My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 424 - WRESTLEMANIA 41 (FROM THE TOP ROPE WITH JARED CARRABIS)

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Robbie and Jared recap and review WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, the RAW After Mania, and more! #WrestleMania #WrestleMania41 ****************************************   My Mom's Basement is a weekly podcast hosted by Robbie Fox, started in March 2019, to discuss movies, music, comic books, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and more with his friends and idols alike!   Subscribe on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/MyMomsBasementWithRobbieFox Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-moms-basement/id1457255205 Follow Robbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatrobbiefox Follow Robbie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool 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 to From the Top Rope, presented by My Mom's Basement, presented by Barstool Sports and a very special WrestleMania 41 recap edition of From the Top Rope. It is Robbie Fox here as always with Jared Karabas. Fresh off WrestleMania, not fresh, fresh fresh off we got the Raw After Mania to talk about as well which I'm glad like that'll be fun to add a little more context to what they're doing here but Jared I'm gonna throw it to you right off the bat to kick off the episode. What were our general thoughts on WrestleMania 41?

That I was right Bob I was right I being right. I didn't want to be right. I'm upset that I was right. I didn't want to be right. I obviously watched all the videos that you put out while you were there. And I agree that I think Night 2 of WrestleMania would have been a great show if they had just somehow like I have so many different directions I want to go here. Right now I'm mad at The Rock. I'm mad at Dwayne Johnson. I'm not mad at The Rock.

I'm mad at Dwayne. Me too. If you're not going to commit to WrestleMania then don't get involved at all because I didn't see him on McAfee but I saw I read some of the quotes and he was just like yeah Like it did I didn't want to overshadow it like Sina went in 17 like I just didn't feel like it was my place. It was Travis Scott's place. Like what do you what the fuck do you mean? Hey, you're back. I just tweeted I said that'd be valid everything the Rock saying there is valid if it was just John Cena's But it right Travis Scott Travis Scott was presented like the Rock correct

it was awful like you mean to tell me that Travis Scott a Rapper that is like like it still hasn't spoken yet Like if he cut a promo explaining his involvement like he hasn't even spoken yet, so We never got an explanation. Speaking about him, John Cena last night isn't like, and here's why I had Travis Scott, like we're just, he just shows up like he's like a Fortnite character. I know he literally is a Fortnite character, but he shows up like it's this random run in he's got the title, which we're also not acknowledging, like Triple

H gave him this replica title. Now he carries it around. Like it's like something to respect and be proud of. And then he just leaves. It's literally like, I feel like this is like Travis Scott showing up as Travis Scott in the finale of Game of Thrones. I think it's that out of place and out of context

where you're like, why is there a rapper in the ring right now? It's crazy. Like the fact that we never got an explanation after Elimination Chamber from The Rock, really from John Cena and about Travis Scott. It didn't make any sense. Still doesn't make sense. I had such a bitter, bad taste in my mouth after night two that, again, I told you, leading up to WrestleMania, I was like, I'm so not excited about this,

I might not even watch it. And now I'm pissed that I did, because it's, for me, the end of the bloodline era, obviously with the Heyman turn, night one, we didn't get a payoff. I thought for sure, the whole point about WrestleMania- In terms of night one, you mean? We didn't get a payoff?

No, in terms of night one you mean we didn't know in terms of night two Oh Like we didn't get a payoff with the Rock storyline I don't want to jump around to a million different mad at right now. I know the Rock is just the what was he doing? That was more important than WrestleMania the biggest hold you nothing here for TKO I know he's I use in Hawaii or something he said, I just want to time off.

Let John Cena take the shine. Like you said, why would you do the elimination chamber angle there and set up the rock as essentially the final boss? He is the final boss of this storyline. And we acted like he didn't exist this weekend. They built the whole story around the rock just for the rock to be like, oh, I didn't want to overshadow it. What do you mean overshadow it?

You are it, you are the story. Like John Cena in this storyline is your underling. Like you made him the guy that's beneath you just like you made Roman, the guy beneath you. You're above everyone, you're on the board, you're the final boss. Like who is above the final boss? Nobody.

So to be like, yeah, it's just crazy like him to say he looked bad too I love Cody you know I'm a Cody Bobo as you call me you are but it makes Cody look bad for Travis Scott to be the linchpin in having him lose the title if it were the Rock I think it's more understandable in any way of like okay I have to fucking be on guard for the Rock Travis Scott's my size It's like if I cost John Cena the match It's like if they did the fucking John Stewart finish for John John Cena Seth Rollins and summer time It's like if they did that in the main event of WrestleMania where it's like oh hold on

You could do that at backlash you can do that at money in the bank Travis Scott could run in and help Cena win a match at some point Why is Travis Scott the key to John Cena's 17th title ring? I actually even think if they wouldn't have given Travis Scott the mid match run in spot, if Travis Scott just walked Sina out to the ring, I think I would have been more okay with it if it was just like, all right, he's seen as manager because he's part of the Sina rock click and he's there to represent. You could do the same exact spot.

He pulls the ref's leg, he gets in the ring, takes a crossroads. He took a crossroads, well, I'll give him that, but it was just so strange to treat him as like a, oh my God, his music hit. The music we heard a thousand fucking times, by the way. How tired of you are of bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. If I hear that fucking song one more time,

I'm gonna lose it. Yeah. And the fact that The Rock used it as like a pre like before his music hit. That's why I was like, Oh, is this The Rock because he has come out to the same song. I'm just, I was upset at how let down I was because night one, it was super underwhelming and I trusted them because leading up to it, I've been saying it all along, the triple threat was an awesome match. It was an awesome match, but there were no stakes,

there was no title. You're not gonna find a bigger CM Punk Roman Reigns guy and I didn't care like they both had stakes though I thought the stakes of that were no I mean obviously it was like you said the bloodline storyline I don't know if it's over over but we're certainly reaching a new era of it I think there's still a world me and my brother were talking about there's still a world where Roman Puts the entire bloodline back together and we get like a baby face bloodline reunion Including solo the entire no the entire bloodline I'm talking fucking Avengers assemble of every Samoan you've ever heard of and maybe some you even haven't heard of because they keep coming out

I don't know where these Samoans are coming from but every week I go on Twitter and they're like you better watch out for the Next Samoan coming up because we got the dude. That's like I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. Yeah Yeah, so I do feel like who I'm excited about Zillas on the horizon like there's still a world in which they put together the bloodline thing But the Paul Heyman stakes I gotta say like we kind of saw this coming I think a lot of people said okay maybe he turns on both punk and Roman and we get this big shocking Aline and Seth moment it was still I think the right move because it worked so well in the match the gasps and the screams I

posted one video people were screaming like these guttural like, no! People couldn't believe it. His double low blow, the low blow on Roman where he gets stuck and he has like wiggled his fist out was so funny. I do think that was still the right moment too. Like even taking into consideration the Raw after Mania, you add Bron to the stable and now all of those people are reinvented and all kind of needed to be reinvented brawn not really because he was on the up and up for sure. And we've talked about him a lot kind of flipped back and forth on whether or not we were in on

him or out on him. At this point, I'm fully in on him. I mean, the brawn breaker spear the fucking the barks you're still out on brawn breaker. The spear on Carlito the fatal four-way. I am alignment with my love brawn breaker I hate this because really yes because the whole time what have I been saying? Let him be a Steiner. Why ignore? Legacy when he I said that where we're too far past that now. We're not, we're not, because it was what? Two, three days ago I sent you the clip

of him doing the Steiner math, talking about his chances in the Intercontinental title match. I was like, finally, you know, I know he's, he's kinda, before this, he was a tweener, like he's a heel, but he gets kinda like a baby face pop, like the crowd does like the barking and whatever. And whatever, you know, WWU event that was

where he was doing the Steiner math thing and leaning into it, I was like, this is exactly what I want from Bron Breaker. And now he's in a heel faction with Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins. And I'm just like, all right. And not only that- But he's one of those guys who he's not gonna be able

to cut like real good promos, I don't think. So to have him be Seth Rollins enforcer, learning from Seth Paul Heyman is going to cut all his promos for him. I feel like you're putting him in a spot to succeed majorly. I guess but I also just wanted the Heyman Rollins Alliance a little bit of time to breathe like give me that. I'm not saying don't have like a faction spill over into the future, but give me at least 24 hours or 48 hours, like one show where it's just, you know, Seth and Paul Heyman at least teasing like there's more of us like to get that first one immediately,

like we don't even get to see Seth and Paul do their thing one on one. Yeah, I didn't love it. I know everyone else was was coming themselves over it But I I didn't I didn't watch it self to like I thought that match was as good as I could have imagined it being It was one of the best triple triple, right? You know, I think yeah match was awesome. The match was awesome But I'm still sticking to the All three and the video package that this fire burns video package for punk. Holy Well, that was good

I almost teared up Yeah Like I was here arena was we were watching it. The entire arena is singing this fire burns I have I told you I have the this fire burns tattoo on my arm yeah I have the lyrics to that song right here on my arm I yeah that that package before punk came out very moving color just sounding as good as they could ever fucking sound he Corey Glover 60 years old he might have sounded better here than at WrestleMania 29 like he is just fucking on point every performance

That was awesome. I loved obviously that whole triple threat. How would you have felt if Seth was the one to screw Cody night, too And they did that massive like people were theorizing that he was hinting at an allegiance with the rocker of some sort Would you have been okay with that if it was like both nights? It's like Seth Rollins and fucking Paul Heyman are standing tall at WrestleMania with Cena. I think I would have liked that better than what they did to be honest. I don't know if I would have loved it but I would have liked it better than what they did. Well I texted you beforehand what I would have done and I think it would have been way better. I said they should

have recreated the Montreal screw job with the rock. Like if Sina, like if you're going to have Sina go over, have him go over as dirty as possible. Yeah. If you're trying to make this heel Sina thing a real thing and keep Cody looking strong, which he didn't, you know, like one shot to the head and you know, dude kicked out of like 16 AA's, but then he takes one shot to the head with the belt and that's it. I know, I didn't like that finish either. It reminded me of WrestleMania 17,

when it's just chair shots to end WrestleMania. And it's like, I get what they're going for, the brutality and whatnot. If you're gonna do that, let Cody get color. It was two shots to the exposed turnbuckle and a belt shot. How many times did they cut away from Cody they kept cutting away from him and I like so I had I had die-hard fans that were in attendance at my house for it

and then I had casuals and people that have never watched and I was like I was like they keep cutting away from Cody this is where he's gonna blade and then they turn back and nothing I was like what and it's like you did a double shot to the exposed turnbuckle that used to be like if the Exposed turnbuckle hits you you're gushing Immediately so to do that and I was even thinking alright if you're gonna have Cody lose again kind of WrestleMania 39 Vibe for him him sitting on the ramp or whatever like make it visually different make him have blood streaming down his face It's like oh my god. They fucked him and you could have tried to do something

I know the crowd was way behind scene that night too, but you could have tried to get sympathy for Cody and they didn't like structure the match in the way. I thought that would have worked. I thought maybe, cause I was also thinking in my mind, okay, if we're getting the rock running, Travis Scott running, whatever we're going to get. How do you make it different than WrestleMania 40? We can't have every WrestleMania end with fucking runnin runnin runnin Yeah, I was kind of thinking what if Cody just fucking wins this match clean the rocks music hits and he says no

No, no, we're actually gonna end WrestleMania bigger and better We're gonna restart the match and it's gonna be no DQ And I thought they were gonna screw Cody in that way and that could have been different that could have been unique They had the shirts for sale that you sent and I saw them in the fucking WWE World Shop Finally the Rock has come back to Las Vegas Who made the decision to approve that shirt and say put it on the racks? There was an expectation There was absolutely an expectation It was like a no-brainer that the Rock was gonna be there

The fact that nobody came out and was like by the, The Rock is for sure not going to be at WrestleMania. The only person to say that was Dave Meltzer months ago, and The Rock respond. It was like, don't believe that shit. Why did The Rock even correct him if he was right? He corrected someone on Instagram too. There was like a comment about, you know, like you're not gonna be involved in WrestleMania. He said don't believe everything you read. You know, don't believe that bullshit. And I know it was on him. Like, it's entirely on him. That's why I am mad at Dwayne.

And I absolutely agree. I think like I don't think the main event was seen as fault. I don't think it was Cody's fault. I don't I mean, I don't even think it was Travis Scott's fault because he was placed in that situation. If it falls on anyone, it's on The Rock and Triple H, unfortunately. And Triple H did a pretty fucking great job with the rest of WrestleMania. This is the one thing we're gonna look back at and be like, big swing and a miss for him.

I think Brandon Walker said this is probably his first giant swing and miss creatively. Where it feels, I haven't even seen anyone really defending the way they did this. I've seen people be like, I'm happy Cena won and I'm fine with that. Like I kind of thought Cena would win coming in. I'm happy Cena broke Flair's record to be honest. Like I would rather Cena have 17 than Flair be the record holder at 16. But it's crazy that you were able to give Cena 17 and make it feel underwhelming after the heel turn. It's almost impressive that you were able to make it feel underwhelming. Yeah, because when I was saying I was out on this mania before elimination chamber, then the scene of turn out pulled me back in. I was like, Oh, this is gonna be awesome to build to it. The rock never showed up again. After elimination chamber was never referenced again,

pretty much. It's just I don't know, I feel like what I was kind of getting at earlier about being upset that I trusted them is this entire time, I mean, the last, I don't know, call it since 2021, the storytelling has been so good that me as a fan, anytime I think that I'm smarter or I'm like this is wrong every single time it's been like boom swerve like you you thought this and you thought like we were the dumb ones you're the dumb one and this is actually elimination chamber is a good example right we were both like why is the rock

fucking headlining with this stupid segment over these great matches and then they do the scene heal turn turn, we were like, we were wrong. The Rock, you're the best. Bow down. Yeah. Yeah, but it's just, I mean, I trusted them. And I just think it sells in Toronto. After night one, where you had a triple threat match

with no stipulations, no title, and you knew that the heel turn was orchestrated by The Rock, and I was looking at the clock, it was 10.20, I was like, we've got so much time left by the rock. And you're you know, I was looking at the clock. It was 1020. I was like, we've got a so much time left on the clock. And when Travis Scott came out, it's like, we still got 20 minutes left. Like, obviously, like, you know, now we're gonna get the rock and something because there's there's too much time at this

point. Now that Travis Scott's coming out. We're gonna get the rock and then who's gonna come combat the rock like what I was just anticipating some like holy shit moment and it was just Travis Scott and in the way that we've anticipated that 20 minutes of that runtime you just talked about were going to be taken by his entrance as well. Yeah, one minute, one minute down to the ring like that. It was a minute 48. Yes, that that's crazy. That's like Undertaker level where like he was just sauntering down to the ring and the whole time

From the press box up from the heavens. I'm watching and I'm like Cody get up and I know it ain't on Cody Cody I just has to fucking wait but like in the context of wrestling and everything just the way they as a Cody fan the way they structured the entire Finish just made me upset where okay He gets one back on Travis Scott But then we do the tug-of-war over the title and he can't use it on Cena even though Cena just Brought an interference and brought the title into the ring. It just made him look Bob silly Bob Cody just used every weapon in the book against Kevin Owens a couple of months ago.

Like, well, he's not above using weapons. Like, what are we doing? It's just the rule set, and it's like, why does he really care about the rule set? It's the main event of WrestleMania. The ref is down and Cena is trying to cheat. This is the time where your babyface QB1 should say, fuck that, I'm hitting Cena with the title now. This is revenge for elimination chamber. And nobody would boo Cody because of that. No kid out there would be like- They're blowing him anyway.

He's a bad guy now. Yeah, so man, man, that was a disappointing way to end Night 2. I do want to go through some of the other stuff that happened at WrestleMania, because there was some great stuff. So let's just start at Night 1, because another one of the highlights of WrestleMania I think was Jey Uso and Gunther. Are you, where are you on Jey? Because I'm pretty big on Jey. I'm a Jey defender. I love Jey. It really bothers me that the dynamic that exists right now where he's going

to these shows, everyone is eating and then they put out the video and it's like 41,000 dislikes it's like what what what is that I don't I don't get it be in there this weekend in Vegas I saw as many eat shirts as any other wrestling shirt J Uso had as much merch in Las Vegas as anyone else. The kids all wanted the golden WrestleMania Yeet glasses. My nephew, one of the first things he went to in the shop, let's get some Yeet glasses, wanted to wear them for Jay's match.

People had the Yeet gloves, or it's like a foam finger hand, you know, whatever. He was as over as anyone I've ever seen at a wrestling show. It felt like it was like Daniel Bryan fucking yes movement in the building. And then the next morning, my brother told me he's like, yeah, already 40,000 dislikes on that video. And we looked at each other like, what is the disconnect there? To a lesser extent, I feel the same way about Bianca Belair.

Like, I don't know where her booze came from recently, and I don't know why she's getting booed. But every time I see her in the ring, I'm like she is awesome like cutting good promos Always in good matches. So there's there's a weird I think it might just be because kids like him so much Adults are inclined to be like we should boo the the guy that's for kids. But look at the Heyman statement He just did an interview where he said he's one, two or three in merch, one, two or three in ticket sales. Ratings always go up minute by minute when he's on.

I think this was like a great way to kick off WrestleMania, a great person to put the title on. I actually think if you want to involve Travis Scott in WWE, this was the match to involve him and he should have been walking Jay. I know he walked Jay out once. He should have been attached to Jay like that makes sense to me the fucking WrestleMania theme song sounded like yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet like it sounded like that the whole time um but honestly I loved this match I loved the way it kicked off WrestleMania and I loved the finish I know people

didn't like that Gunther tapped I thought it was fucking creative it made it different than last year I thought that he tapped immediately was like kind of cool that he couldn't handle it. Like he couldn't handle the adversity when Jay put him in the choke. I loved all that. The reunion with Jimmy, dude, the reunion with Jimmy almost made me tear up. Yeah. So we, uh, I didn't like that he tapped that quick. I don't mind that he tapped. I just think that he tapped too quick. We were having a discussion about, would you rather be Jimmy, who doesn't have a match, but got to come out and be beside his brother who just won the World Heavyweight title, or would you rather be Trinity,

who did have a match that no one gave a fuck about? Ooh, that's tough, because I actually thought, I agree that going into that match it felt like whatever, this is going to be a squash match. Got to be honest, during the match, I think they pulled out like three moves I had never seen before. The crazy like bulldog off the top rope, Jade's inverted power bomb, like the electric chair

slide around power. They were doing some shit where I was like, okay, they're working for it right now. So I actually didn't hate that match, but I would probably rather be at Jimmy. I think Jimmy had the better moment. Yeah, of course. Yeah. The, the, and it's also like no pressure. You get to watch your brother win a championship and then you just have to go

hug them and then you get to be out with like an electric crowd that's like eating. I was also thinking though during their, like their exit through the crowd was like, they must really wish they could just go up through gorilla right here because it took them a long time to get out of that stadium. Yeah. I thought it was great. I love Jay. I think that he absolutely like he's getting rewarded now as a super over baby face for the awesome work that he did as a heel like his run with the bloodline as a complementary character that at times never never passed Roman but like got up to Romans level in terms of storytelling and

acting ability and the intrigue behind his character. And there were times where the J angle of the bloodline saga was more interesting than anything else that was going on. So him getting the world. Jay and Sammy, like all of that. I liked the segment on Raw too.

I mean, they had that moment where Sammy staring at him on the turnbuckle and everyone in the crowd started to be like, no, please don't do it. and they didn't do it. They're gonna do it eventually they're gonna it's coming But I liked that they gave him one night of just wholesome celebration in the ring You deserve a chance fans wanted one more time of the fucking theme song hit and everyone yeeting Knowing it's probably gonna be the last time they get to do it all weekend Um, I thought that was great the Naomi j match that you mentioned nobody really gave a fuck about I kind of felt that way about new day Viking Raiders the one right after it right? Oh

again why Biggie was there you told us the story Like I mean even if you in the video package before the match. I thought just hit Biggie's music for distraction He doesn't have to get involved hit it a distraction, a huge pop and something like that. But this was one of those matches. It was fine. I don't think there was actually any matches on WrestleMania as a whole that we're going to talk about where I'm like, that was an outwardly bad match. Everything about that match was bad. They were botching. But this is one of those matches that could have been on any other pay-per-view It didn't feel like WrestleMania and unfortunately a couple matches did have that feel like Phoenix El Grande Americano

I think Rey Mysterio doesn't get hurt the night before that match does feel bigger because it's fucking it is Rey Mysterio a top Ten wrestler of all time as we've established on here, but you fill in Phoenix, and it's a good match But it's just it doesn't feel like oh, this is a year's worth of WrestleMania builds, you know, no, but I did like that match and I loved his entrance the fucking mariachi band playing him out I like the finish of him putting the loaded whatever that is knuckles Piece of metal in his mask and hitting the diving head but I thought Phoenix delivered for finding out you're about to have a WrestleMania match in front of 60,000 people or whatever to step into that spot. I even thought the Tiffany Strat and Charlotte match was good.

It was a long match and there were a couple spots where they got clunky. Couple spots for sure. But I was talking to Raj actually, who you know, it's night two, we were saying it kind of felt like the build. Like the build was a little clunky and just All over the place and the match kind of got a little clunky and all over the place So even though sure there were a few botches it kind of fit in a weird way I mean Tiffany getting her tooth chipped or the cap fall off that just made it look a little more brutal in the end anyway

yeah, everything other than the main event, like everything between Jey Uso and Gunther and let's say Tiffany Shrett and Charlotte, because that did feel like a big build. The three matches in between there all felt like they could have been on any of their pay-per-view and they were all good to find, but I definitely see what people are saying about that. Now that being said, two night WrestleMania will also do that. There were matches last year on one of the best WrestleMania's ever that I also felt the same way about where I was like, yeah, that could be on any other paper. Which one?

Like WrestleMania 40? Yeah. I mean, I love Kevin Owens and Randy Orton. They almost had a match at this year's WrestleMania. But it felt like KO, Randy Orton and Logan Paul got thrown together Kind of last minute last year. They were like, oh, let's get three guys in triple threat here I think New Day had a random tag match last year, right? There was a street fight last year with Street Profits was it even maybe there was a couple of these where it's like

Tag matches where you want to get a bunch of people on the card multi-man matches where you want to get a bunch of people On the card, they don't need that year long build. They just need to deliver for the live audience. Give us a couple of big spots to react to. Oh, another thing I wanted to mention. I heard that I haven't watched the broadcast back that night one, especially the crowd sounded dead all night and that's a WWE mic issue because being in the crowd both nights, they were very loud night one like very loud

The main event was the peak of course, but like mid Naomi Jade match I would turn to my brother and be like dude the crowd is into this match. They're chanting their react And this is crazy and then I'd get a text from Nate like it sounds like a library on TV Yeah, that's something WWE has to figure out because the live crowd I'm sure people that were there night one feel the exact same way. It was like active the entire night again, credit to two night mania. Nobody gets tired by the end of the show. Everyone's still hot and the crowd ready to react. Yeah, that that's why I said no one gave a fuck about that matches because it sounded like

no one gave a fuck about that. Yeah. I think the only time really was the scene of Cody match where, you know, because I mean, when I have people over, I've got the Sonos surround sound and I turn it up to 100. So like last and at the rumble, I remember that very well. So I and even now I think it's it's a different sound system now than when you were here because it's now it's even louder

Yes, so I had the play base which is five speakers now. I have the arc which is nine speakers So it's even louder now rated folks. Yeah, and this was the loudest WrestleMania I've ever been to not crowd wise the entrance music the video packages the stupid fucking Travis Scott song that they wouldn't turn off were Piercing my ears like headache level of loud in there. It was also I couldn't night two though It was that both nights. I was high up. I was higher for night two is in the press box for night two So it's actual wider night, too Yeah, and people didn't be so much shit for that. How could you pay for a seat that high? It's like it's fucking WrestleMania. Also the picture I posted where I said I heard Cena call a spot from up here where the press box looks like it's a thousand feet away from the rain,

you know, a thousand miles away from the ring. I use the.5 lens on that to make it look as far as possible. I'm telling you, if you have an opportunity to go to WrestleMania, if it's within your price range and you have to sit at the last seat in the House I truly believe it's still worthy of that experience like I've sat everywhere for WrestleMania This is my ninth WrestleMania, which means I've been to 21% of all the WrestleMania is in history Which is a crazy stat that I'm pretty proud of now I've sat ringside and I've now sat in the last seat in the house I would still rather be there than

watch it on TV. Personally, I love the live environment. Like even in the press box, you could feel the energy of the crowd. I love that. So don't let the nasty replies or whatever, like discourage you from buying tickets. If next year, if that's your only option, like go. It's also not as far as it looks. It's never as far as it looks in pictures. Like I was watching The Ring as much as I was watching screens both nights. So highly, highly recommend. And just the entire week and vibe of wrestling fans taking over a city, everywhere you look, you're seeing wrestling shirts,

you're walking past bars that are playing wrestling themes. It's so worth it. Next year in New Orleans, it's a perfect city for that. Very walkable and everything. Much more walkable than Las Vegas and much more tolerable weather So I would recommend that Maybe I'll night you Orleans next year. Dude. You should we should do we should do New Orleans next year. I would like that I've never been I've never been

Listen no disrespect to the city the city's fine Non WrestleMania week when it's WrestleMania week and you could go to Bourbon Street and every single bar is only playing wrestling themes and everyone's doing Yes Chance, Yeet Chance, Singing Along. It feels special. It's one of those things where 34, they went back for 34 which is weird that they did it that quickly. But that was where Brian made his return return teamed with Shane against Kevin and Sammy. It's it's worth going, I think we'll try to plan that next year. I would like that. Night two opens, I said the main event of night one, one of the best triple threats of all time. I wait throw this before we move on to night two. Before we move on to night two, I just just wanna say about night one, the main event.

Triple H I think has said this publicly that we're not always trying to swerve you now and that sometimes like the thing that you think is the outcome is what we're gonna give you. And that whole like night one, the main event, everyone that was there was like, what do you think's gonna happen? What do you think's gonna happen?

And I was saying, I was like, everyone thinks that Seth is gonna end up walking out with Heyman, but that's too obvious for WrestleMania. They have to do something that isn't that, but I don't know what makes sense that isn't that, to your point. It made the most sense for that to happen but I was like it's also not my job to think this hard about it so like I'm I will say thinking we think harder

about it than most too because yeah I kind of thought that that was like okay you do the Seth Heyman thing reinvents whatever whatever he said before in the arena in the stadium and leaving even it seemed like people were genuinely shocked like they could not believe that's how WrestleMania ended so like are we just maybe we're geniuses I don't know that's exactly but Lee yeah I thought the same thing and I but like you said that was the right move because also when you're considering you want the most eyes possible on night two That had so many headlines of just like even the people at Barstool that aren't the biggest wrestling fans

Jack Mack is someone that grew up on wrestling now only really comes back for the big shows He was immediately like that was a fucking Paul Heyman masterclass like oh my god like it got everyone Talking about night one leading into night two, which is also a cool part of WrestleMania. Now like last year they were able to make the main event of night one impact the main event of night two. That's what I can make it feel like. Yeah, I like that stuff. I prefer that.

Like I prefer what happens in the main event of night one, having it bleed into night two. Well, you want to you wanted someone added to the Cody Cena match. You would have. Rollins added to that. Yeah, that would have made sense to me. Right. Like if if you had the triple threat, the winner gets inserted into Cody Cena. Like it's like, oh, fuck like that. That makes a lot of sense.

WrestleMania. I would have said I hated that because Cena and Cody felt so personal and felt so like the storyline now knowing what we got Yeah, sure throw Seth Rollins in there. Yeah, and it was Travis Scott hit him then too. He's getting both I don't know who knows who knows but I I didn't think that the the coolest moment was When and I didn't see it in real time But I saw the video afterwards where punk is like looking around and he says like, I fucking did it. Like that was so cool. That made for all the complaining that I'll do about Biggie not being in the tag match for

the way that the night two main event ended. That moment right there as a very long time, I can't say lifelong, but for a very long time, I can't say life long, but for a very long time, because I was, you were talking about like, you asked me why the, um, why his gear was yellow. And I sent you pictures of me from 2012 wearing a yellow CM Punk t-shirt. I was like, he, you know, when the last time he teamed with Heyman, he was wearing yellow. Um, so a very long time, my bomb gear too, but it was a little different than the pipe bomb gear for time. He was wearing the pipe bomb gear too, but it was a little different than the pipe bomb gear for sure. He was wearing a stone cold shirt for the pipe bomb.

Well, he had the yellow trunks on and yellow kick pads as well, but I noticed the stars, the Chicago stars on them, I believe were black for the pipe bomb and they were white for this. So it could have been a little nod or homage, but it wasn't like he was wearing the exact gear. But I actually thought, I'm such a gear market, everyone knows that. Really good gear, WrestleMania. I thought when Jey Uso walked to the ring and he's wearing the blue and gold, I was like, that might be his best set of gear. And it's also a set of gear that's like,

I'm winning the title tonight gear. Like I fucking I want to look good in these pictures with the new title. Everyone in the Fatal Four Way Night 2 had such good gear. The only thing that disappointed me was I thought someone was going to do over the top Elvis gear in Vegas. I thought Seth Rollins was going to be the guy to do it. Come out with a fucking some kind of crazy Elvis entrance. Yeah, we didn't get any Elvis. He was in the video package at least. Was he? Yeah, opening night one. Yeah, night one when Dana's like, that's why this is the city of Sinatra and Elvis and Tyson and Dana White got booed. How about that? Sorry Uncle Dana. Yeah, I would kill. I would absolutely kill to hear his unfiltered commentary throughout the night. Just to have been sitting next to him. He does not strike me as a wrestling

fan absolutely at all. So the next time I interview him, I do promise I will ask about his WrestleMania experience, which I'm sure he'll be nice about because it's TKO and it's good for business to praise it. But I would love to hear his unfiltered commentary. All right. Night two. Again, the triple threat that closes night one, you could say all-timer. And then they open night two with another all time triple threat match. Eoskai versus Bianca Belair versus Rhea Ripley. I imagined this would be good leading into it. I like all three wrestlers.

I think they're the three probably best women's wrestlers on the roster. So you put them all together in a match like this with I thought a pretty good build, a pretty natural build. I was excited and I thought this would be a great way to kick off the show. I never could have imagined it being as good as it was. Some of the kick-out spots, some of the pinfall breakup spots, the finish itself, the fucking moonsault onto Bianca and Rhea while they were stacked up and everything.

I thought the finish was good too. The way the match was structured, people were so ready to see EOS guy retain. It kind of, I don't want to bring up Benoit but kind of reminded me of WrestleMania 20 where Triple H and Shawn Michaels have such beef with each other that their eyes weren't on the prize they were just out to get each other and Eoskai is the one in this situation who is the fucking eyes on the prize just wants the title I thought this was awesome and did you see the video of Eoskow's parents watching her win? No.

One of the most wholesome things of all WrestleMania weekend. Her mom and dad are hugging each other, they're wiping away tears, they're crying. The dad takes out like an old digital camera, starts taking pictures on it. It is awesome. Like absolutely awesome match, awesome video. I even saw a couple of videos afterwards. As Rhea is walking back up the ramp, someone dropped their Yeet glasses and she threw on the Yeet glasses and did a quick Yeet to the fans. And then Bianca and Ria hugged as they got to the back and didn't realize there was a fan that was able to still film them. So Bianca points to the camera and they run away. I mean, so I think that the folks saying it's one of the best or the best women's triple

threat matches of all time is doing it in injustice. I think it's one of the best triple threat matches at WrestleMania ever. I think take the women tag off of it. Yeah, I think the right person one and you mentioned Bianca getting booed earlier in like comparing it to who earlier and like comparing it to uh who you who are you comparing it to? J? J yeah yeah okay so with J like the fans are like they don't even boo him they just they complain about it online they complain about J cuz like all he says is yeet and all he does is super

kick and spear and frog splash blah blah blah blah, blah. That's why they booed or don't like Jay. But with Bianca, I think it was, they're not booing Bianca because they don't like Bianca. I think they just didn't want her to win. Like I think it was as simple as that. They wanted EO to win. For whatever reason, the fans of women's wrestling are really, really behind EO Sky. And it's nothing

against Rhea Ripley because that was another conversation that we had at the dork party was is Rhea Ripley like the complete package, like greatest women's wrestler of all time in terms of wrestler of all time in terms of like look, ability, obviously like the mic skills wouldn't grade super high but she's not atrocious. But also like yeah yes doesn't need to be the best promo in the world because everything else kind of makes up for it. Yeah like in terms of like the look physically imposing wrestling. I think she's gonna make a real case for that yeah. I don't know like if she probably is like she's gonna make a real case for that. Yeah. I don't know. Like, it probably is.

Like, she might not have the accolades that Charlotte Flair has, but I would always rather watch a Rhea match than a Charlotte match, and that's not shitting on Charlotte. Right, and I would rather, like, in the theme, like, I like Rhea's theme more than I like Charlotte's. I would rather listen to a Rhea promo

than a Charlotte promo. Yeah. Yeah. If you were to create a list, it's not that Rhea grades out five stars everywhere, but I would say she grades out highly across the board and well balanced enough to be like, yeah, like who would score higher than this? Yeah.

I liked that she came in for the save on Monday Night Raw too and was like, nobody beats up EO but put me like for her to have that tweener position Constantly kind of in that in between realm. I think is a really good spot and not to go back to the night one triple threat I just wanted to add I Think that was the most split a triple threat crowd has ever been night one Yeah, all three guys had so much support. I've never seen a triple threat where there wasn't a clear heel. Like all three guys had like 33% of the crowd cheering for him. It was crazy. I mean, people were chanting, like they would chant CM poke one second.

Then they would sing the Seth Rollins song. Then they would chant OTC. It's like we're chanting for all three of these guys. Yeah. I was like a punk and taker at 29. Yeah, super back and forth. I was very torn in that one as well. I was like, I mean, I love the owner taker. The streak is unbelievable, but like, if punk, I mean, the build to that was also awesome.

I was like, if punk is the one to do it, I mean, I'd be sad about the streak. When you hit him with the urn, we were all like, oh my God, he hit him with the urn, We were all like, oh my god. He hit him with the urn It's over. Yeah. Yeah, like it was uh Yeah, that was probably the most torn that I've been was was Punk Taker at 29, but this this triple threat I The only result I didn't want is the one that I got Yeah, you wanted punk or Roman. Yeah. Yeah You wanted punk or Roman. Yeah. Yeah.

McIntyre Priest, exactly what that match needed to be. Thought it was like kind of like balls to the wall, nonstop action. Not a lot of downtime. A bunch of fun spots. The old school selfie table spot was great. Selfie hysterical. I think that one someone said it did more numbers in like two minutes than the tweet last year did all year, which is crazy, which is this. Or it's going to become his WrestleMania thing.

Every year at WrestleMania, this is the new streak for McIntyre. Good stuff. I didn't like the entrance of McIntyre that was sponsored. The Viking Raiders had a sponsored entrance the night before too. They were a clash of clans and McIntyre was like the doom video game entrance. Listen, you could sell entrances if they make a lot of sense. I don't like that we're just like doing ad deals on WrestleMania entrances left and right now with the fucking drumstick the cone zone and the minute made and buddy brain was a lot of time.

It was a fucking Mountain Dew. The Mountain Dew match. I know dude and I don't like that. So yeah, and I gotta tell you they had a figure of him from that match at WWE World that was sick and I know the match was whatever but the figure of Bray from that. The glow-in-the-dark thing yeah yeah and Bray's gear designer mask designer Jason Baker I think his name is yeah he got put to work on this WrestleMania he made Rhea's crown which was inspired by the Batman Who Laughs which is like a comic where the Joker becomes Batman and shit crazy shit He made Cody's mask. He made Jacob fatu's entrance mask, which was so badass that like the tribal looking thing

Really cool from him this year. There is a There was a video that I saw a few weeks ago and it was like Jacob Fatu's entrance if Vince McMahon was still around and it was him coming out in a werewolf costume and then he came out in a werewolf costume. I was like no fucking way. I was like they definitely saw that video and they're trolling right now. Got a little inspired.

Oh and Priest had the Slayer entrance. He had Kerry King from Slayer. Which people like he wasn't you know it's running along to the song they still played the song didn't people didn't like that I thought it was cool in the arena and when they had the shot of the flames and he was walking out behind the flames I was like shit Kevin Kevin Dunn could never like I was into that entrance live and then I went on Twitter and everyone's like his guitar tone sounds like a fart I was like, ah dang. Yeah, it didn't sound great. And then he wasn't

Playing the song he was just playing like he was kind of heavy riffing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of liked it Speaking of things I liked fatal four-way Penta Dom Finn bra guy. I saw Dom Awesome, he did repost me and I thought that was really cool I interviewed Dom three years ago And I remember asking him who would you like to face if you could break down that forbidden door and his first answer was hook? Because of the second generation thing and he's like our dads had a rivalry I think that would be awesome and hook had just debuted I think But his second answer was Penta. He was like Penta and Phoenix and at the point at that point Dom was still tagging with Rey

He's like I think we'd put on a great tag match But I thought it was cool to get to see him work against penta at WrestleMania and then again against him one-on-one On raw the next night knowing that was like a dream opponent for him I wanted Dom to win this match going into WrestleMania weekend And I did not realize the entire crowd was gonna be with me. The dirty dirty dumb everyone doing that song the whole weekend his entrance was great with the fucking Rey Mysterio senior mask he walked out with everyone had cool gear everyone had cool entrances the judgment day drama in the match of him and Finn are we gonna help each other are we

not him finally kicking Finn into the ropes going going for the 619, getting caught. Everything about this match was perfect. Down to Dominic coming back into the ring to celebrate afterwards, just for people to go nuts again. This was awesome. Everything it needed to be and everything we wanted out of a good Dominic Mysterio moment. Outside of the triple threat on night one, this was probably my favorite match of WrestleMania weekend I love dirty Dom I've been a dirty Dom guy I used to I used to not be like when he was teaming with his dad and I was like does this guy know what a fucking gym is like come on like you're in WWE like you know let's take this seriously because I knew that the potential was there. But then with the second he turned heel, I was like, this is about to be special.

Like this is going to be special. Then I got the chance to meet him backstage at War Games 2022. The the one where the the bloodline match where Sammy, yeah. That one, I met him backstage. And every time that he has some sort of milestone, I always reach out and I'm like, dude, fucking congratulations or whatever. Like on a night like that, WrestleMania, you win your first singles title and the entire crowd is chanting your name. I thought by now, you know, like I'm sure you've experienced this with some guys where it's like, you know, you get in early and they respond before they're like really, really climb the ladder. He responded at like 330 in the morning. Like this, like he it's the biggest night of his. I

thought I was not even, I wanted to make sure that I congratulated him, but I was like, if I don't hear from him, he probably is getting blown the fuck up right now. I thought you were gonna say he's getting blown. He's probably getting blown right now. I thought you were stopping there. Yeah, but I think he probably had like, I don't know, 200,000 followers when we first met. And now he's at like whatever 1.6 million. His career has just been a fucking rocket ship since then. So yeah, he's the

guy that I root for on like a personal level where it's like I see the person in real life is fucking awesome. And then to see as a Roman fan, it's like, you know, I love Roman, but he's not always there to To see Dom there every night, and he was doing the house shows with Punk when he first came back, like he's just there, grinding it out, and to have that moment, he absolutely deserves it. He's a perfect IC champ, I'll say this,

I wouldn't hate it if you put the briefcase on him this year as well. Dirty Dom, always being the guy that could like come in and do it or willy wony. That would be so awesome. I was thinking if you don't have him win this match, I was like, maybe they'll have like Penta win. That'd be a big WrestleMania moment for Penta. And then you give Dom the briefcase.

Like I know he just got the IC title, but I'm ready for the world title reign. I'm fucking I'm here. I'm first in line. I'm camped out. I will be there for the Dominic Mysterio world title reign, which will happen. It absolutely will happen. He's a future world champ. Yeah, um Randy Orton segment a lot of rumors all weekend. Is it gonna be rusev? Is it gonna be jeff hardy? Is it gonna be someone from inside the company? Chad gable didn't have a wrestlemania match this year Maybe he could have filled in no

It's joe hend. Say his name and he appears. This was a great moment as well and I don't wanna sound like a broken record. Again, this is exactly what it had to be. Where it was two minutes, Joe Hendry got a couple of fun spots in. The TNA fucking world championship was raised above his head at WrestleMania. Crazy still, I know the Triple H acquisition happened the day before. We're in a weird branched timeline right now. But as soon as he does the Joe Hendry turn and Randy Orton hits the RKO out of nowhere, which again, it's like, how many more ways can he find an RKO out of nowhere? Apparently, they're still coming because I didn't see that coming and I was

watching him in the ring as well. And then he does the turn. He almost had an Austin feel about it, where it was like Austin would let his opponent up just for one more stunner. Great shit. Just great. He basically got three three WrestleMania moments out of a five minute segment. You got Joe Hendry's entrance. You got the RKO out of nowhere. And then you got Randy Orton doing his own fucking turn with the pose and everything And knowing that Randy Orton is now going on to the John Cena

We're doing the dream opponent list for John Cena for sure. They're gonna do Randy Orton. They'll do punk at some point They'll go down the list We're in a good spot with Orton right now and it's bittersweet I would have loved for him and KO to tear the house down at mania put on a classic But considering you had to make something last minute for Randy Orton, good stuff. And his trunks were cool too. Did you notice he had the throwback trunks on? He went back to the old school. Yeah. Yeah. That was cool for his 20th WrestleMania.

Yeah. He went with the OG trunks. The what were they blue and yellow or whatever it was? And like the different Orton font on the back. Yep. Yep. Loved it. I think Hendry was, we were kind of like looking around the room like who's gonna be some people were saying Rusev. I was like Rusev's not like re-debuting so he can take an L at WrestleMania. Nick Aldis was thrown around, but we were like, if it's a surprise opponent, then the pop has to be when the music hits. Is anyone in this fucking room know what Nick Aldis' music is?

Like, no, so it can't be him. And we were like, what's the music that could hit right now that would make everyone go nuts? And it was split between Jeff Hardy and Joe Hendry. So we weren't caught off guard by Hendry. It was more like people started laughing. They're like, oh my God, it is Joe Hendry. So like, we weren't like, you know, caught off guard by Hendry. It was more like people started laughing. They're like, Oh my god, it is Joe Hendry. The way they did that entrance is good to the slow like zoom in just for him to hit the turn.

Yeah. Yeah. So it was great. It was exactly what it needed to be. Any, any one of the idiots online that thinks that Joe Hendry like, oh, they buried the TNA champion, they buried TNA because their champion lost in four minutes. No, like TNA must be ecstatic that their champion was on WrestleMania against an absolute legend. 20 Wrestlemanias, he's all-famer. Yeah, like that was perfect. It was exactly what it needed to be.

I think the match with Jeff Hardy would have been cool, you know, as like a throwback, but on the same token, it's like the crowds cheering for Jeff to like you know, right, Randy Orton come off like the heel in any scenario and it was a hard spot because of that you want a big pop for whoever's coming out. You also want Randy Orton to remain the baby face in the story, which Jeff Hardy did it on a little. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You don't want Jeff Hardy to be out there for two minutes like that. I saw Nick Buono had a good tweet, our guy Nick Buono, where basically quote tweeted one of the people saying this Barry Joe Hendry and he was like,

what are you talking about? Said everything we just said, where it's like the TNA world championship was represented at WrestleMania for the first time. And he got to face Randy fucking Orton. Like we're talking about like one of the greatest of all time, for sure. This was nothing but great for Joe Hendry, who also still has a pro wrestling tea shop where he's making all that money. Imagine how many people went to pro wrestling, tease dot com slash Joe Hendry after WrestleMania, but money directly in his pocket. Yeah.

I think the only other guy that you could have gotten the big crowd pop because of their music familiarity and still have everyone chanting for Randy Orton in a quick victory would have been Shane O'Mac. I thought about Shane O'Mac as well, and that would have been cool. But Shane O'Mac, can we count on him after he fucking doors ACL at 39? No, sure can't. He did a leapfrog and Snoop Dogg had to save the day. By the way, shout out to Snoop for saving it.

Like on the floor. To be able to add with that in the moment on live TV. I think the ref was helping him too. The ref on the outside Stephanie something. She was like, Snoop, people's elbow, Snoop. Logan Paul, AJ Styles. This was the moment where it felt like the crowd hit a wall where it was like, all right, we've been watching wrestling for a weekend now and we're ready

for the main event. Logan Paul and AJ didn't get a lot of crowd engagement during their match. It was a fine match. It was nothing special. A lot of people said that the hands of time are catching up to AJ now. He's starting to look old out there. We got the little carrying cross spot, which I thought was weird. It felt like they wanted to just include carrying cross in the card somehow. And he's kind of been a part of this AJ thing. So I was fine with that. Carrying cross is promo with Sam Roberts has been everywhere the past two days.

Kind of a hype bomb, if you will. Very good promo. Very good. I love carrying cross. Best way to put his name out if you will. Very good promo. Very good. I love Marion Cross. Best way to put his name out there after that. Yeah, so he's been misused for a long time because this is one of those guys that, similar to Punk I guess, grew up a die-hard fan, knows the business in and out. A lot of the guys guy, and it's, you know, not a knock on them, because a lot of them end up being champions and really good at what they do. Yeah, but there's a lot of people in the business where

it's like, yeah, I failed at football, I failed at rugby, and then they found me and I tried this out. Now I'm really good at it. Like you can tell, like carrying cross has been a lifelong diehard wrestling fan. And he has a great look. He's great on the mic. Uh, and it's just like, give me something that I can sink my teeth into. Just give me something that I can run with. And I know triple H believes in him because he came back when triple H took over.

So it's like, you've got Hunter on your side. He sees the vision, but he was an XC champ for a while. Like they, they trusted him. Like him and Finn Baller had a big feud for the NXT championship and shit. He was trusted with a top guy position. Yeah. So I need, I need a more reality based lane that carrying cross can run with versus he just opened the door to it too.

Like that was like the perfect thing where basically if you want to run with that, the WWE now has the door open to run with that. And if they don't want to run with it, he just got all that groundswell of support from the fans that now the next time he appears on TV, he's getting a huge pop. You know, he has from that promo itself. So he needs to do it on TV now. He does. But that was one of the most like well played plays of WrestleMania weekend. If you want to call it that he took out the playbook and said I'm going to try a pipe bomb on Sam Roberts podcast. And let's see if it sticks. He's throwing shit at the wall right now. And that definitely stuck. So shout out Karrion Kross former My Moms basement guest as well had him on maybe even

longer than three years ago. Yeah, he's great. I think this is now's the time. And I think it should be one of those things where Hunter's like, okay, here's a live mic, go get off your chest, what do you need to get off your chest? Because he was kinda getting somewhere with, I don't know if you noticed it, but his backstage segments,

whoever he was trying to brainwash or whatever, he was wearing their hair the way that they wore it. Like how they would have like, wouldn't they have like a streak of bad luck after that? There's something there was like more to that people could kind of dig apart like layers of what Karen Cross was doing, who was in the background while he was talking to these people. Yeah, like even having a character that people are really paying attention to that closely is great because people love that right now as part of the reason why so many people thought Seth Rollins and the Rock are gonna align because he kind of did a couple things. He did the

the Rock's mic thing. He wore the turtleneck with the chain. The flamethrower at Wrestlemania. Like, I like when people are saying maybe maybe there's something there because in Vince McMahon's era, none of that ever meant anything. It didn't mean anything. They didn't respect like that the fans are paying attention and Triple H now does respect that. It feels like at least or how like Becky's jacket said best for business on the back

at WrestleMania. Yeah. And Becky's the next match. The only match we haven't talked about Raquel and Liv versus Lyra Valkyria or is that how you say your last name? Yeah And Becky Lynch the the surprise opponent good spot for Becky huge pop again The crowd was kind of not dead but ready for the main event at this point So the match itself didn't get a big reaction

I thought their match last night on raw was better than the WrestleMania match Maybe because the crowd was so into it last night and that Spike Oblivion finish was fucking crazy. Lyra sold the shit out of that. It's a good setup to a feud. It's almost a shame that WrestleMania had to kick off all of this, but it certainly feels like Becky is going to be the one who who attacked Bailey and you set up then a feud for Becky versus Bailey Lyra in the mix for the IC title

It's like it feels like they said we want a big program for the women's IC title Let's bring Becky back and make this whole thing a you know Three-way dance is Bailey like hurt in real life that must fucking suck to be taken off the card like that Hurt in real life that must fucking suck to be taken off the card like that It must suck and there was reports that like the locker room had a lot of sympathy for her because she's so beloved in the locker Room and like one of the most respected people there at this point that like right before WrestleMania They were like yeah, we're gonna set you up with a Becky Lynch feud post mania instead Yeah, I guess it's not even confirmed. They're gonna do that I would assume she's the one that attacked Bayley cuz the heel turn and all that.

But yeah, I like that they did the heel turn on the Raw After Mania. I would have been cool with it at WrestleMania as well. But the Raw After Mania this year felt like a Raw After Mania. We got a lot of returns, we got some heel turns, we got big moments, title change. They didn't do that in the last couple Vince raw after manias. I remember there being shows where we were like, that was just a regular role. Nobody came back. Nobody did anything special. Like, let's make raw after mania great again. Maybe some red hats we could print for. Yeah, yeah, I, I watched

the presser, where everyone, you know, talks talks about whatever but Triple H said um he's like you know the raw after mania we expect you know returns in crazy spots and things like you know like our fans always expect something special the raw after mania so we're going to treat it as such that's the first time i've ever seen someone acknowledge that like usually it's kind of like it's an unspoken it is what it like you know what it is so we're gonna go to the crowds are bizarro land or whatever yeah yeah yeah but it's like that was the first time I've heard someone like that be like no we we understand what the raw after mania is supposed to be so we're gonna give that to you also interesting similarities because I was there I remember it very vividly

in the raw after WrestleMania 31 and the Raw after WrestleMania 41. After 31, Seth Rollins had just pulled off the heist of the century. Rollins is the talking point of WrestleMania, essentially. Everyone wanted to talk about that. We got a great IC title match where the champion defended their title. 31, it was Daniel Bryan versus Dolph Ziggler. Here Here it was Dom versus Penta. And Michael Cole gets attacked on both raw after 31 and 41. That one, it was Brock Lesnar. This one, it was Gunther. I kind of loved the way they did the angle too, where it was again, kind of subtle. As the crowd's chanting, you tapped out, Michael Cole joins in on for one. He goes, you tapped out and kind of

laughed with McAfee. We come back from commercial break and they're mid confrontation and Gunther's in his face already of what you think this is funny. And he's like, what, we can't have fun. We can't show our opinions. He goes after Cole. McAfee comes after him. He chokes out McAfee, tries to fucking kill him.

He choked him out for 10 minutes. As McAfee's whole squad shout out Ty Schmidt and Evan Foxy and all them jumped the barricade. They're trying to get him. Everything about that was sick. Even Michael Cole coming back out being like, I'm not letting a bully put me down. Joe Tessitore taking the fucking second seat. I thought that was maybe like my favorite part of raw,

like the entire way they did. That was awesome. Yeah, it was. Setting up McAfee, Gunther, or are they setting up for someone to be like, you can't fucking hit McAfee, bro? I think they're writing off McAfee Gunther or they setting up for someone to be like you can't fucking hit McAfee, bro I think they're writing off McAfee for a little bit is what yeah But like when he comes back are they trying to do that at summer slam as like a big special attraction match Do you think I?

Don't know. I mean, how do you like I know McAfee? What you do in there now good there needs something I mean, how do you like, I know McAfee. What are you doing there now? Gunter needs something. Yeah, I don't know what you do with them. Maybe it's maybe it's he just keeps attacking people like this. Maybe he's attacking non wrestlers and referees and interviewers or, you know, me, build them up. I'll take a bump for Gunter.

Yeah, he's building back into a monster and unhinged monster. I don't know. He's in a weird spot, like almost like last year's WrestleMania, when he lost the IC title, it was like, all right, he'll probably move on to a world title now. Now he lost the world title. Who do you or do you think that this is going to be a shorter reign for Jay? I can't tell. Instinct would say yes, because I think Cena's reign is going to last a long time. I think Cena's reign is going to pretty much last till December.

I could see Cena losing at like Survivor Series or something and then having like a couple appearances to end the career on a face note maybe. Well who does Jay feud with? I kind of initially thought, are they going to put Rollins immediately in that spot? But now it feels like we might have a tag team match Bruin with punk and Roman on one side and Braun and Seth on the other. Again, is that, but is that backlash or is Roman taking time off and that's summer slam or money in the bank like I think that Roman got hit with a couple curb stomps at the end of the show

I kind of thought does he take time off now? No, I think that's backlash. I think you're probably right. I think that's probably backlash and Summerslam is probably Seth verse Roman night one Punk first scene a night two or something like that That would be a hell of a one, two punch right there. You think Orton Cena is a backlash match? I know it's a backlash match. Backlash is in St. Louis. Yeah, that's true. But I, and Orton's on the poster.

I guess you kind of have to do that, right? Like you can't, like all these, all these dream matches of like a heel Cena, you can't save them for the big ones because it's, you know, there's a finite number of theories. Maybe you fucking do Orton versus Cena. Cena obviously goes over. The next pay-per-view is Money in the Bank. I don't know if you want to do punk Cena, Money in the Bank. Yeah, I do. Maybe you have seen a beat someone punk music hit face off to end the show and you know we're getting that in the Summer Slam main event, something like that. I think it would be great if they did do punk and Sina at

Money in the Bank. You could do both. You could do like they did in 2011. You do the rematch at Summer Slam. Sina goes over and then leaves through the crowd It would be fucking great blows the kiss to fucking Triple H Yeah I Agree and and from this point on I said to my nephew as we were leaving night to huge Cody fan huge Roman fans So this is a tough weekend for his favorites. But I said to him, I know this was a little underwhelming,

but you'll always say you got to watch the start of John Cena's last title reign. And this could be an awesome title reign. He could go down the greatest hits path and we could talk about this like, oh my God, remember when Cena had, you know, almost the US title open challenge era where we could have a new era of John Cena brewing right here

And I hope we do Honestly, I know the the ending of night to sour people I would say overall this was a really good WrestleMania that out of my nine I've been to I said it's better than at least five of them It's like in the top half of the WrestleMania as I've been to for sure and the raw after Made me feel a little bit better about the future where I'm like, alright the Rock fucked things up for everybody for sure But I think Triple H is gonna course correct and get us back to where we need to be I mean that if that raw tells you anything, I think I think Dwayne fucked us on mania and

Moving forward. It's like Triple H can just be like alright well if we're not including Dwayne in our future plans then like this is who we have and this is what we have to work with and here's here's what we got so here's the product now here's the vision all in your court yes you can ruin wrestling as much as you like Dwayne it's just your decision would you like to ruin wrestling because I know John Cena saying that his character might be based on a real-life person named Dwayne Johnson because it feels like he's the only one trying to ruin wrestling right now So yeah, just fucking either either be in or be out Nate had great tweets

WrestleMania night where he basically said the Rock is just half in half out on everything He's half in the Cody story And then he comes out and says that him and Cody were sharing Rolex's and hugging and it's like you're half in your half out you come out as the final boss and then you talk about the Netflix numbers and do all your catchphrases being around don't half-ass two things why don't we whole-ass one thing rock all right fucking Moana head ass all right did you did you watch the Sina press conference yes I thought it was very funny I thought him throwing me the side plates to kick it off and then call on everyone clickbait lazy journalists. Yeah. Yeah

I think that's I thought his promo on raw was also one of his best heel promos. I like the date countdown I like that. He's like you only have that many dates left I like the simple the black background the John Cena in like I like all that shit So like yeah, we are now again, we're entering the the heel Cena where it feels like, all right, let's shed the fucking sell your soul stuff and whatever. Let's just get on to like the next phase of whatever this is. Mm hmm. Yep. That's all I had. Anything else Jared? Abu had his last match, WrestleMania weekend. That was fucked. Sad.

Super sad. Sad. That was sad, but Janela, I said, was involved in the least wholesome moment of the weekend, which was that. And also the most wholesome moment of the weekend, where Brody Jr. won the Clusterfuck Battle Royale. He came in unsurprised. He's like 14 or 15.

It was like unannounced, surprised everybody, and he fucking hit Janela with a hell of a stunner to throw him over the top rope and everyone went wild. It was like people were crying and the GCW Joey Janela clusterfuck night too. It was awesome. I forget the dude's name, but we went to AW on last Thursday and there's this really young kid. He won a title and we were Googling him after. Nick Wayne? Yes.

Uh, and he's 19 years old and we're reading his Wikipedia page. He debuted when he was 12. Yeah. Dude, Darby Allen found him, I believe. I think Darby had a match with him on the Indies and was like, we need this guy. Like he's awesome. Let's when he turns 18, we're signing him. I think Tony con son on the dot.

Blunt and another, the only other indie thing I'll mention blood sport was an awesome show where WWE let like half their fucking matches were WWE wrestlers. Natalya had a bad ass like shoot style match. And, uh, the blood sport is kind of like underground matches where they don't, they have a ring, but no ropes. So it's just fucking grappling and stiff shots. Natalia came out to killing in the name and fucking beat the shit out of this girl started a fight in the crowd afterwards with the NWA women's champ. So now she's going to NWA and having a match there. Like this is the presentation that Natalia needs. They should fucking transition

this to WWE because it was awesome. Hmm. Never would have put those together. I'm going to send you some clips. You're going to be like, holy shit, why have they had Natalia just be like Bret Hart's niece there her whole career when she has this side of her. So there you go. That's from the top rope WrestleMania edition. Hopefully everyone enjoyed and I'm sure we'll see you probably backlash. We'll probably have to do a podcast if that's enjoyed and I'm sure we'll see you probably backlash. We'll probably have to do a podcast if that's a big show. So we'll see you next time. Jared and Robbie, we're out.