so you use that clip you put it in the promo i think it'll work my question is who do they replace punk with this year like drew seems obvious the guy who injured punk like stepping up into the main event but then you got la knight who i don't know what they're doing with him but strike while the iron's hot he's still so fucking over right now you got a guy like gunther you have send your money in the

bank damian priest just hanging around i don't know what's happening there who would you replace punk with i feel like it has to be drew uh and and you know as you mentioned earlier brock is gonna be out of the picture for maybe forever and we don't know i predict forever i predict we'll never see him ever again because he sounded dead set on retiring pre-vince uh leaving like he was gonna retire he wanted the match with drew in the fucking empty warehouse to be his last match, which is strange, but he was like,

yeah, I don't give a shit about that big retirement stuff. Vince got him back in due to allegedly horrific stuff in this lawsuit. And then when Vince announced he was resigning or whatever, there was the report Brock walked out like he'd left and came back to raw that night. And now that kind of makes a little more sense. He's a Vince guy.

So I don't think it's crazy to say, I don't think we'll ever see Brock Lesnar on WWE television ever again. Yeah. So his last match was the one against Cody, right? At SummerSlam. Was that his last one? I think it might've been.

Yeah. Yeah. So that, I mean, I was there for his last match. Yeah. And he, he kind of like broke afabe a little bit and he

it almost like now that i'm looking back on it it didn't make sense for him to kind of break kayfabe and have like that like send off like he was saying goodbye to the crowd and did he know something that we didn't like yeah like it was very not storyline very not the current character of brock um i mean like that whole storyline leading up to cody and brock was he would just beat the shit out of cody in front of his family and shit like you were being a bully asshole and then you know you have the end of the match you're like yay we're buddies now it's like oh that doesn't make any sense yeah yeah no sense at all uh so yeah maybe he did know that like this is it for me i don't know but it certainly reads that way with all the full context yeah i would like to see la night in the title picture at wrestlemania like even if you want to do a triple threat if you want to do roman

cody night too i would like to see seth versus drew versus la night even if just to continue the tradition of triple threats on uh even numbered manias what about randy oh that's a good question i don't know what you do with randy like obviously people are stoked to have him back right now i don't know what aj he's really in limbo to me. Like that match. I didn't love either at the rumble, to be honest, the fatal four way for Roman's title. I don't know if it was just because the finished was such a foregone

conclusion. You couldn't even buy into any of the other false finishes with, you know, anyone but roaming winning, but yeah, that was okay to me. Um, I liked Kevin Owens versus Logan Paul at the rumble.

I thought that was good. They obviously are continuing that. I think that'll probably be a mania match. I think if you want to do a street fight, hardcore TLC ladder match, anything like that with those two, that's your viral moment. You can get Logan Paul jumping off a ladder.

Kevin Owens taking the craziest bumps you've ever seen a human being take. I like the finish of that one too. People were shitting on the finish. Huh? Isn't his foot broken kevin owens yeah i think his hand is is fucked up he has a fracture they're playing on in real life i think he's i i think he's still gonna make wrestlemania i'd be surprised if he

didn't i haven't talked about that i don't think he's gonna miss wrestlemania but i think in terms of having that fucking crazy hardcore match he might have some limitations if his foot's broken but then again undertaker maybe that's the smoke and mirrors you need to hide it you know like maybe you need some fucking weapons and some crazy shit like that let logan paul do all the high flying shit and let kevin ellen's be the brawler um but the the women's rumble i liked a lot i i thought the women's rumble from jordan grace being like a cool okay tna is in the rumble again they did that with mickey they did it with jordan grace um bailey winning was cool i think it's very deserved after she spent the last year i think wrestling and losing more matches than

anyone in the company i think they looked at the stats and were like you know what let's give bailey one like let's let's have her get it get a big win here she obviously has the storyline with eo that you could run into there um jade cargill great debut for her i thought she looked great in the rumble the fact that she picked naya up and did the cesaro big show moment like that was great her face off with bianca was great the crowd loved that the way they shot it with the wrestlemania sign in the back like i i think this was a really enjoyable and good eliminations kod on the apron the fucking 619 on the outside that eliminated becky this was like really well put together it was a good it was a good it was a good rumble the women's one uh jade far exceeded my expectations only because i didn't know much about her until she signed with wwe and then they just like protected her

for so long making it seem like she's not ready and like it like she doesn't have the skills and then she came out i was like this girl is like 10 times better than most of the shit that they put out i was like what are we what are we waiting so long for what the fuck was that about like she was great uh i think one of the big complaints amongst fans was the generic shitty themes of them like they were getting no reactions and i guess like if you were there it was hard to see the titantron of like you people were waiting for like you see the video of seth what there's a video of seth rollins you know they had seth and roman in a box during the royal rumble to be like which champ whatever there's a video of seth reacting to music

and the music hits and he's like and you can see him look at the screen to see who it is. And then he reacts. It's like Seth Rollins doesn't even fucking know the music. He's there every week. He's there for the house shows when they're playing the music. He's friends with these guys. If he doesn't know, you've got an issue.

And I agree. That's actually been an issue for the last couple of rumbles. I don't know who they got doing music right now. I don't want to shit on them, but it ain't CFO dollar sign anymore. It's CFO dollar sign. Their themes were getting recognized obviously the old jim johnson themes if there were any left in the rumble that i can't remember like natalia she's got a jim johnson theme it's the brett hart theme but like those themes are at least memorable and have like a

good opening to cue you into who it's going to be all all the rest of the new ones they're like generic rock dvd menu music yeah it really is like there wasn't a lot of uh i mean for me too like that that's something that i've i've prided myself on since i was a kid like i remember when i was in like third grade whenever like wwf the music volume three came out and like i used to have my dad quiz me like he would put the cd on shuffle and then he would hit skip and be like who's this and i'd be and i'd tell him and then at first he was impressed and he was just like if you just like cared this much about like science and math then like you wouldn't you wouldn't have d's maybe we shouldn't be studying slow chemical cane like something else yeah like i'm glad you know val

venus's entrance theme but like can we study the element table one time uh so yeah like i am a big time proponent of wrestling entrance. It's one of my favorite things. The fucking entrances. I love it. Most wrestling fans do like that's part of it. But when you have these like dinky ass generic themes, it's so disappointing. Like I you almost put yourself because when when we were doing from the top rope full time, I asking some of the guys like hey do you work out

to your wrestling entrance theme like because some of them were fucking like they're sick like what wouldn't you like remember my favorite answer to that was kevin owens he was like do i look like i work out to my entrance theme yeah yeah yeah beth rollins thought it was a preposterous question he was like no yeah hated it uh but yeah they've got to really figure that out and i think you know like wwe is very online i think that they do pay attention to the complaints maybe they do address that by the next rumble because like to what you said earlier, no surprises. Like there are still guys from the attic, like strike while you still can. Like these dudes, how many years do we have to ask for X-Pac?

Yeah, dude. I like, so, uh, you know, not to, not to,

uh, I mean, it's fine now because the rumbles over, but I remember like X-Pac tweeted something about like, I'm not going to be in the rumble. And then I tweeted him the gif of like yeah sure okay and like he messaged me after he messaged me yeah i didn't want to like ruin anyone's surprise but he was like brother they really have tries to do that like he does tweet like almost every year now like i'm not fucking

with you guys i don't want you to be disappointed i'm not gonna be in the rumble and all of us give him the okay i, sure you will. Break it down. It's going to hit, brother. And it's like, why wouldn't you use it? We saw matches last year. I think he wrestled Joey Janela. He had a couple of GCW matches where he looked great. X-Pac can get in there and do all his old shit.

He can do the fucking Bronco Buster. He could do the fucking spin kick. He could do all that shit and get tossed over by Dom. And, you know, that would be a highlight of the night if xbox came out was in the match for a minute 60 seconds total before getting thrown out it would have been people in that arena is one of their favorite moments the whole night getting to pop to the dx music hitting and fucking xbox coming out and hitting suck it and everything like yeah why aren't they capitalizing on the Attitude Era stars that can still do this? It's so strange.

Bizarre. It's frustrating, too, because like the rumbles we grew up with had such amazing surprises. That was what made the rumble the rumble and made you want to invite friends over and be like, you never know what's going to happen. Now you invite friends over and you're like, Andrade. And they're like, who? Who the fuck is that and i and the reason why i was so disappointed with this rumble is because i want to say last year or the year before i mean going into it publicly we knew of like 23 out of the like 23 guys were like i'm declaring for the royal rumble and it's

like all right how many fucking surprise entrants possibly be left? And then this year there was much less of that. So I was like, oh, like they're leaving plenty of spots open for like who the fuck's going to show up this year. Ken Shamrock, another guy like there's a bunch of guys that love that. So there's an inside joke with my wrestling text. what is it called group chat my wrestling group chat uh is called dork party and okay our recurring inside joke is we are just waiting for gangrel we're waiting for gangrel like when when like when edge came back and used the brood theme we were like holy fuck this is this has got to be it this is the gangrel spot and like they didn't they didn't bring them back for that we were like

oh like when the fuck else are we gonna get them and then i think has he done anything with aew recently like in the last couple years no i think he did something yeah i think he did something at some point he's been around in some capacity because i remember seeing gangrel a few years ago and being like oh Oh fuck gang girl. That's awesome. Yeah. So we are just fucking dying for the gang girl spot. Like we have been waiting for a long time to see him come back.

And it's like, why not? Like these guys are, they've got to be mid fifties now at this point. Like if you're going to, if you're going to go back to the attitude era, well, like there's only so many guys that could physically get in there and do two three

minutes in a rumble match dude you're not bringing them this year like battle creek michigan get him in there he's got a year or two left in him you could do that i don't know they brought like like we've done the rvd rumble return like i need someone where it's like holy fuck i forgot he was alive we've done it so many timesble return. Like I need someone where it's like, holy fuck. I forgot he was alive. We've done it so many times that going in when people were like, maybe RVD, I was kind of like, we've done that before, but looking back,

I would have liked RVD in that rumble. We didn't get anyone else where it's like, and I do want to address, we said we were going to go to the rumble. We did not go to the rumble. That was my fault this year. My dog had a hospital visit that costs way too much money. It's ridiculous.

She's fine now, which is great, healthy, happy dog. But next year we will start our rumble party. And I think maybe that might be for the best this year. It was a good show. I don't think it was a bad show by any means, but hopefully next year they listened to this constructive criticism and throw fucking X-Pac in the rumble for us. That that would that would make the first rumble uh for jared and robbie to be an awesome one yeah either either x-pac or go fuck yourself and i i even said that i i said that the morning after i was like thank god that we didn't go to that one because like hey it's at tropicana field which like i got a good laugh out of wwe boasting that they broke

the attendance record like pop- that they broke the attendance record. Pop can break the attendance record at Tropicana field. Like, like, come on. They can't sell out playoff games. They're like, they can't sell it.

No higher upper deck for a playoff game. They tarp it off pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. There's like 43 people for, for those games. Um, but next year, do we know where it is next year?

We don't yet. No, we don't know where that or the next WrestleMania is going to be. The rumors about WrestleMania are Minnesota. I think the Vikings have a new stadium. Yeah, I don't know if it's new. I think they've been there for like five or six years, but that's the rumor, which I don't know. I get that it's indoors, but I'm like, oh, I don't want to go to Minnesota.

No offense, listeners from Minnesota. I just don't want to go anywhere cold. I mean, either. Yeah, it was nice that even this year, really, like I'm'm probably gonna go this year in philly just because it's so close i'd like to go but we went to 35 we went to 29 it was fucking freezing it was cold it was cold i was not warm i don't know are you are you thinking about going to 40 this year no no now not that punk's gone really no punk yeah i'm gonna go all the way to see roman lewis yeah no i no fucking way i'm not going to see roman lewis i'm not going to see like if i'm going to go to mania it's going to be to see punk win

but the other thing too is they are now do which i like assuming that the the time is right but they're doing more of these international shows so i mean we we got this idea to start going to the rumble every year it's all well and good until the fucking rumble is in goddamn egypt like i'm not yeah we'll have to rethink that maybe elimination chamber next month or maybe they know next month february is in australia i think it's a 70 000 seat arena like i think it's wrestlemania sized elimination chamber this year which we had the rumors about the rock and roman rock came back teased the head of the table thing what happened with that what happened to the rock so everything that i've been reading because i always want to say hearing but it's like i don't have any fucking inside stories in wrestling.

It's like everything that I've been reading, uh, is that this is what he does. He teases year long builds. Like he wants, he wants Roman at WrestleMania next year. And that that was the plan all along. And that,

uh, punk's injury doesn't change anything. And Seth's injury, like, like none of that changes anything about this um because like that's what they just teased on raw with seth coming out being like hey how about the workhorse title how about dusty's title and you know this is how you finish the story and like logically that makes a ton of sense but everyone's gonna be like well no like he lost a Roman. So to, it's like, you're like finishing the story.

It's like, I don't know. I don't know, but that's, you're not a fan. You are. I'm not a fan. I want,

yeah, I want him to fucking keep losing. I want this fucking story finished. Close the book, close the book on the story. We're all good. We got it. And I think the rock might be part of that no having the title no because you can't put it off any longer put it off any longer

and meme it's like this this guy is a loser who's never going to win the title he should have won it last year he has to win it this year i think the rock might help him win it this year i could see solo coming out trying to fucking help and then the rock coming out and being like, we don't do it that way in our family. And then almost like WrestleMania 27, where he set up the 28 match with Cena in the main event there. I think that might happen this year. Cause like you said, he loves those year long. Hey, how about next year?

I face you for the head of the table. I think that might happen. I mean, would the rock potentially face him at summer slam like is the rock like i'm only coming back and doing a match if it's wrestlemania because i feel like timing wise that would be kind of cool if the rock cost roman the title at wrestlemania and then at summer slam we got the head of the table matchup that'd be fucking awesome that being said you can't headline cody over that and it'll make cody and the title look lesser than if there's the co-main event that i don't know what the

answer is you might have to do it next year just so you have cody on night one them on night two fuck cody's story i'm so sick of having you like the rocks right better than cody story yes yes really like the rock i mean put it this way like you have uh peter high chief my via and then rocky johnson and then the rock and then that lineage goes down to roman reigns who i mean like yeah like maybe Roman Reigns doesn't end up on the all-time Mount Rushmore of WWE but he's on the second one he if there's a tier two fucking Mount Rushmore Roman Reigns is on it

and you can debate the Rock being on the first one so like yeah I care way more about like you know when you had Hogan versus the Rock at WrestleMania 17, one of the best main events. It wasn't even the fucking main event.

It was 18? No, 18, yeah. 17. Because it was Jericho and Triple H in the main event. Yeah, so it didn't even main event, but one of the best WrestleMania matches of all time. And then you have WrestleMania 28 and 29, where you have the rock passing it down to john cena like you have those things but like the rock it's like john cena then passed it down to roman

but the rock being able to do that with roman is just it's i care way more about that like once cody quote-un unquote finishes his story, the only interesting feud for him is fucking punk. No, the set feud. You could go right back to drew McIntyre. I'm down with going through that built in from last year. Cody five fucking times.

They're going to go back to it for sure. Not right away. Cause they won't unify the titles. They won't go title for title. Right. I'm worried that the rock can't go now. I mean, like,

let's be honest. Yeah. So let's wait another 29, but that's the thing. WrestleMania 29 against Sina. He was tearing every fucking muscle off his bone in that match and slowing down. This is over 10 years later.

He came out and did the people's elbow to gender and he was gassed. He was straight up out of gas. That tank was empty. So I'm like, I get it. He can put the work in and fucking get in cardio shape. But can he, can he get in wrestling shape again with his current schedule? I don't know. That's why I'm way more interested in the Cody feud.

And I want the, I wanted the Cody to win the rumumble because I was like that match at WrestleMania last year was incredible I think if Cody won that match we would be looking back and calling it like one of the best WrestleMania main events ever people hated the finish so much that they don't even want to think about it but I man that's the match that's and I think Cody's gonna prove with the title like he's the face of the company look at how he answered the Vince question at the presser. Triple H was skirting all of those. Cody gave an answer that John Cena and his prime would have given. Yeah,

no, he has a lot of John Cena characteristics to him where he's safe. He's over as a baby face. He's not getting the John Cena negative reactions yet, but I think if you try to continue to be like 80s hogan like drink your milk take your vitamins and and all that corny shit eventually he's like corny though he's good with his promos that's the thing he's not doing the fucking i'm a white meat babyface he's corny bro fucking apologized after winning the Rumble.

He fucking apologized to the crowd for losing at WrestleMania. Fucking save it, dude. That shit's corny. He's trying to be the... He looked at all the faces of the people in the crowd. He's trying to be the sympathetic woe is me. He's gaslighting us.

I'm going to have to fucking bleach my hair and put on a weight belt for wrestlemania because this is insane slander it's not i'm i'm why are you booing me i'm right like this is he yeah again it's nothing it's nothing personal i'm just looking down the line and seeing the reaction that john cena got for being the clean cut baby face and eventually you know it was polarizing it wasn't completely that the crowd turned on him like when the rock first debuted and he was smiling and he was the clean cut baby face like everyone they told him to die but like with cody i think eventually yeah like fans will kind of see through the you know like you're trying to be pg and you trying to be like the, the idol for the kids and he's not, he's not, Cody's the kind of guy who, if they had him,

he would blade in every match, dude, he would do the flaming table. He's not doing that. He's a psychopath. He's not. Yeah. Because he can't, but he can't, they have, they brought back blood. They brought back blood and code. Cody's going to bleed at WrestleMania. I bet he's going to be fucking Ric Flair

bleeding like a stuffed pig. Like, Cody, he's not. Stuck pig? Yeah, bleeding like a stuck pig. Like a scalded dog. Oh, I always did stuffed. What a fucking moron I am. Why would a stuffed pig bleed?

Yeah, oh, what a dope I am. I have written down one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight matches that I think are going to happen at WrestleMania. Just want to run down them. We'll go through what the maybe card is going to be. So I think Rhea is probably going to defend against Becky. I think that probably makes the most sense at this point. And they've been talking about it in media interviews where Rhea wants to face Becky. So if Bailey is facing EO sky, those are probably the two women's title matches. I also think Jade Cargill will face Bianca Belair.

I think for her first WrestleMania match, we put her in there with someone who's main evented WrestleMania against Sasha. I can definitely carry her. Put Naya in there. Can't do Naya and Jade. Why? Naya? Dude, naya is a liability she is gonna hurt somebody you don't think she's improved no no no i i listen there there was no bigger naya hater than me uh i don't know when she was when she was actually hurting people i was like why the fuck do they keep letting her come back like i was very vocal

about not liking naya jacks i i mean but i'm i'm fair i'm unbiased hasn't hurt anybody recently i guess but but like i think she's made noticeable put her in there with jade i don't know like that's the thing i would trust naya and bianca i trust bianca to like not but, but like, I think she's made noticeable and put her in there with Jade. I don't know. Like, that's the thing I would trust Naya and Bianca. I trust Bianca to like, not get hurt. But like, Jade is also new enough for him.

Like, do you want one of your newest big stars like in there with a liability, someone who can injure her? I don't know. I, I could see that being a triple threat, maybe even a fatal four way if they want to get another person in there on the roster or whatever.

But what else do you do with Naya? they brought her back to be this monster and they're building her back up put her on wrestlemania please i mean is it hasn't she been going after ria too like everyone i mean everyone's going after ria but yeah um i think gunther braun breaker for the intercontinental could be a real thing. I also think Gunther should probably lose the IC Strap at Mania this year. Not necessarily because I don't think he's good with it. I think he should be moved right up into the world title picture. He's a main eventer at this point. I think he's proved that he is the real deal.

He's one of the best people on the roster. I love Imperium. I love him having his special entrance, an entrance that everyone actually does know. So I would take the title off of him and give someone the shine like Braun Breaker, but boost him right up. Maybe have him against Seth for the title at SummerSlam or something like that. I also think Kevin Owens, Logan Paul, as we talked about, yeah, for the U.S. title. Jay and Jimmy seems obvious. That could kick off Mania.

That seems like a perfect, like, people are going to go crazy for that. So they'll be eager for it. And then I had punk and Rollins at this point, probably McIntyre Rollins. Does that main event night one, does that feel worthy of a night one main event to you? I feel like they don't have, because you can't do Brock and Gunther.

Like that could have been a night one, uh, main event. You're not going to be able to do that. Um, you can't do punk and Rollins. I mean, I guess if you want to, uh,

if you want to make the, the title feel important, which it should, like, I don't, I don't look at it as not important, but it's not quite to the point where you're like, man. Steph's title, yeah.

Yeah. Like it's not. They're trying to sell us on it being important every week. And they're trying as hard as they can. It's just never going to be as important as Roman's. That's the thing is whenever there's two titles in the brand split, there's always one real title. It's like the World Heavyweight Championship used to open WrestleMania and the wwe championship would close the show we're in a similar position here would you would you main event rollins and mcintyre or would you main event becky and rhea for night one if they

wanted to lift that title up like rhea's been the face of that division for a year now yeah and shoulders above everyone else she's kind of the main event spot it's a good question but put it this way yes ria ria deserves to main event night one but is it fair to seth that he gets the main event taken away because punk got hurt like punk has he's had seth has had an emotional roller coaster too seth has been fucking fighting through it he's been defending the title every he defends it on raw he defends it gender injury yeah like he's he's had the back injury he's got the knee injury and at no point did he say man i i'm gonna drop this title so that i can rehab or get surgery or i just need some time off so i'm gonna drop the

title he hasn't done that because i think it's important to him that that there's a fighting champion on television and i think it's important to him that the title matters and if you're looking at it from his perspective he might say if it if it's not me, then who, who else can, who else is around right now? I mean, this is back when Rand, before Randy Orton came back, I think he could elevate that title too, but like, who do you put that on there? That's a, that's a good point, dude. Like if you're struggling for a main event aura around McIntyre Rollins, maybe you make it a triple threat with Orton or a fatal four-way with Orton and LA Knight. And then it's like,

whoa, now you've got a bunch of people. The crowd loves LA Knight. He's another one where I don't have him on my list of WrestleMania matches, but he needs a big one. Like, what are you doing with him?

Strike while the iron's hot. The crowd loves him. He is as over as anyone right now. And there's not really like a clear path for WrestleMania. He hit his peak. People are starting to turn a little bit on LA night where it's like when people didn't see it in him, that's when like the,

the internet wrestling community was like, you're wrong. Like he's our guy. And now that everyone's like, he's our guy. Now people are like, well, he's not that special.

So I still think his reactions, like his reaction speak for themselves. They're crazy. Yeah. Yeah. No, he still gets big pops. I don't know like who,

because they already burned. Maybe have him be going there for the IC. Yeah. Is that a step down though? Because he's already had two title shots maybe yeah it's a but like i don't know gunther has this might sound weird gunther having that title it's almost more prestigious than seth's title to me just because how long has gone on you know like and he just feels like the secondary title like like yeah gunther feels more unbeatable

as the ic champ than seth does as the world heavyweight champ yeah and dude his feud with chad gable this year or last year was so fucking good i would put gable in a main event with him and have them run back one of their awesome matches where gable's fucking deadlift german suplexing gunther and throwing him around the ring like i would have gable win the the title if you want like i think he definitely has to drop it to somebody this year because also yeah he could only hold that for so much longer what else can he do with the ic title at this point yeah he's he's graduated yeah maybe you do the wrestlemania six thing and he just gets a title shot with the ic title he's like i'm doing warrior no yeah yeah i don't know though i still think wrestlemania is gonna be good this year but

it's definitely taken some blows there's hits to the card for sure yeah there's a way to save night one with the main event if you can find a way to put uh undertaker versus gender night one. No, no, no. I thought you were going to say a real statement there. I, you had me hook,

line and sinker. I was like, how do we save this man? Let's save it right now. Why do you think I'm unserious about that? I think that that would be a great man. You are unserious. You know what I think would be great is film.

Another fucking undertaker, AJ style cinematic thing. I don't care. Do it with gender undertaker versus gender and do it in in the shed that was awesome yeah all right so cinematic prison but cinematic yeah it's like yeah you know really in india or something something crazy like that and they go film it fucking cinematic style that'd be great. I love that. But gender has to go over, obviously.

At this point, they fucking, they're not going to want to mention Brock beating him for the streak. So they're going to be like, and the only people that have ever beaten Undertaker at WrestleMania, Jinder Mahal and Roman Reigns. Right? Yeah,

they're definitely, I think they're think they're gonna give benoit treatment soon maybe it depends on how this all plays out i don't know it seems really bad if it's true it seems really bad yeah for sure yeah i mean it's it's none of it's good um yeah but yeah i think he's probably done and it's not i feel like's, he's fine with being canceled is the thing. Oh yeah. He's going to go live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of his life. His closest telephone is like a mile away from his house at his mailbox. Like, yeah, I don't think he cares what the internet's saying right now.

No. But hopefully the listeners of this podcast cared about what we were saying. I like reuniting and doing these from the top row pods. Let do another one after a chamber if you're down we could kind of give like a road to wrestlemania feel you know are you gonna are you gonna watch it live elimination chamber for sure you're gonna wake up at fucking 4 30 in the morning and watch it yeah why not just saturday a Saturday, right? Yeah. I don't know that I'm going to do it. I'll wake up with my dog, walk the dog, make myself some.

What's a good Australian shrimp on the Barbie? I'll make myself a shrimp on the Barbie. Yeah. Give myself something like that. Yeah. I think what I'll probably do. I love the chamber. I'm going to probably wake up at like 8 and start it at 9.

Because, I mean, how often am I really live tweeting PLEs unless Roman wins and I just tweet out the one. Don't do that. Don't do that to me. They're PLEs. They were PLEs. I saw a tweet. I saw a tweet that was perfect. They said people that call pay-per-views, PLEs are like people that are like, oh, I saw an X about that.

And it's like, you saw a fucking tweet about it, dude. You saw a fucking tweet. Yeah. I have not done that. Like, it's still Twitter to me. I can't bring myself to call it X. You know, I still have on my phone. I haven't updated my app.

So for me, it actually still is twitter oh wow look at that how about that yeah and i uh have i done that yeah mine's mine's x on my phone but i haven't updated my phone in quite some time yeah i didn't i didn't i didn't want to do that um i wish it was dx fucking spray paint over that logo it would be sick it would be sick uh hopefully like i said hopefully the rumble next year is in the continental united states so that we can go warm state maybe that'd be nice and warm state because i feel like we did miss the boat on tampa it would have been nice if we were able to just because i i wanted at least if the rumble was gonna suck i at least wanted to go somewhere nice where it's like all right we go there for a

weekend but maybe we have like a little night out in tampa it'll be fun nope philly for wrestlemania that's gonna be fucking cold yeah and like philly no offense to philly we're not trying to go out in philly there's nothing to see in Philly. Except the barstool bar. Nice bar. Yeah. Check it out. Check out the barstool. All right,

Jared. Thanks for joining. As always, make sure you leave a comment like below and we'll see you. This crew will see you after the elimination chamber on rumble, YouTube, everywhere where you could find podcasts. We'll talk to you then.

See you.