My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 496 - WRESTLEMANIA 42 (FROM THE TOP ROPE WITH JARED CARRABIS)

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Jared Carrabis is BACK in the Basement with Robbie to discuss #WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas. We're talking main events, commercials, surprises (or a lack thereof), TKO involvement, where the WWE goes from here, and more! #WWE ****************************************   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 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 Follow Jared on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jared_CarrabisYou 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 My Mom's Basement, but not just My Mom's Basement. It's from the top rope, presented by My Mom's Basement, presented by Barstall Sports. It is Robbie Fox. We are here with Jared Karabas to talk, WrestleMania. WrestleMania 42 happened over the past weekend, night one, night two.

Jared, how we doing? Commercial Mania, Bob. Yeah. Order has been restored, brother. You know, I mean, I got a lot to say about this show. Not a lot of it good. But if there's one thing good, I'm going to say, it's that they went out with a bang. Roman Raines back on top of the world. And I know what people have already said, Bob. I know people have already said this. That's not his title. Cody has Roman's title. Wrong. Wrong. The most important title in the company is the one that Roman Reins has. He makes it relevant. It's not about the lineage. It's not about who held it before.

It's who's holding it right now. And Roman Raines is holding the most relevant title. And it's only relevant because Roman Raines is holding it. Listen, you know I'm a Cody Bobo, but like Roman did that with the Universal Championship. I understand the game. You know, Roman has the title. That's kind of the title. It's also the title that main evented Sunday, night two of WrestleMania, which I agree with you entirely.

I mean, WrestleMania had a lot that we can talk about. we will talk about being rough, being bad, mainly the commercials, the ads everywhere. They ended it on such a good note that I left WrestleMania with like a good taste in my mouth because holy fuck, that main event, Night 2, CM Pump Roman Raines. It's incredible. I have no no nitpick whatsoever about the night two main event. From the entrances, the little buildup, like everything about it actually felt like WrestleMania actually felt like a big main event.

And I didn't even love the build. Like, you know, they're talking about jizz and they're talking about fathers being buried. I didn't love all that. So I would say the match even over delivered on my expectations. I didn't think it could be that good. If you treated night one like the Go Home Smackdown and night two like it was a one-night WrestleMania, you're having a great weekend, brother. Like that like the night two card was awesome.

I know that it was almost like night one left such a bad taste in my mouth that going into night two i was almost like cynical watching the the card but then looking back on it after how great the roman punk match was there was nothing worse than like a b b plus on the night two card my biggest criticism would be some matches didn't have enough time and you know they definitely didn't have like night two did a much better job with this but it didn't have the aura of ressalmania overall night one and night two combined but yeah there's nothing bad on night two certainly like not matchwise it was just there was a few things rushed uh sammy and trick fin and dom in particular those two matches and then even the um the jade and ria

rippley match i kind of felt like the three of them if they each had an extra five minutes to work and build the story out i think they all would have been better but they were all like good for the time they had yeah and by nature wrestling fans are very nitpicky uh i think some of the pickiness was fair for for some of this like in particular you didn't need to announce that the demon was coming back at WrestleMania because even like on night one the page return got leaked 24 hours or whatever it was before that so whatever surprises that you had were not surprises like they announced the demon beforehand page everyone knew to a T like what was going to have it wasn't even like Paige is going to come back.

It's the bells are going to come out. Nikki's going to step aside. Page is going to take her play. Like down to the last detail we knew it was going to happen with that surprise. Yeah. Like so the nitpickiness, sure, it's fair. But what I didn't agree with was night to the main event needing, you know, like when we were waiting for like the credits to pop up or like, is Rock going to come out to set up Rock Roman next WrestleMania? or like is something going to happen here like was you know is kevin owens like behind something

it's like no no no like i this match was great it was uh they've only i i i want i was curious last night i was like when when like have we seen this match before and it was like a 2014 raw we saw roman and punk like one-on-one like the only time ever um i love that when you get like a resslemania main event that isn't like the 19th time that we've seen it on television you know for for two legends to have only had a one-on-one match and it was once on a raw 10 plus years ago. That's pretty cool. But, I mean, let's start, let's start in order.

Let's not, let's not start with good because it did start off with a ton of suck. It started off bad. Do you want to start by talking about the commercials before we get into even the first match of the card? I want to start with Trista Crick, Bob. I want to start with Trista Crick because you know what, Cameron, he, He was making a lot of good points. You know, he comes out of this.

Yeah, he comes out of this being like, you know what? Let's talk to some people that are going to be on the Sunday card because that's where it's at. The Saturday card is going to stop. You're a Saturday guy. It was just like, what a funny chirp that was. The whole thing when he's like, I don't smell what the Ouse is cooking. Yeah. Ridiculous.

You said your dad was a legend. You, I don't know what happened. And then I sent that to you just like, we're getting a Trista Crick cameo in a. WrestleMania build with Jay Uso attacking Cameron. When she jumped on top of the table and she's standing on top of the table, I wanted her to fucking drop an elbow so bad. Yeah. Former Barstool employees had their handprints all over this WrestleMania.

So if we are talking about the lead up to WrestleMania, some people act like, are you guys going to do a WrestleMania preview? And I wasn't like opposed to the idea of doing it, but I truly had no motivation to do it. Like there was, I want to say nothing I was excited for. And I was excited for WrestleMania as a whole because I'll always be excited for WrestleMania. And I feel like I'll always have a little bit of optimism, a little bit of hope that they're going to, even with a bad build, turn it around and deliver a good show. But like, Oba Brock was obviously the match that a lot of people thought was built the best in the lead-up.

And I'm not much of a Brock guy. So even that one, I was like excited to see it. But I wasn't like, oh my God, I can't wait for this. I was like, there's a big ladder match. I'm sure that'll be great. There's like a couple things where I acknowledge that it could be good, but I wasn't like, it's probably the least excited I ever was for a WrestleMania in my life. lifetime going into it. Are you with me? Yes. Yes. The least excited that I've ever been. By the way, the dork party night two, there is two people that came to no. Two. Like we used to couple years ago at the rumble there, there was 10 people. We couldn't even bring in extra chairs. It was standing room only at the rumble last year, not this past one, the one before.

For mania, night two, we had two people show up. This is, this is who are the two? You got to shout I'm out. Shout out to Darren. Shout out to Rich. Uh, the, the only like true members of the dork party at this point because everyone else, I mean, I get it. You know, people have families. They have lives and in the product is complete ass, but it's WrestleMania. It's wrestling. Yeah. Families. What do we talk about? I mean, it's like, it's like Christmas Day. It's like, all right. Yeah. Like, I don't, I, uh, life isn't going great right now. Maybe money's a little tight. We're still going to get together as a family right now. Like, that's what we do. It's Christmas. And, uh, yeah, No, it was, it was bad.

It was real bad. It was a bad turnout. But they seemed to be right in their decision to pass after night one. I don't, night one was so disappointed. And even like, did you do a, you've done a Vegas mania before, right, Bob? Did last year, yeah. Okay. Like, is it just that the crowd mics are bad or is the Vegas crowd just not good?

I thought when I heard the response last year of people being like the crowd sucked, in my mind, I was like, I thought the crowd is pretty good. I will say the crowd for like Cody Sina wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be last year, knowing it's seen his last match. He's coming in as a heel. Now, we also expected like the rock and crazy shit to happen. But yeah, I don't know. Like the crowd wasn't amazing.

We've seen much better mania crowds, obviously. There's also something weird about the time they chose to do it, where it's like a 6 p.m. start time, which is 3 p.m. Vegas. It's over by 9.30. Like they pushed it ahead a year or an hour. Last year, it was dark for the main events, which I thought created like a cool vibe. Daytime WrestleMania is what it is. It could ruin things like entrances. But by the time you get to the main event and the sun sets and it's like, here we go. That's big. I saw a video of people leaving last night, and it was still light out. They were talking about how much they liked punk and rains.

It's still light out. I'm sorry. That's a nitpick. That's a surely a, a wrestling fan nitpick. It removes a lot of the aura. It does. Yeah. Undertaker Bray Wyatt was during the day. You can't have that weird match during the day. Sting made his debut during the day. It was like what like what's happening here? That's why I wanted the undertaker that year to come out as the American badass. Because it was like that would at least made more sense like that take by the way. I remember that dead man coming out. Yeah. It was a good take and the undertaker has now become way more open to making appearances as the American badass in retirement, which I'm happy. Well, he retired.

He retired The Undertaker. He didn't, he didn't retire Maga Marge. They all come out in his hoodie still to drop a fucking choke slam on the rock. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's start at the beginning. We got night one, the Uso's and L.A. Knight defeated the vision and I show speed via pinfall.

I actually thought this was like a pretty good spot for it on the card to kick things off. You have the celebrity involvement with I show speed leading up to this WrestleMania. The celebrity involvement's like the most talked about thing. I feel like this is the way to do it. I thought he was fine in this match. It was nothing special of a match. But then you get the big moment with him doing the frog splash afterwards.

I was like, all right. That's a mania moment. I'm okay with that. The frog splash happened, and I turned to Darren and I said, that's going to be the high spot of the night. Like, they're not topping that. They didn't.

It kind of was, wasn't it? Yeah, no. Like, what else was cooler than that? Like, what else was like, man? In the next match, it's a cool moonstalt through a table, but like, nothing we haven't seen before. I mean, that was like a soft. That wasn't even like a violent table spot.

It was like, he almost like, like, you know, he, like pushed him. Yeah, he pushed him through the table. He didn't break the table. Yeah. Yeah. That was another one where it's like, all right, you get that match. I was fine with the way that everything unfolded. The unsanctioned match, Jacob Fatu, Drew McIntyre, that went 14 minutes.

And I know that's like a decent amount of time for them. It wasn't the most built up feud leading into it, but it didn't feel like enough time. to me in the, because the match never hit that second gear. Like, unsanctioned, I'm picturing some crazy weapon spots or something. They didn't get that creative with the weapons, which I was a little bit. Again, I didn't think it was a bad match. It was just kind of a, didn't have a WrestleMania vibe at all. The entire night, like I, I didn't feel like I was watching WrestleMania until the main

event of night two. Like, none of them, even, even like the Cody Randy match, like did not feel like WrestleMania, yeah. Maybe the Ria Jade match felt like that had like kind of a big fight feel to it. Yeah. Yeah, that one had a big fight feel to it. And that might have been the only match that felt like that outside of the main event. I had a couple that we can get it to.

Also, just again, the commercials, I realized after the very first match of night one, when we threw to a four minute commercial break, I tweeted, I've already seen more commercials than I expected tonight and more than I wanted to tonight. It was the longest commercial break in WrestleMania history. I didn't realize we were getting one of those in between every single match every night. When we come back from commercial break, it's Michael Cole talking about the drumsticks or the minute made or the, and then we throw it to the commentary table where someone paid to be on it. And then we throw it to the Slim Gym table.

And then it was excruciating to get through all of those ads. Sometimes they would just throw up a screen that says, WrestleMania ad break in progress. We'll be right back. They're not even showing us real ads. Night two, not to skip ahead. They skipped over entrances for commercials. It's fine to do on Monday Night Raw.

I don't need to see Dragon Lee come out on Monday Night Raw every week or Smackdown, wherever it is. You can't do that on WrestleMania. Did you see the guy had the Dragon Wings made? He had Dragon Wings made and they just said, oh, we're going to show you a Minute Made commercial. That was so disrespectful to not only the fans, but the wrestlers.

You're telling me, he's envisioning his whole life. I'm going to be at WrestleMania one day. I'm going to be able to make my entrance. I'm getting fucking dragon wings made. They're going to be flapping all over the place. And then they threw to a commercial during that. There was even a video,

a great video from the stance of someone just being like, you got to be kidding me, commercial right now. Which, by the way, the wrestlers pay for all their own gear. So, yes. Yeah, whatever you saw in an entrance that didn't make it to TV, that wrestler spent thousands on whatever that was, just for only be shown to the people within the stadium. And it truly disrupted the pace of both nights, I thought.

Because even night, too, they show like a great promo package leading to Rains and Bunk. And then three four minutes worth of commercials and then through another thing. And then I should look at Street Fighter. And then it was just like, but you just got us excited for the match. I can't imagine being there, sitting there, being like, here we fucking go. And then it's 10 minutes until someone's making an entrance. Yeah. that was one of my most favorite things about watching pay-per-views was like at least like as a kid

you would watch like a friggin awesome promo that's like oh wow and then it would go it would like have like an awesome song that gets you fired up with all the highlights and then it would go be like and then it would shoot back into the arena ding ding ding ding the following match like it would go right into it. It would yeah yeah I don't know it's yeah I TKO has to figure that out. That cannot be the way WrestleMania is going forward. The table is sponsored by Slim Jim. Do you think that they're going to cut back on fucking ads?

And next year's in Saudi. Next year's in fucking Saudi Arabia. We're going to see the ad for Riyadh season 10,000 times next year. Yeah. Yeah, that's not going to be good. They need to figure that out. Because it also took time away from all the matches as well. Then we get the page surprise, Brie, Bella, and Page became the women's

tag team champs defeating the irresistible forces nia jacks lash legend charlotte flare elixa bliss bailey and lyra valkyria um i thought the demolition gear on lash legend let lash legend and nia jacks was sick the match was just like i look pissed to be wearing it she's probably pissed that she was losing it was the match was just a bridge to get page a nice moment she is yeah looks great but it was like you know the match was nothing the moment the moment in the end was like, it was nice to see Paige get that moment, you know, the entrance and then the win in the end. I always love her hands were shaking. Like she was like, I noticed that in the entrance. Trying to do like this. Yeah. Which I think it's cool to see. Like I think that's like, that's real

emotion at WrestleMania. Like I, I like that. So yes. Again, good moment. I did feel for Nikki Bella. Nikki Bella's injured and she has to act so happy about introducing Paige to take her spot. Like, that's bittersweet. Yeah. But the thing with Paige is like I, I'm sure she has some. element of will they remember me you know like when did she leave officially like when was she like when was her last match like 2016 I think maybe a little later 17 or 18 I would guess let's see h w w w e sariah bevis sarah bevis and butthead uh let's see 2018 was her retirement yeah yeah like I get it I get it I It's like a lifetime ago.

Yeah. We were there. Were you there? No. I was there. I was there with McAfee, actually. I was McAfee's first WrestleMania. I opened a can of worms getting him into the wrestling business.

But I was there for the beginning of it. You sure were. And yeah, I could get it. Like there's not necessarily imposter syndrome because obviously she knows she belongs. Like she can, she's always been able to wrestle and she's great on the mic and she has the look. but will they remember me is certainly something that creeps into the back of the head of a lot of people. Yeah. Then we got Becky Lynch defeating AJ Lee for the WWE women's interconfidental championship.

I really like both of these girls, women, respectfully. I did not like the AJ Lee entrance. That was all too cutesy for me with all the little girls dressed as AJ Lee. And I love the Wonder Years. They're one of my favorite bands, but my God, they did not do a great job on the lip sync. And they shouldn't have been lip-syncing in the first place. They're a great live band. And the singer,

Supi is amazing live. He forgot that the song opens with him saying, like, the man comes around. It's like halfway through. He's like, oh, shit. So that, it like started it off with a weird vibe for me.

And it was, again, they gave these girls eight minutes in there to do a few that they've been building up for months. What do you expect him to do? It was a fine match. I like to finish with the exposed turnbuckle. That was good.

But, like, they didn't have enough time to get into, again, that next year. where it was just kind of, I felt like we were going through the motions a little bit. I hope this wasn't AJ's last match, by the way. People are talking like,

what a run it's been, what adventure, didn't she? Right? I thought she, it was like multi-year deal. Now, at the time,

I think the reporting also said full time, which obviously isn't the case. But like, there's no way she came back to just do a bunch of matches with Becky and like won with Bailey, right? Nah, nah,

yeah, I think it was a multi-year deal. What I didn't like about this match was that It was almost like Becky and what's her name, Jessica, the referee? Jessica Carr, yeah. Jessica Carr, yeah. It was almost like the build to this match was more between them than it was AJ. A little bit.

And they did the push spot. I kind of like the push spot. Like Cody and fucking McAfee was a better build than Cody and Randy. And we had Becky and Jessica Carr was a better build than Becky and AJ Lee. Yeah, I don't know. Did you see the video of punk last night, by the way? I did. I did slapping a phone out of someone's hand.

And I don't blame him. Listen, it's not nice to slap phones out of people's hands or whatever. The videos of the fans at the MGM were insane. And I've been in that hotel. I've stayed in that hotel a ton. You do have to walk through a decent amount of the casino to get to the rooms. By the elevators where the rooms are, there should have been tons of security. Because fans just camped out.

And it was like, there was the video of Randy Orton getting swarmed. It was insane. like absolute L on WWE and MGM security for that one. Because Randy Orton's one thing. CM Punk's another thing. Someone like Bailey or AJ Lee, they're trying to walk through the casino alone with fucking creepy wrestling fans everywhere.

You got to figure that out. You have to. Yeah, that's a huge miss, especially in this era. I'm out on the people out on punk for that. Yeah. Did you see the video, by the way, I meant to mention it when we talked about the tag match,

Rick Flair? Please tell me you saw the Rick Flair video. I did, yeah. he was like at a bar watching it and then like charlotte came out and he started crying i almost thought it was fake i yeah i did too the tweet said it looks like it was filmed like the office it's true it looked like something out of the office yeah yeah yeah the video starts on the tv charlotte flare comes out and then the camera just pans to rick and he's bawling it's like how was i wasn't there i know i agree i know he's got a weird relationship with wwee sometimes it's back and forth i think

with Charlotte. It's been back and forth. But like, why wouldn't he just be backstage? That was weird to me as well. Yeah. Very strange. Seth Rollins versus Gunther. So this was a weird one because it had no build. It was just they realized two of their top guys didn't really have a direction for mania. So they threw them together. And it's strange to be able to put Seth Rollins and Gunther in a WrestleMania match and have nobody excited. But like, people weren't really that excited. And everyone knew, I think, that this has the potential of being a really good match. I thought this was easily match of the weekend until the night two main event. I thought it was really, really good.

Had the fuck finish with Ron, kind of expected that because neither Seth nor Guantor should have been losing clean at WrestleMania. They're both in spots where it's like you got to build them up. Yeah. The fuck finish is what it is. Didn't take away from the match for me. The spear afterwards, the run down the ramp spear, that was one of his worst ever. I don't know.

The timing, the aim, the cell. I don't know what went wrong there. But that should have been the exclamation point, the stamp. on oh fuck and it was like oh he he almost hit him yeah he just he barely nicked him there uh he he's here's here's where i'm out on this bob right so originally it was supposed to be gunther versus ray mysterio and gunther was that was the word higher ray and then ray faked an injury because he didn't want to retire uh and if that's the case i respect that hell out of it. This is, this is all real. My sources are telling me, uh, Ray faked an injury so that he

didn't have to retire because I think he wants Dom to retire him, which if that's true, I get it. Like yeah, yeah, fuck it. This guy's not everybody has to be retired by Goonther. No. Yeah. It's like, all right. This guy should be everyone's last match. But like, I'm Ray Mysterio. I'm a Hall of Famer. I want to give that rub to my son. That's going to mean way more to him being able to do it than being another notch for Gunther, so I'm good. Breach. And then

Braun Breaker comes out and Spears Seth Rollins at the end of the match. So correct me if I'm wrong, but we had a fucking Gunther versus Seth Rollins match because Ray Mysterio couldn't go, but he was in the fucking ladder match and Bronn Breaker couldn't

go, but he fucking came out in spear at Seth Rollins. So why couldn't we just have Gunther and Ray, but Ray wins or something like that. Or fucking Seth and Braun Breaker. Like what the fuck? I actually like that idea of building it up like it's Ray's last match and making it it seem like it's obvious and having Ray do, you know, the media runs being like,

who knows? And then have him win. That would have been sick. But again, you don't, I guess you don't want Gunther to lose right after he gets the rub from retiring Cina and everything. He does kind of have to go on this monster on. Have a fucking angle where like, I mean, they were all there. Like, you can have Ray versus.

versus Gunther. If Gunther wins, then Ray retires. Have fucking Sina and AJ Stiles and Bill Goldberg. Like, have them come out and be the fun. Not a bad idea, Rocket. Not a bad idea. Yeah. WrestleMania.

I also do think it's funny. I've seen all the tweets of people being like, Ray said he couldn't go. And then he said he could go. So Randy Orton had to put him on the card. And then he did some of the craziest spots in the whole ladder match. He wasn't hurt. He was not hurt.

He just didn't want to retire. And it should be Dom that retires. Ray. Let's be honest. Nobody should retire Ray except Dom. It should be a hair versus mask match, luchador style, and you have Ray fucking unmaxed in the ring. That could be the way Dominic turns face eventually. And then you could send him on a stratospheric run.

Up next on the card was Liv Morgan versus Stephanie Vaccare. Liv Morgan defeated her via pinfall. This match was built up pretty well, actually. Like, it seemed like there was real hatred there. Liv's got the fucking bump on her foreheads. Some Stephanie going after. and he's saying you're a better singer than wrestler felt like they had something rocket they gave him seven minutes they had seven minutes to go in there and have the culmination of their story on and again they did a good job with what they were given they did the first ever kick out of the oblivion they did a great spot in the end where she hit that top rope code breaker into the oblivion real smooth real slick it was just how do you get excited for a match and into all the false finishes when it's only seven minutes long

Well, in fairness, I mean, Liv probably had a concussion. And they were saying they were both possibly banged up going into that match. Yeah. Had to be. I mean, you don't, you don't get a fucking egg on your head that big that lasts for two weeks. And your eyes are still black and blue and be like, I'm good. Like, this is, this is, yeah. Like, there's, yeah, there's definitely some scramble brains going on there.

And I love Liv. I didn't love the entrance. She's got her new song. My issue with a lot of the entrances, if they featured extras or dancers or whoever, they didn't have a lot of them. And they didn't have like any step pieces that came on to the WrestleMania stage.

It felt very minimal from that. Like, I don't want to say cheap, but some of it felt a little cheap to me. The entrance was night two did better than night one with entrances. But like, again, it's maybe a nitpick wrestling fan thing. Maybe some people are like, I don't care about the entrances. I think like big entrances are part of the charm of WrestleMania, what's made it like fun to watch over the years.

Triple H has put on a hundred cool entrances that are super memorable. I don't think there was a ton that were super memorable from this year. I would happen to agree with you. I know we texted about CM Punk's entrance. I didn't. Yeah, like I like. You like it? No, no, no.

I didn't. What I didn't like was the awkward pause silence. I am with you. Because like if you're going to. I don't know why they didn't just hit cult of personality there. Yeah, I think once, once, we didn't even mention this yet, once Roman went back to his old theme and then punk had like his Ring of Honor theme, I thought that there would be some sort of like this fireburns. And then you can still like land on cult personality. But like the awkward pause, I was like, I was waiting for like the, oh shit.

but it was just like yeah personality maybe i'm an idiot for this there was truly a moment where i was like did the power like go out like is punk just like winging this because he's like um out here i guess i just got to walk to the ring in silence like i didn't it wasn't like this is cool it was like what's happening is something going wrong right now and then he did the it's clawburn time with the mic and you know that it and like from that moment on it was once again cool but yeah i thought the choice to do maybe that was a triple h thing when he's like we're making movies here i could say see that. I mean, we're going to go silent and everyone's going to be holding their breath until we hit that music, brother. But the lead-up of that with the clips spliced in with the

AFI behind it, you know, through his whole career, that was sick. Him on top of the Elegion Stadium. What a great shot that was in the, you know, the Ring of Honor type, quarter zip type thing zipped up all the way. Just sick. There's a and then the main event. The Las Vegas TikTok account that has a bunch of behind the scenes from that shoots. Oh, I saw that of them like on the roof figuring out the drone shot with the standings and stuff. It was cool. Yeah, yeah. And then we got the main event night one, which again, it feels crazy that we went like straight to the main event because it never truly felt like wrestlingania up to this point.

We get Cody Rhodes versus Randy Orton. And the whole thing's been about McAfee. The whole feud's been about McAfee. Not everyone's favorite considering the 20 years of history between the two of them. Cody's gone out and been like worst received angle in wrestling history. He's saying this before WrestleMania. The way he's selling WrestleMania is like, yeah, everyone fucking hates this. So we're going to give it a shot.

I did like that. He was like, listen, if you're Cody Rhodes fan at WrestleMania, we did it with the rock, we did it with Travis Scott, we're doing it with McAfee. You got to put your head down and get through it. They made an interesting choice to take McAfee and Jellyroll out of the equation before the match began. I go back and forth on this because I'm like, good choice in terms of like I didn't want them a part of it.

At the same time, the whole feud was about Mackey, So it was almost weird to remove him and then try to forget about that while they wrestle a normal match. Do you feel the same way? It almost feels like they half-assed two things instead of whole ass and one thing and maybe satisfied nobody in the process. So the thing about WWE, especially recently, is when you see something that you think is stupid, it used to be. Like during the bloodline era, it would be like everything has a purpose and like weight. until they land this plane.

Like you think this is stupid, but you're going to have your mind blown. You're only in the third inning. Yeah. When the big reveal happens, you're going to be like, man, how did I not see it?

Now, when they do dumb shit, it's just actually dumb shit. There's no payoff. There's no explanation. There's no logic. This pretty much started with like the scene of turn where they're like,

this is about to be cinema. It's like, no, this is about to be ass months and Travis Scott that was like an obvious like oh what's Travis Scott doing and the answer is like he's just being here for clicks basically he's just Travis got to be Travis Scott yeah they were trying to do Dennis Rodman NWO 2.0 and it's like this is not that and like jelly rolling Dennis Rodman brother no no and like I feel bad for McAfee because like I know he genuinely loves the wrestling business and like just wrestling in general

and if I were Pat and I've had the meteoric rise that his career has had and TKO comes to me and they're like, Pat, listen, the main event of WrestleMania, night two, it's going to be all about you. Or night one, excuse me. Awesome. Yeah. Either way, I'd be like, dude, do you think me, do you think I'm going to be like, that doesn't make sense, TKO? I'm going to sit this one now. And also, it's not just TKO being.

And like we want you part of it. They're like, and here's the giant fat check we're giving you to do it. And it's like, no-brainer. And he cuts a good promo. He really does. Like, Pat has always cut a good promo. It just felt like it wasn't the time and place. It didn't make sense.

There was no one in his position, a celebrity that we would have welcomed into the main event, especially when it's, Randy's been looking at that fucking title on Cody's shoulder for years. It's not even 20 years. I tweet him. Yeah. If they went to say, a hall there.

What? if they if they interjected jinder mahal into that feud it would have made sense and it probably would have put the the whole night one over the top and people would have looked back and been like that was a success um but they went with pat and uh people hated it and i felt really bad the whole time because i was like i know this has to be eating him alive that like he's the reason why it's like we're not booing you we're booing the idea that tk o Yeah, TKO thinks that this was the right decision, you know? And a lot of people said night one felt like the TKO WrestleMania.

Night two kind of felt like Triple H took the reins back. Yeah. Yeah. Although, like, I wouldn't be so quick to just credit Triple H with the good stuff and shame TKO for the bad stuff. Yeah. But at the end of the day, that's how I'm choosing to digest my WrestleMania experience, is that night one was the go home smackdown and night two was the the real

WrestleMania even though like I said it probably took me until like the Ria Jade match to feel like it was WrestleMania. I thought and not that we're skipping ahead because all right let's let's not skip ahead tonight two. I was going to say the match itself between Cody and Randy. Confusing. Confusing. Very confusing.

Yes, but it started building towards an interesting direction where halfway through the match. I'm like, holy fuck. Are they doing a double turn here? Like Cody's wrestling like a heel. Randy's playing up the back injury, which we know is kind of a real thing, or at least it was reported leading up to it. And it's like Cody's got the advantage of the whole match.

It's not like Babyface needs to build up and fire up. It's like he's dropping Randy on his back over and over again. He's got that look in his eyes where it's like he's pulling out the dastardly side of himself, almost like we saw against Kevin Owens in their latter match at the Rumble a few years ago. And I was like, I think they might be pulling the trigger on a fucking double turn here, which is very interesting. And then Pat McAfee came back out. Randy Orton RKO'd him.

And I was again like, all right. He doesn't want Pat's help. So he's a face now. And then Cody just won. And Randy attacked him afterwards. So it's a wash. And we're right back where we started. Like what,

what is that? I don't think they know, Bob. I don't think they. It was so weird. Like, it's confusing. Like, why would they, why would they work the match like that if Randy was going to? And like,

I'm fine. Randy hits the punt and everything. I almost feel like that should have just been the ending of the match at that point. Randy should have kicked out of that crossroads, got up, did something fucking mean to Cody, and then hit the punt to win one, two, three. It was just weird. Again, it felt like an ending to Smackdown. Like you said it, like the Go Home should have Smackdown. Randy raising the title.

Like you used your WrestleMania main event to set up backlash. Or SummerSlam. Or SummerSlam. Yeah, like, and Pat's saying I'm out of the wrestling business for good. we had heard the reports that they wanted to do a tag match of backlash of Randy and Pat, Cody and Jellyroll. I kind of feel like they might still do that. Even after the RKO?

I guess that's a good point. Probably not then. That doesn't make sense. Maybe Pat's really out. No, that's true. That's true. I didn't even think about the RKO. That was already out of my brain.

Confusing. It was just, and again, like not a bad match if they were going in the double turn direction. That would have been really interesting, I think. but it was just like, did they do that ending with Randy? Because they feel like night one has to have this like, cliffhanger. Like, are they won Roman and Rock won at WrestleMania 40?

And then the next year was the crazy Heyman Seth Twist. Did they think like, let's end night one with something where it makes people go, what, and get people talking? So then they tune in for night two? I don't know. The only way that that works is if night one bleeds into night two.

But it was just, you know, you had the cliffhanger. barely referenced night two yeah yeah it had nothing to do with night two by that point um yeah i don't know i i didn't like it i was confused i was like why is why is randy wrestling like a baby face like getting sympathy for his injuries and like why is i get it from like a strategic standpoint like why is cody working like the the hurt area um why do r k o'iope Pat.

If he was just, you know, was that like he was mad that Pat didn't like, hit a fast count for him or something? And it's like, and also why was Pat, why did Pat have a referee share? Yeah.

Like Pat, and Pat signed that contract with Adam Pearson. It almost seemed like Adam Pierce smiled almost like I got one over on you. And then he had the authority to be a ref in that match. Well, we don't know. And commentary didn't seem to know. I guess,

but commentary was almost like, oh, he must have the TKO like extra treatment. or whatever. And I was like, I don't know, like, all the commentators beforehand, this is how to sell it where it's like, oh, well, we found out from Ari Emanuel

that, you know, give us some reason. It was just like, I don't know, he's the ref now because he put it on a strike t-shirt. It's been like this for a while, Bob, where things are, like, the writers and the decision makers are bringing to the forefront of any storyline, a timeline of events or, details within the story that don't make sense in real time and that they do not bother to

explain after the fact it's kind of just like they just hope you forget yeah there's honestly vincent or shit like that's what vince did all the time where it was like let's not acknowledge the past yeah yeah like that didn't make sense or like that didn't age well let's never reference that again pretend it didn't happen like let's never include that in a video package for the rest of eternity bad so night one ends on a on a rough note where where again, nothing was an abysmal train wreck. We end on a confusing main event and everything before it was just didn't really get going to a degree. So I said night one was maybe like a C minus WrestleMania.

And that might even be generous. I think that's generous. I thought it was like a D minus. Yeah. Yeah. Like no part of it. Like I will never rewatch any part of night one. That's a great point, man.

Maybe Seth and Gunther, but like, it was a great match, but it's not a match where I'm like, I got to go rewatch. They even punk and Roman last night. I'm like, I got to rewatch that. That was awesome. Yeah, like, there's no part of like the rebuild. Like there was nothing, there was no build to the Seth and Gunther match. So it's like, oh, remember that? Like, he did rivalry.

Oh, yeah, you got to watch the payoff. Yeah. Like, yeah. It was just a match. It was just a match. And zero backstage segments really annoyed me. Like I know that's again It's not what people tune into WrestleMania for

But that's like a fun thing You go backstage and you see fucking Xbox And Scott Hall back in the day And him with Zach Ryder Like they did fun things with legends I said how do you not call Ron Simmons up And have them to do something fucking stupid with Danhausen So there's a damn housing joke in there somewhere

Where it's like They didn't do any of that Even the Sina stuff Which respect to Sina I understand He probably came out with the idea I'm going to be as short as sweetest possible. The boys are already getting their time cut today.

So I'm not going to take any more of it away. But if you go in with that mindset, it feels like more of a waste of time to go out there because it was just like nothing wallpaper segments they could have anyone do. Yeah. And congrats to Bianca. That was nice. I thought a funny bit to add one to the attendance because Bianca was pregnant.

I was like, all right. That was funny. I saw. Did you see the capital one on her belly? Someone photos out? No. You were like they should put an ad on her belly.

No, I did see that like Bleacher Report graded every match and then like segments. Like obviously like the the Sina Danhausen segment got graded. And then on night one, they graded the pregnancy announcement. I was like, I don't know that we need to slap. You don't have to grade that. Bleacher report. You didn't need to do that. So night two, they had their work cut out for them, backs against the wall.

They open up with Obafemi versus Brock Lesnar. four minutes, 46 seconds, but this is one where I will not fault them for the short runtime. I went into this saying, I hope it's kind of like Brock and Goldberg at WrestleMania, which was another one that I think was about the exact same time where it was just a sprint at a no, no, no, that one is horrendous and long at 33 in Orlando.

Okay. It was great. It was just spear, jackhammer, suplex, run through the barricade. And that's kind of what they did here. In the words of Biggie, it was just big, meaty, Ben slapping meat. And they absolutely beat the shit out of each other for a few minutes. And then Obafemi went over huge, which I was worried that Brock wasn't going to put him over

after how much he put him over in the lead up. But nope, Brock went out on his shield, on his sword, whatever the phrase is, looking up at the lights. And then he took the gloves off, took the boots off, left him in the ring, which really did surprise me because I thought he would have one more at SummerSlam against Gunther, Guintr, however he say his fucking name. Because it's in Minneapolis as well. That seemed like the fitting place to retire, but I'm not mad at it at all.

As I've said, I'm not a Brock guy. I feel like he overstayed his welcome. I think this Oba feud was really one of the only memorable feuds and well-received feuds he's had in like five to ten years. I know he ended the, the Cody one is good. No, I'll give you that. The Cody one was good. And the way they ended the Roman one was good where he had the fucking tractor lift,

lift up the ring or whatever. But there was just so much. rock stuff in the past 10 years that dragged on that felt like it was the exact same structure of every single match. There was a lot of people I thought he should have put over that he didn't. Kofi, Ambrose, Lashley, like the list goes on and on of people that I thought could have gotten a rub from Brock that he refused. And I tweeted afterwards. I was like, ah, spam me the fucking thank you, Lesnar Chance and people were livid, Jared. I almost got ratioed.

I think I got like 500 replies on one tweet, which is pretty rare for me. And I didn't say this. I didn't say this because I said, I'll let all the Brock Bobos have their moment tonight. I'll let them have their moment in the sun. There goes a grand, legendary career. I won't take that away from it.

But I said, in my mind, I said in lieu of flowers, you should send Brock some videos of yourself, just piss him. I think he likes that more. No, Bob.

Disrespection. I think he likes that. He likes that. He likes that. He might. He might. You know who hates him? Mark Merrill.

Does he? uh yeah i believe he was married to sable at the time that they started canoodling oh really it was like a it was like a it was like a mad hardy what are he gonna do i i want to say mark merrow told a story about how like he went through sable's phone and listened to a voicemail and was like who's this what would you do bob right like you fucking you go through the voicemails and you hear a dude being like i love you can't wait to see you again you're like who the fuck is that you do you're like who the fuck is this and they're like Brock Lesnar you're like all right never mind all good man what do you do like what the fuck especially in 2002 or whatever that was yeah like that's the one answer where it's like

who the fuck is that leaving you voicemails like that and they're like oh that's Brock Lesnar it's like yeah oh that that was John Jones here you go like no all right yeah yeah yeah I don't know just I'm not going to miss Brock at all I they were probably five years years ago. I've seen the last Brock lesson in the match. I'm fine. And then ever since he came back, I guess the overfute again, I'll give him credit there was was fun, entertaining the whole time, but just like the Sina shit, the way he went about his business the last 10 years. I hate it. Do you think that that that was Brock that refused to put Sina over? Do you think that Sina was like, if I'm going to lose here and there, that it would make sense. I think that was like a triple H idea for some reason where he thought that would be smart.

it was such a waste of a spot on Sena's retirement tour. I would agree. I would have rather seen him there. It was just, also is there a chance Brock isn't retiring? Yes. There's a chance that Goonther has the favor, right? With Haman,

where he could be like, I'm cashing in my favor. I want him to have a more match. Heyman has said, I think it was TMZ. He did an interview and said, I don't know why everyone's saying that Brock's retired. It's like,

oh, because he took his fucking gloves in his boots off in the middle of the ring and wave goodbye. and you were sobbing holding up his hand. I think that that's why people are jumping to the conclusion. Heyman's just working, TMC, trying to get him to watch Raw tonight. I guess, but if there's any payoff to him not actually being retired, I think it's very obvious that it's going to be SummerSlam in Minneapolis.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, we are recording this at like 530 on Monday. So it's pre-Raw, maybe some crazy shit happens by the time you listen to this, and you're like, why aren't you covering that? Because it hasn't happened for us and realized it. It hasn't happened yet, yeah. We got the six-pack ladder match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Panta successfully defended the title against Jvon, J.D. McDonough, Rousseff, and Ray Mysterio.

This was fucking awesome, just like everyone knew it would be. You put six guys, the right six guys in a ladder match at WrestleMania, they're going to deliver every time. I think it should be a staple in a tradition where we do a six-pack ladder match every WrestleMania. And I don't really care if it's for the IC title, the U.S. title, a money in the bank, a 10th, tag team titles, whatever it may be. Looking forward to the money in the bank match every year at WrestleMania was like something as a kid that would be one of the highlights every time.

And then it got removed. They did its own pay-per-view and that's great. But you lost like that in the streak, which were like two things you could always count on for WrestleMania. I just think you got to make this a thing. And I know most WrestleMania is they'll throw in a fun ladder match, but like make it a WrestleMania tradition. Actually put it in concrete.

Yeah. I took issue with this with this match Bob this match what could you possibly take issue with high spots craziness through ladders at a table anyone that it made the most sense to be like this guy's going over tonight and here's why Javan Evans was Javan for sure he was the guy he should have had his mania moment but it's like I don't know yeah Penta was in a four way for the IC title last year lost to Dom maybe they're like we want to give Penton Penta, his big moment at WrestleMania. Like, I wasn't mad at Penta winning.

I love Penta, but I do agree with you. Javon was the right call. Did Penta have a moment or did he just win? No, he had a moment. He just won. The Mexican destroyer through the fucking, or not through the ladder, but on top of the ladder to Jady McDonough was insane. Yeah, I mean, we've seen it.

I've seen it. I saw it. Javon did crazy shit too. Javon was the fucking the cutter to Rusev, the crazy clothesline, Shelton Benjamin style. It reminded me of like an updated version of that famous one, which looking back,

it's so funny that Shelton running up the ladder and hitting a clothes line was like the high spot of all high spots back then. And then you've got like Javon Evans and Dragon Lee and fucking everyone in this match doing shit that you couldn't even imagine back then. I saw a tweet being like in K-Fabe, Rusef has to be the dumbest person in wrestling for jumping off a ladder into a cutter. Like, what was the logic? In non-KFab, he did a good job of making sure that connected

because I don't know if Javon was going to make it all the way there. Yeah, kind of like the fucking 1D on night one that just was like, it was like a flapjack with a, with, uh, Jimmy just diving face first into the match. Yeah. You fuck are we doing. That wasn't great. No.

That wasn't great. Then Trick Williams versus Sammy Sane. Again, mentioned this before, just being a match. didn't have enough time. Seven minutes wasn't enough time for this. It was good. And Sammy Zane always delivers it mania. The little Yadi involvement I was totally fine with.

I think it was a very small amount of involvement. I love Tricks entrance with the crazy people are calling it the CVS receipt. The fucking chat, Hale had coming out behind him. Like that was all good. Trick gets his moment. It was the ending that the crowd wanted for sure. So I was happy with it.

I love the finish with Tricks family at Ringside. That was very cool. I will say this about the Sammy Zane reaction, what he's been getting from the crowds. They're booing the shit out of him and they hate him as a baby face and they've completely turned on him. I think that, all right, if you want to say that you're bored of like a stale character, like you keep saying you're the underdog, like that's your whole thing. It makes me uncomfortable when crowds completely reject him because his work is. in the bloodline storyline was so elite,

where it's like this guy doesn't get any leeway with the crowd. Like he was like the bloodline storyline was stale. It was the same shit over and over and over again. And then Sammy brought in like Sammy elevated it to where it got to its peak. Like it peaked with Sammy because of Sammy's, uh, involvement in it. So like, am I the biggest Sammy Zane fan in the world? No.

Uh, what I bought? I might be. You love Sammy. I'm with you though. You're preaching to the choir. Like I love him for my stuff like conspiracy theory stuff. Like the the bloodline storyline is probably my one B to Undertaker and Kane 1A in terms of like long time storytelling like the most engaged I've been like the most like raw emotion

that has been generated inside of me from a wrestling storyline. And we don't get there with the bloodline story if Sammy isn't as awesome as he was during that. So like say that you think the character is stale or that he, you know, you want something different from him. But the fans just outright being like, fuck you like you saw like, I don't like that. Sammy Hogan, like I do not understand it. And I know I'm coming at it from the perspective of a massive Sammy Zane fan. But like look at this guy's body of work. take the bloodline out of it.

Look at his WrestleMania matches over the years. Look at his matches with Kevin Owens. Look at his fucking match with Johnny Knoxville. This is a guy that can do anything and make a decent match or even sometimes a great match out of it. You can give him a broom and he'll figure out how to work the broom. It's such a strange, like, when did they flip? It was just on a dime.

They were like, all right, we're over Sammy now. We want him out. It was when he started giving like the. underdog speeches again. Like his promos were like, I'm the underdog, yada yada. And you know what I would do, Bob?

You know how? Is the shiny new toy? Trick is awesome. Yeah, it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't help that he's going up against like someone that's super over right now. You know what I would do with Sammy Zane right now, Bob?

What? Put it back in the bloodline? Nope. I would look at what Chad Gable and Kaiser have done to, to rejuvenate their careers. And I go get. get El Generico out of the closet. And I mean, that, like, they're super over in AAA.

Like, their baby faces in AAA. Their brawls. Oh, my God. Yeah. They're amazing. They're baby faces in AAA. And then their, they're heels on, on the main roster here. If you, if you want to interject El Generico into that and be like,

he's like, I was the original Mexican. Yes. Like, the story is right fucking there. Like, if there's going to be a white dude that. is a luchador. It's going to be me. I love that. You're cooking this episode.

You're having some real good ideas. I want you in that creative. Creativity. Yeah. I like that a lot. Then we get the demon versus Dominic. Another one we talked about before. They made this a street fight the day of.

And I see why they did it. I was like, yeah, whenever she puts the makeup on, that's when you know you're getting the demon. I'm sure she loves that. I don't think she has any idea. Like she doesn't get the reference.

So like, but all my friends that love wrestling, they'll be like, yeah, ask her if she wants to go to dinner. I was like, oh, you want the demon? I was like, I don't know. The entrance, unfortunately, was a bit ruined by the daytime. I thought, like the demon, you want it to be dark where you barely even see him as he's walking out. And he's like poking the little heart guy they had in the middle.

That was another thing where I was like, I don't know, give us a little more than like a little heart prop. dude you know we just fucking skipped over entirely what set ralyn's entrance with the eyes and the smoke the eyes the eyes were cool the smoke was cool but like again that was one thing where i was like last year his entrance was awesome with the flingthrow or the outfit changed the blackout music this year was like oh he's got a jacket that smokes and his eyes look like west borland as he told me i did yeah yeah i texted bob i was like west borland looking ass uh uh Yeah, I thought it was cool, though.

I thought it was cool that he just, like, turned around and turned back and they were gone. Yeah, which I was thinking there's no way he's going to wrestle in those, right? Because I think the full eye contacts, people have talked about wearing him for movies, they're like pretty uncomfortable in your eyes. Yeah. Demon and Dom, I love both of these guys. It was just, it was fine. Pretty good, I would say. But nothing more than that.

Another one where, like, they did a street fight. And there wasn't much like craziness or creativity with the weapons. It was a lot of stuff we've seen before. This match could have, if you take the demon out of it and said this match was on raw, I'd believe you. I would say the most predictable match on the entire card because Finn had done so much losing and there was so much backlash to the demon losing to Roman that it's like the demon can't. Like it makes it like if the demon loses this match, then the don't ever fucking.

and retire. Demon shit ever again. I think it would have been, honestly, more interesting if it was just Finn. If it was Finn versus Dom, then there's, you know,

you at least have the illusion that Dom could still win that match. But the second that they, A, ruined a surprise with the demon being the character for this and the fact that they were going with it. I was like, yeah,

like they're not going to have the demon. It's not cool to be like, and they did it in NXT to a degree too, to be like, the demons come in this. time. Like I don't like when it's ever announced. Like it should just be like, holy fuck. He's coming out and it like the music hits and you realize like, oh wait a minute, this is the demon version of the music. Like here we go. The fucking heartbeat with the red lighting or whatever.

I thought Dom had a cool entrance to this one, King of the Luchador's entrance. And he's a Aztec throne. I liked that. And Finn people think he came out with like, he was holding like a demon fucking pickax basically. And everyone's like, oh, that's a Fortnite pickax. He's going to probably be the next character out of the Fortnite and there was probably some sort of tie up. Because everyone in Fortnite gets their own pickax. It's like themed to them.

So that might have been a little sneaky Fortnite tie in the middle of that. Yeah. Ria and Jade, this one I thought had a great finish. The jaded into the what's her fucking finisher name? Not the end of days. That's the other one.

The Riptide. That was great. The end of days. Isn't that Baron Corbyn? I think it was. Yeah. I don't know why that was the first thing that came to mind. But really smooth finish where it was like, she was about to get hit and then like pulled her through,

came out the other side and just fucking hit it. That was cool. I also thought Ria had cool gear. It was like the insane asylum white gear. I was like, that's fucking sick. Yeah. So the dork party wasn't big on the white gear. But I like a once in a while.

opposite end of the spectrum change. Like when Seth Rollins did the white pants at SummerSlam, with the white vest, I was like, yeah, like he's always wearing black. This looks pretty cool wearing white. And Ria,

I don't recall, I can't recall her ever wearing white. I was thinking, has she done it for Mania before? Like, I don't think she has the last couple years, but I was thinking back to her match against Australia.

I was thinking, what was that, backlash or, No, it was, it was some paper view in Australia. Maybe it was one of them. Okay, looking it up. She has worn white before, I believe. Backlash, 2023, she wore white and it looked pretty sick.

Is that the one in Australia? Let's see. Backlash, 23. Backlash. Oh, no, that was Puerto Rico. Ah, yeah. That was the awesome Pat Bunny entrance. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the main event, Night 2, Roman Rains defeats CM Punk via pinfall. Awesome. There's not enough. I could say about this match where it's just glowing praise the entire time. They wrestled like two guys in the main event of WrestleMania that would do anything it took to win. It felt like a war.

It felt like they were both desperate. They did smart things like people are pointing out on Twitter already when Roman does the first. Ua and he gets hit with the knee in the corner. He does the second Uwa on the outside while he's looking over his shoulder at punk like, I better fucking make sure I don't get God again here. The stuff on the outside was awesome. Punk sending him through the table looked like it was brutal. It looked like a tough bump for the two of them to take.

Punk playing a little dirty, throw in the wrist tape at him. I thought that was great as well where it wasn't a heel turn, but you could tell it was just punk's willing to do whatever it takes again to win this match. the blade job was great people were calling punk a smart worker letting all of the blood rush to his head while he was upside down and then he fucking did that weird blade job that he always does the poke blade job yeah and a great finish not a great call by michael cole and i love michael call i'm a michael culled defender a lot of the time but it wasn't like a wrestlemania end and call it was like is it it is like come on give me a little more than that michael call roman range just fucking beat c mc punk in the main event of WrestleMania, one of the biggest matches you could ever put on at this point. Give me a little passion. Give me a little energy. I don't know.

What I loved about this match, Bob, and I know that you, maybe you'll agree with this, because you are a wrestling historian yourself. I loved that it was almost like they both started the match as baby faces. This was, you know, like Roman is still, he's more of like a tweener. there's not like a ton different about his his tribal chief character obviously he's more of a baby face now

but they wrestled as heels they both were doing heel shit both of them between like the low blows the taunting like Roman like when's the last time Roman had a match where he was like talking shit like during the match

you know he's got like it reminded me like the edge match when he's got like the headlock my arm is extra big he was doing stuff like that during the match and punk obviously with the tape and the low blow and um i thought it was awesome because i don't like people like wrestlingania like i remember um you know like when austin turned heel and like or like when the rock turns heel uh people are like looking for that like holy shit i can't believe it moment whereas like i think we're

we're at this stage in professional wrestling where you don't have to necessarily become a bad guy. You can just be like, all right, we're all adults here. You know that like I'm a good guy right now, but I've done bad guy shit. And I can't get bad guy shit right now. And we're in this feud where we have this almost like a mutual agreement where I can do bad guy shit, but that doesn't make me a bad guy, you know, like we're just, we have both said bad things. Yeah. Yeah.

Keep my fucking name out your mouth. That was the best promo we cut. The social media one I thought was the best promo with the whole feud. I was like, why didn't they do that on Raw? That was so good. That was weird too. I love punk. You know what?

As a promo guy, he's one of the best. I thought it was so strange that his promo leading into WrestleMania was like an apology over the dad's stuff. It was like, what are you doing right now? You're building up the match for Sunday. Leave that for afterwards. Hey, I'm sorry. I invoked your dad's name. Respect some shit like that.

There was just something weird about that to me. I'm glad Roman won't know because I do feel like Roman needed this because he's kind of been floating. Like I don't want to say the man in the island of relevancy was starting to go towards irrelevancy. But like no. The Bronson Reed feud did nothing for him. Like that stuff was just, it felt like like this is the final boss right here. This is the one, you know, the rock is the final boss. But Cody, or Roman has the vibe of that.

Yeah. he needs to always be it like he doesn't need to be the champion to be relevant but he he he needs to be at least floating in the title picture like he needs to be like the year before the c m punk feud was a little rough for roman fans like yourself oh yeah like i i definitely was super disinterested um yeah but now i like there's a couple things i want to say did you watch the po show i did yes yes roman was last he came out and said none of that part-time shit you're going to see me more often. So that's a positive.

What was the exact quote? Because I thought that was very telling. He said, you're going to be seeing a lot of me this summer. That's what he said. Yeah, you're going to be seeing a lot of this. He's got five kids. Which I took as, okay, you're going to drop the title in SummerSlam.

Nah. I think so, Rocket. I think he's going to have a run until SummerSlam. When he said, you'll be seen a lot of me this summer, I was like, ooh, I didn't like that last part. I wanted you'll be seen a lot more of me. And then he said this summer. I was like, are you putting a cap on it?

I don't know. Maybe. But who knows? Who knows at the end of the day? But for this match, I don't have any critiques. I thought it was awesome. I agreed with you. The buildup was, eh.

Like, I thought that first face to face was like, oh, wow, this is fucking great. But then it was kind of just like, there was too much time. there was too much time there didn't need to be kind of like when Triple H and the Undertaker they just came out and looked at each other and then looked at the sign

that's all you needed like punk and Roman to your point earlier that might be one of the last big matches that they can do like if they had just done like a fucking standoff and then look at the sign people would have been like oh shit we're getting it

like we may not get Rock and Roman but like as far as big matchups are concerned like this is one of the biggest ones left But I did see that there was a graphic going around where it was like Barack Lesnar retires at 48. AJ Stiles retires at 48. John Sina retires at 48. C.M. Punk. He is 47 years old.

Interesting. I don't think he's retiring next year, if we're being honest. I think he's got a couple more years. If he's wrestling main events like that. Yeah. And it was Meanwhile, Ray Mysterio is 51 and taking fucking ladder bumps. Yeah.

Any debuted 10 years before all those guys. Ray Mysterio debuted in the late 80s. It's crazy. He is the walking stem cell, like, salesman, basically. Like, you see, what can stem cells do? Look at Ray Mysterio. They injected into his knee every few months and he's just, Ray Mysterio at 25 years old all of a sudden.

Yeah. I just I really I really enjoyed this match and it is like that one to me I will rewatch it like that's not one where it's like I see I agree I can move on like that's that's a rewatchable match for me I think Mark Henry said it's the best WrestleMania match since the the first HBK taker match which is like the best one WWE match he said best WVE match which I'll pump the brakes on him a little bit there there's been an amazing I'm like you're telling me that that was better than like punk sin a money in the bank you're telling me that was better than every match in daniel brian's wwee career you tell me that was better than you know like

there's a lot of i mean kevin oens versus sammy zane and better than every one of those matches i don't know about that um it was amazing though i have no nitpicks i am curious where they go with roman now as champ because he talked about oba oba talked about him on the post show as well and you've also got buntar out there where it's like these are two guys that breaker breaker as well, but the two main guys, I feel like that should be built as like monsters and shouldn't lose anytime soon or Oba and Gunther. People are saying on Twitter they're already like internally slated for feuds with Roman. I don't know if they should go out and lose to Roman right now. But like they're in a weird spot because I don't know if they should lose to anyone for the next couple of years.

Like they're both in that spot where how do you, you can't diminish the rub they got from Lesnar and Sina respectively. what do you do with them? They're both in a street. Like if I'm the booker, I don't know what the fuck to do with either. Put them against each other, brother. My brother said that where it's like you can get them together and that's like one of the last truly like old school horse matches,

but you don't want either of them to lose right now. You know, who wins that feud? Do you just have them double suplex ring collapses and we'll move on? I don't know what you do. They're like, we'll go our separate ways, respect. That's why I don't like the whole retirement bit. with with goonther because now it's like what is he going to do just sit his ass on the sideline until someone wants to give up their career yeah he's just the guy that fights old people which is

another criticism i do agree with this when you're in a feud the worst thing you could call your opponent is like old because then it's like oh it's just less impressive that you beat them because you're saying that they're old and washed so it's like i didn't like when roman brought that up and that was the one thing that punk couldn't stand people said it was like when sina got called a the Yankees. He was like, all right, you've said the worst things

about me and my family, but not that. Yeah. Yeah. You have become the New York Yankees. And CNN and Danhausen had the, yeah, seen it and Danhausen had the bit on night two that I really liked.

I imagine this was probably polarizing. If you're not a Danhausen guy, you probably thought this is the biggest waste of time on a show with a lot of time wasted. If you are a Danhausen person like myself, I think it was just surreal to see Danhausen in the fucking ring over as ever with John Cena at WrestleMania. Two months after he debuts to crickets at the elimination chamber. It was like booze, crickets, one of the worst debut reactions ever.

It took him maybe two weeks to become one of the most overpeople in the roster through backstage segments alone. It's crazy how fast that he's become a top merch seller. All the kids want to be Danhausen. They want the Danhaus of face paint. They're doing the U.R. cursed and they're all doing the frigging hand signs. like what a success story that is yeah i i i love dan howson uh loved him in a w felt awful about his his debut uh i felt awful because i was like man i i hope that he i hope that he doesn't

take this and be like like wow that was because people were comparing it to like the shockmaster and i'm like the gobbledy gooker yeah yeah i was like that is like just say you don't get it and and maybe that's what it was. It's like the people that were booing. And WWE did him no favors. Like it should not have been this thing that it's like, hey, it's this box and it's going to be this big thing.

We're revealing it at a pay-per-view. People thought it was Jericho and like all this. Leading it to WrestleMania to. Yeah, like the time it was. And yeah, like they put him in an awful spot. If he had just been like a surprise segment that they weren't hiking up, I think he gets a completely different reaction.

What I think happened, in addition to that, them overhyping it, was that the people wanted something that it wasn't. They wanted Jericho. And these are WWE fans who probably don't watch or consume AEW at all. They didn't know who Danhausen was. Or maybe they just heard the name. Like, that's all we're getting.

But the more you like consume Danhausen and the more you know about the guy behind Dan hausen, then you're like, you know what? Fuck, yeah, dude. Like this, he's just like us. And it's so. And it's so funny, like, you're right that they didn't fully get it. I don't think the crowd, because when the little smoke puffs up and everyone was like, that was lame, it's like, well, yeah, that's the point.

It's supposed to be a little bit lame where he disappears and he's actually running to the back and the lights come on while he's running. Like, they did a good job at quickly conditioning the audience to know that. And the more you learn about Danhausen and like the lore, if you want to call it that behind his character, I think the funnier and better it, gets where he's been asking for a blimp for 10 years. As long as I've known Dan Housen as a wrestler, he's been like, and one day I will have a blimp, the blimphausen.

And at WrestleMania, they have this blimp flying through everything. It was just like, are you kidding me? His first pitch when he got the WW. He's like, listen, I've been talking about this blimp for a while. And they were like, fuck it, we'll get you a blimp. Like, that's so funny to me. This stuff with John Siena Housen where he's like, and I have something I want to say to you.

And then he's like, big fan, love everything to do. and he just looks at the camera and smiles like the hard cam so fucking funny i i hope we get more and more and more of dan has him i wanted more of him and cina like backstage i thought he should have been almost like the host junior where we got 10 segments with john cina and dan housing over the weekend yeah i uh i knew immediately once they announced sina as the host i was like man i can't wait for the cina dan hausen segment and that's exactly what they gave us um did not take a Cole. Cole dropping midgets on the broadcast. Loudly. I didn't see that. He was like, oh, it's midgets.

Yeah, I thought we weren't allowed to say that anymore. I didn't think so either. Now, Zah has always said, yes, that's, I approve. But that's just one guy, you know, it's one person that I know. In 2022, when I was at Draft Kings, I said it on one of their shows. Yeah. And they were like. like, we're going to have to edit that out. And I was like, what? I was like, what did I say?

And they were like the M word. Yeah, Cole screamed it. Like he was, it was the happiest Cole's been all weekend. He loved it. Yeah. You learn, you learn and you grow, Bob. You learn and you grow. Yeah.

Overall, what would you, what would you say, WrestleMania was? I said night two might have brought it up to like, if I thought night one was a C minus, I thought night two might have brought it up overall to like a B minus in my life. Because when I think back to this year's WrestleMania, I'll probably think of mostly just the night two stuff, which was pretty good.

Yeah. So I think you kind of have to grade it as individual nights. Yeah. Like night one. Did you feel like it could have been one night this year? I know we're talking about matches not having enough time in hindsight's 2020, but there was part of me where I was like, if you just, if you removed a lot of the commercials obviously, and then maybe

tacked an extra hour on. I There's the first two night year where I was like it could have been one out of them. Yeah. Like I like the fact that, you know, people get WrestleMania time and WrestleMania pay that may, you know, like,

yeah. Could the match be like a take it or leave a match? But like, yeah, like I'm glad that they got time on the card. So like, yes, it could have been one night. But like I still, I'm still in on the two nights. It's not going to, you're not going to be able to crush it every single year.

And there's also you have to consider, they had injuries going into mania. Like this was not the intended card. You know, I'm glad that it led to Roman and punk because that match was incredible. But I think that we would have had a completely different WrestleMania

had injuries not taking place. But, yeah, I would say night one, a D, only because I respect them going out there and putting their bodies on the line. I want to be like, F. But it was not good. and then night to

like an A minus I was pretty satisfied I was satisfied as a wrestling fan watching the quality of the matches like I think when we tune into the royal like this is what this is like my main thing is being like a you know a mid 30s now fucking late 30s

wrestling fan is that I'm used to the Royal Rumble having surprises and I'm used to WrestleMania having surprises we haven't been getting that from either show. It's kind of just like, yeah, we'll tell you literally everyone who's going to be in the Rumble. We're just not going to tell you what order it's going to be in. I don't like that. And it's like, you know, I like the nostalgia entrance in the Rumble.

And now it's like NXT entrance because we want to get them experience. And like it's like, okay, like I get it. But like I kind of want to see Xbox in there. It's true weird. The NXT thing too where they'll call someone up for the Rumble, but then they wind up spending months in NXT. like so cool yeah top four in the rumble she'll be up she'll be up tonight though i i guarantee we see yeah i think so too but it's just so strange that like if you're top four in the rumble it's like

getting called up to the big leagues hitting a home run in your first at bat and then being like all right back down yeah you need some time why'd you call me up more ibiz yeah um so that's cool like i get it like maybe like you know the next generation is like oh yeah like i love the royal rumble because you get to see nxte stars and it's like well i used to see the honky tonk man okay I'd rather that be my way. And then, yeah, like, WrestleMania, there's, like, I think we were so spoiled with the finish of WrestleMania 40 that we got that. It was, it was like getting the best BJ of your life than you just like every time now.

And it's like, well, there's not, like, it's just not like that every time. It's okay. It's still good. It's just not that. Did you see any of the non-Resslemania stuff this weekend, the Sandman versus the Invisible Man, Brody Lee Jr. debut on Joey Janella's spring break. Any of that? I know you put that on my radar. I did not get around to it, no. I mean, it was a beautiful, beautiful train wreck of a spectacle. It was just, if you're not familiar, the Sandman from ECW

had his final match this weekend against the invisible man. And it's exactly what it sounds like. He came out, and then the invisible man came out and just fans are just looking at air going, fuck you fuck you motherfucker and then like they like follow the camera into the ring and then sandman's in there going boom and the crowd's going yeah and then he goes and they go boom the whole match there was run-ins from mick foley from uh violent j from the insane clown posse there was a run-in from the invisible man's brother who he has not gotten along with in a long time the invisible stan they wound up double team in the sandman sandman went out on his back as well he put over the invisible man in his last match

Wow. It was ridiculous. And that's what Joey Janella's spring break is every year. This was the 10th year where they've done it. And it's, listen, for the people that are like, it's exposing the business and whatever, you're never going to win those people over. It injects this insane amount of chaos into WrestleMania weekend

where some matches might be train wrecks. Some matches might be legitimately just awesome. The main event was Brody Lee Jr., 14 years old, making his debut against Joey Janella. And I know that's polarizing. people are like kids shouldn't be wrestling he's being trained by Tyson kid and natalia in the heart dungeon and they're going about it the right way i kind of agree like kids should probably shouldn't be taken bumps if you're going to do that they've got the best support system in place for him and it was a

legitimately awesome match janela was bumping his ass off melter came out he said he thinks broody lee juniors a better technical wrestler than half the people in nxte already if he decides to stick with this and make it his career by the time he's 20 he's going to be like the best wrestler in the world. He was playing to the crowd like you would think a 14 year old in front of this huge sold out crowd. First time ever doing this is going to be a little nervous. He didn't look nervous at all. He's doing the fucking sister Abigail doing the kiss playing to the crowd. Boom, Spike and Janelle on his head. It was awesome. I have to see this now. I'm going to send you the highlights. It's like you're going to be shocked. He was he was shouting out MJF. He did the fucking, what are they called the

the heat-seeking missile or whatever that like almost pile driver off the ropes that MJF does. He's like, hey, Max, this one's for you. Like, it was crazy how polished he was instantly. Crazy. But definitely, you guys missed out on that stuff. It's worth going on Twitter and checking some of it out. There was a great match between, I think it was, who was it? It was two like old luchadors.

One's like 70, 165. They fucking tore the house down this weekend. and people were throwing money into the ring for them. I forget who was Blue Panther and someone, I think. Juventu, Gere. No, not who. I forget who it was. But there was definitely good stuff outside of just WWE this WrestleMania weekend.

And Vegas isn't always the best city for that. I mean, fucking Riyadh isn't going to be the best city for it next year either. So for all the criticisms that were given this year about the vibe of WrestleMania. I can't imagine the vibe is going to be there for afternoon mania next year. What time is it going to start Eastern? I assume it's going to start at like noon or something. Yeah, like a lot of the Saudi, unless they do the thing they did for the last Saudi show

where it was like 2 a.m. local time by the time it ended and they set off a bunch of fireworks. It's like you're set off fireworks two in the morning. Like what the fuck? Yeah. Are they building in like another like 100,000 person stadium in 30 days for WrestleMania or what are they doing with that? I don't know.

They might be doing it where they've done some of the ones in the past because like why did they ever abandon? They had a totally fine. working arena. They're like, ah, we'll build one for the next one. Yeah,

they wanted, why is it that? They want a Royal Rumble Arena. And it's like, okay. Yeah. And they took it down after. Took it right down.

Yeah. That video Triple H to being like, awesome what they could do in a few days. It's like, well, they were doing some shady stuff to make sure that was able to happen in a few days as well.

They tell you how many people died building it and taking it apart? Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. This company, this company, man. I'll tell you what,

the wrestlers are, are doing their absolute best at every turn. There was nothing bad at the fault of the wrestlers this year. They were fighting an uphill battle against the build, the ads, the ads, the books, the ads, the commercials, the ads, the more ads, the commercials. And they wound up spitting out a pretty competent mania when all is said and done.

Like I didn't leave it being like worst WrestleMania ever, but you do have to clean up the ads. Next year, it can't be that extreme. It can't be. I'll tell, I swear to God, I'll tell Nick Con the next time I see him in person. I see Nick Con every now and then. I mentioned I saw him in Vegas.

He was like, when do we get you coming to more wrestling shows? I was like, I come to wrestling shows all the time. He's like, can you come into Mania this year? At that point, I told him yes, because I thought I would be going to mania. And I didn't. If I see him next year or at any point this year, and he's like, how's it been? I'm going to be like, I need to sit you down. I know my word means nothing to you.

We got to control the ads. We got to control the commercials. We got to control the ads. And I got a pal up in Boston. who has some great creative ideas. Yeah, we're talking real good ideas, Nick. He's going to be like, all right, security, get this guy away from me. All right, Rocket.

Thanks as always, always fun doing breakdowns with you. I'm sure we'll have one in the near future for whatever the next show is. Maybe a backlash one. Maybe a SummerSlam one. Maybe something crazy happens tonight and we need to react to it. That would be great. I would love for the Raw After Mania to get back to that point. where it's like, holy fuck, can you believe they did that right after WrestleMania?

Who knows? Yeah. We'll see you guys later. See you. Bye.