The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | Brock Lesnar’s shocking return, predictions for Saturday Night’s Main Event and AEW Double Or Nothing

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Solomonster is back with thoughts on the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano “fight” on Netflix, as well as a controversial finish during the preliminary fights, featuring a pro wrestler (0:37). Thoughts on John Cena being treated for a medical condition and more information about the John Cena Classic (4:27), plus Brock Lesnar’s surprise return on Raw to destroy Oba Femi, Tribal Combat added to the Clash in Italy card, and hollow justice for Stephanie Vaquer’s alleged abuser (8:14). Then, the latest on Randy Orton injury reports, and the former WWE star that could be coming back (21:30), a preview and predictions for Saturday Night’s Main Event, and Sports Illustrated saying WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley could be on his way to AEW (29:28). Thoughts on the brackets for the men’s and women’s Owen Hart Foundation tournaments, plus an AEW Double or Nothing preview and predictions (43:32). Why Road Warrior Animal’s widow was furious after A&E’s Biography, plus a WILD story as former WWE star Reginald reveals how he nearly ended up in the WrestleMania main event (57:15).

Welcome to the Young Crown Wrestling Show. Salomon's here for Tuesday. May 19th, 2006. Don't say that date. Don't say that date. You know, it may not have been a great movie, but Vince McMahon's marketing for Ceno Evil was quite genius,

given that people still talk about that May 19th storyline all these years later with Kane. Every May 19th, I think about that damn movie. I'm still thinking about that main event on Netflix on Saturday night between Rhonda Rousey and Gina Carrano. Some great coverage, by the way, by uncrowned, heading into and coming out of that event. Rhonda Rousey, who went from MMA to pro wrestling and back to MMA

for the first time in 10 years. Gina hadn't fought in 17 years. Took all of 17 seconds for Rhonda to put her away in very predictable fashion. And that fight was never getting out of the first round. They never got out of first gear. And of course, cue all of the comments about it was fixed. It's a work. The fix was in.

The fix wasn't in, but this was never going any other way. You know, both women got paid. Now they can get out with their heads held high. Rhonda gets to ride off with a win. I believe Netflix is working on a biopic of her life. So there's your storybook ending for the movie right there. She has no reason to ever fight again after that. Maybe Gina wants to fight because she put all that work in to get herself in shape and didn't get to do anything.

But she doesn't have to fight again if she doesn't want to. You know, what she get paid officially? A million dollars? Guaranteed she got more than that. Same with Ronda. Ronda supposedly earned $2 million for that fight. She got a hell of a lot more than $2 million. And here's the thing.

You know, they didn't get paid to fight so much as they got paid to promote the fight. MVP built that entire show around. those two women. Without them, there is no Netflix card. They earned that money before they even stepped into the cage. They knew the assignment and they did what they were supposed to do. The fight itself was just a bonus. It was almost like an afterthought. But I also took interest in another fight on that show. On the prelims, I watched it on YouTube between Adriano Morias and Turbo Pumi Nakuta. Pumi is one of the best fly weights in the entire world. He came into that fight undefeated with an 11-0 record, and I know this because he wrestled for us in House of Glory.

And as the commissioner, he literally signed his pro wrestling contract on my back in the middle of the ring two years ago. And our last two events, we had one in Las Vegas last month, earlier this month in Los Angeles. He wrestled on both of those shows. And then on very short notice, like a week, he took this fight on Saturday because Muhammad Mikhail could not get his visa taken care of in time. and so Pumi stepped in. He didn't hesitate. He took the fight and he even said, this is a guy who who beat Demetrius Johnson. So he wanted that. He wanted that competition. He wanted somebody credible.

And it sucks that it ended the way that it did. Right at the bell, it looked like Pumie was going out. And then the bell rang. And Marius held on beyond the bell. It should have gone to the judges. Two of whom had Pumie up, so he would have won the fight. And just what a terrible, terrible way for an undefeated streak to come to an end. They say he was out before the bell. It looked like he went out. After the bell to me, I know his team has filed an appeal with the California State Athletic Commission, so we'll see what happens.

But he's already back in the wrestling ring at our next show this Friday. So I'm looking forward to seeing him there. This weekend coming up, we have two shows. WWE has Saturday night's main event, while AEW has its double or nothing pay-per-per-view at Louis Armstrong Stadium. Queens already sold out with over 14,000 tickets. I've got a preview and predictions for both of those shows. Brock Lesner is back.

Boy, that was quick. It was a short retirement. He pulled a Mark Henry on us on Raw last night. And rumors of McFoly potentially landing in AEW. There's a lot to dive into this week. Actually start with John Sina here, very briefly. John Sina spoke with Business Insider in an interview that was tied to his partnership with tarsis pharmaceuticals. They're the makers of a medication called

X-DemVe, which Sina says he used recently to treat a condition that he was diagnosed with called Demodexblephoritis, which is related to iMites, which sounds disgusting. I had bird mites here once from a nest that they had built outside my window. I mean, that was bad enough. I can't imagine having i mites. He was having itchy outside. eyes and trouble seeing. I'm not going to make the obvious you can't see me joke because I'm way too mature to do that,

so I won't, even though I want to. But we have some information from Russell Votes Radio on Fightful Select from this past Thursday that while no date or venue is currently set for the upcoming John Cena Classic that he announced the backlash,

one source reportedly said holding the event in early December would make logistical sense for WWE's schedule and would also coincide with the one-year anniversary of seen his final match against Gunther. And the report also notes that a source at Netflix expressed interest in the event streaming on its platform. Boy, Netflix is just, they're getting in on all the events. I mean, why wouldn't they?

Why wouldn't they have interest in that? I think as an annual event on Netflix, it would work well. We just don't know still most of the important details. And there's a good reason for that. It's because John Sina and WWE still have not figured out most of the key details. Sina spoke with CBS Sports. He had this to say about it. I know I dropped a lot of information at backlash.

I think to sum it up in a sentence, it could be a version of WWE's All-Star game. It's a night of exhibition, so we don't really have to build any long lead stories into it. It is the current stars competing with, and that means they might be paired up with. Who knows? The brackatology is endless. They could be paired with. they could be up against the future of the company, superstars from NXT. Every participant qualifies for kind of an all-star vote.

So you can be recognized as the night's champion. Now, I've heard the perspective of wins and losses don't matter. That's a very valid point. I love listening to feedback. We've got to figure out the fan votes. There's still a lot to be done, but you can vote for the winners. You just can also vote for everybody. And that's a first-time thing.

It may be a first-time thing. it doesn't mean it's going to end up being a great thing. So you've got to get all that fleshed out. I think one way to potentially address all of the anger over this idea that somebody could become the John Cena classic champion just by fan vote, even if they lose their match or matches. That's what he means when he says wins and losses don't matter. I hear that perspective because that's how it comes across the way he described it at backlash. I think one way around that would be you could have fan voting separate from the outcome.

So you can consider it like an MVP award. All right? Since he used the All-Star Game analogy, we'll call it an MVP award. And you let the matches decide who the champion is and then let the fans vote on their favorite. Right? They could be like the MVP of the night. And who knows to me, maybe it ends up being the same person who gets crowned as champion. But if it's not, maybe they can create a feud out of it between those two people.

Right. I mean, so that's just one idea. And I'm sure they're mulling over all of these different potential scenarios right now. But without knowing all of the details, it's just hard to say how the fan voting aspect should work. But based on what he described it to be, it's just not an ideal way of doing it. And he seems to acknowledge that the entire thing is a work in progress. Well, let's talk about Raw last night because something kind of big happened, less than 24 hours ago. And that is the return of Brock Lesnar.

He is back and he attacked Obafemini. Now, last night was supposed to be week three. of this Obafemi Open Challenge, which was very underwhelming last week. It seemed like they were already running out of steam. They were running out of ideas on what to do with it. And we saw what the actual plan and idea was for it last night on the show because he comes out to the ring. He's doing his entrance. The lights are dimmed.

And he gets attacked from behind by this Viking-like figure, which turned out to be Brock Lesnar. And he gave him not just one F5. He didn't give him two F5s. He gave him four F5s. And then we found out coming out of this, Paul Heyman already had a contract signed by Brock that he handed to Adam Pierce that he said here, all this needs is a signature from Obafemi.

And you've got yourself a big attraction for Clash in Italy. So they pulled a Mark Henry on. I mean, Mark Henry, the famous segment with the salmon jacket, many years ago, the tears streaming down his face, right? Mark Henry's retiring. And then he lays out John Cena with a world's strongest slam and says, I got a lot left in the tank, right?

Great, great angle. Best retirement swerve that I've ever seen. And so Brock at WrestleMania, and I mean, you'd have to be living under a rock to not know what happened, even if you didn't watch it, because it was covered by ESPN and everything else, right? Oh, the greatest combat sports athlete, everything WWE loves to call him. And so this was treated like a big deal because Brock left his gloves in the the ring after he lost to Oba, he left his boots. All right, he was very emotional. I even said, though, you know, that night of WrestleMania night, too, I said, it looks like he's, he's trying to

cry. Not that he's actually crying, but it looks like he's acting like he wants to cry. And so I wasn't necessarily 100% convinced that this was truly going to be the last time we would see Brock Lezner in the ring, but I kind of hoped it would be, right, for a few different reasons. Brock's been doing the same stuff for a long time, but also if you consider what happened at WrestleMania this year, what a great way for him to go out. And so there were some people who thought he would be back. There were some people who were convinced he was retired.

Based on the reaction from the fans in the crowd last night, a lot of them thought he was retired. But it took four F5s to put Obafemi down. It's the first time this man has been put down since coming to the main roster. He got over on Brock nearly every single time they appeared on screen. together in the lead up to WrestleMania. Four, four F-F-Fives. And as excited as the fans were when Brock first showed up last night, they reacted huge.

And they cheered. By the end, as he was leaving, you could hear the booze, which is a great sign when it comes to how over-OBA is with the audience right now. Like, I couldn't, maybe there were some people doing it and I just didn't hear it. But so many times in these types of angles, the fans will be like, oh, one more time, one more time. you can have the biggest baby face on the roster get laid out. Cody Rhodes gets laid out. Roman Raines gets laid out. You got fans that are going one more time, one more time, you know, kick his ass, lay him out. I didn't hear any of that with Oba. I heard booze from the crowd. And that's a good sign.

So if the plan was to do more matches between them, Brock had to put him down at some point because otherwise it just gets boring and repetitive. They may as well adopt that as the new name of the show. boring and repetitive. Because this was definitely the most exciting thing to happen on that show last night. By a country mile. The shock of it. Not even the shock that Brock necessarily came back. I mean, there was always a chance of that.

But it happening the way that it did last night, that I did not see coming. And that at least ends the open challenge gimmick right now with Obafemi. The bigger question is, is any of this even necessary? right that WrestleMania match it was just it was perfect in what it needed to be it got over the next big star it sent Brock on his way you know the next big thing that's how he came into the company over 20 years ago 25 years ago putting over the new next big thing and getting that big emotional sendoff and waving to the crowd and 50,000 people in Las Vegas cheering and chanting for him and you know off he goes and Paul Heyman is just a blubbering mess.

And it was this great moment for, you know, what it appeared to be. And so now it's like, oh, well, all right, it was all right. It was all just a swerve and he's sticking around. And I just thought, I don't know that you're going to get a better sendoff for Brock where it also, not just for Brock, but we're benefits somebody. But it looks like we're headed towards a trilogy, which I would imagine would end summer slime in Minneapolis. It would be very similar to what Brock did with Cody Rhodes three years ago.

coming out of WrestleMania. This was after Cody lost to Roman Raines. They worked three matches together. And it ended at SummerSlam with Lesnar putting Cody over. That was Brock's last match for over two years because the Janelle Grant story broke

right as Brock was about to come back for a WrestleMania program that was very heavily rumored with Gunther. And I mean like the week of is when that bombshell dropped. and we didn't see Brock again for a long, long time. So all that to say they've done something similar before, where they kind of gave Cody that added boost

as they were pushing him towards the championship. And it looks like they may have the same idea in mind here for Obafemi. Although that doesn't mean that Brock is retiring in Minneapolis. That's what John Cena hinted at last year. I think when he was on Chris Van Vleet's podcast, he kind of just threw it in there very casually that Brock was looking to wrap up in Minneapolis. Summer Slam just so happens to be in Minneapolis.

But, you know, when you do an angle like this, you can't expect people are going to actually buy into the fact, okay, well, this wasn't the real retirement, but the real one's going to be in a few months. No, it's not. You know, Brock, over the years, they've talked about him as being a mercenary. Remember many years ago, oh, he's the mercenary. He does it for money.

That's a shoot. He does it for money. Brock is all about business. where there is business to be done, Brock Lesnar will be there. You have a whole ass WrestleMania coming to Saudi Arabia next year. If they really want Brock Lesnar on that Saudi-Mania show, do you think he's going to go,

you know what, guys, I think my legacy ended very well in Minneapolis. I think we're just going to leave it alone. You flash a check big enough in that guy's face. Believe me, he'll be back. So I don't think Brock is going anywhere for a while. tribal combat has been added to the clash in Italy card with Roman Reigns defending the World Heavyweight Championship in a rematch against Jacob Fattu. They shot an angle at the beginning of Raw last night where again Fattu got into it with

Roman, he got into it with the Uso's, and they left Fattu laying. And as they were walking off, they were like, hey, Adam Pierce, you want to fire him now? Go ahead and fire him. Right, we beat his ass and now you do what you got to do. and before Adam Pearce had a chance to get on the mic and fire Jacob Fattu for being an uncontrollable wild man over the last several weeks and beating up various officials, Jacob got on the mic and said, Roman, tribal combat.

That's all he had to say. Roman said, I accept. And just like that, the match was made. This will be the third such match that WWE has ever done. They did one with Roman and Jay Uso a few years ago at SummerSlam. They did one last year on the Netflix premiere. They had Roman beat solo Sacoa. Roman is undefeated in tribal combat.

Now, what is tribal combat? Tribal combat, I'll tell you what it is. Because they had this video package last night to really build it up like, oh man, this is something on a level that we've never seen before. It's a fancy way of saying no-holds barred. It's no different than any other WWE plunder match, except in the past when they lay out the rules of tributtion. tribal combat. The rules of tribal

combat in the past have dictated no outside interference from other family members. Except they ignored their own rules in the first one they ever did and they had other family members getting involved. So I'm not really sure what the punishment is for that. Let me think about it. If it's a

no disqualification match and somebody interferes, then what do you do? Right? Well, you banish them to the islands, I guess. I don't fucking know. They already went back on their own rules. But that match is now official. I have to say this, clash in Italy on the 31st is shaping up to be a pretty stacked card compared to backlash. We've got both world titles being defended. We only

had one on the last show. Both world titles are being defended. Roman reigns against Jacob Fawtu. Cody Rhodes defending against Gunther. And now Brock Lesnar is back and he's going to be wrestling Obafemi. So they are loading that thing up. One person who was not on the show last night was the former women's world champion, Stephanie Vicar. It was rumored that she might be, but it does sound like she'll be back on TV in the next few weeks, which is great. It's great timing because Liv Morgan has no challengers right now.

They haven't even hinted at anything for this woman since WrestleMania. Whatever story there was with Raquel Rodriguez, you know, a judgment day implosion from within, they never followed up on it. It just feels like a dead story. for the time being. But Stephanie was in the news this past week for a very different reason. Not a great reason.

Former CMLL and AAA star Quattrero was recently found guilty of domestic violence and attempted femicide in Mexico. This stems from an incident with him and Stephanie in March of 2003 when they were in a relationship. He allegedly tried to kill this woman. He tried to strangle her. And the domestic violence charge against. against him was escalated to attempted

Femmicide, which is a very serious charge. For that alone, he could have faced up to 30 years in prison. And when the verdict came down, it sounded like some semblance of justice had been served. He was sentenced to 12 years and eight months behind bars.

And it's like, okay, well, he's going to, he's going away for a while. But since he already served two of those years awaiting trial, that would have knocked it down to 10 years in eight months. And even then, it's like, all right, Well, I mean, she may not be too happy about it, and she could certainly advocate for a harsher sentence, I would imagine. But still, 10 years behind, almost 11 years behind bars.

As it turns out, he won't be spending any more time behind bars because according to a report from Planetta Wrestling, the Mexico City Prosecutor's Office has confirmed that he will be allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest. Can you believe this shit? He also must remain under a restraining order that bans him from approaching Vicar or appearing at any wrestling event where she may be booked. So house arrest doesn't seem to mean what you or I might think it means. He'll be able to move about, but he'll be subject to periodic law enforcement check-ins every few weeks. This all sounds completely ludicrous. Now, at the time, there were other wrestlers, at least one of whom notably still were.

for AAA, which is now owned by WWE, a female wrestler who tried to pressure Vakir into not reporting the abuse, basically told her to keep her mouth shut. Thankfully, she didn't take their advice. She stood up for herself, but I can't imagine she's very happy about this news, and she shouldn't be. I think the entire thing is appalling. Smackdown, meanwhile, is just this vast wasteland right now of comedy. sketches and comedy characters and television that just is not very interesting.

Now, we did get Carmelo Hayes back on TV last Friday, which was a plus. Still have no idea where Ilya Dragonov disappeared to, but they're trying to establish some new talents like Royce Keys and Ricky Saints and Fatal Influence and Blake Monroe is on her way to the Blue Brand very soon. Those are all positive things, but the show, I mean, the show itself is just, it's damn near unwatchable. on most weeks, especially at three hours. And I know it's going back to two hours soon.

I mean, that in and of itself doesn't change anything as far as the quality of the show. But Smackdown has just been an absolute slog to get through. Royce Keys got his first main event this week. He wrestled Gunther for the right to challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE championship at Clash in Italy. Gunther won, which means that it's going to be him against Cody on that show, which begs the question, what the hell happened to Randy Orton? Where's he been? Last we saw him, he lost a Cody at WrestleMania, and he punt kicked his skull in to close

night one. And we haven't seen him since. Last week, Dave Meltzer claimed that Orton's absence is tied into a back injury that has been lingering with him for years. He called it a significant injury. So it's basically the injury that nearly ended his career a few years ago. It kept him on the shelf for 18 months. And that would at least make sense.

You know, again, given the way WrestleMania ended that, that night that it would be a legitimate injury keeping him out. But then Orton himself jumped on social media the other day, and he said this. He goes, LMAO, just milking it, guys. Leave me alone. I'm trying to enjoy my summer before I come back and take that number 15. And now people are dumping all over Dave and they're saying, oh, typical Meltzer, caught lying again, this and that. You'll notice in that comment, Orton never actually refuted anything that Meltzer said in that tweet that he posted.

Maybe the injury is not significant, but I think there's definitely a reason they didn't pick right back up with the Cody feud. And it's not because Orton had a planned vacation or anything like that. Maybe he's not hurt as badly as Dave was led to believe, but I do think that there is something going on here that forced them to change their plans. It never made sense how sudden it was that one week on Raw you have Gunther talking about wanting to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship. and they started teasing at least a match, if not a feud with him in L.A. Knight. We saw L.A. Knight back on Raw last night for the first time since he confronted Gunther. And how many weeks ago was that? They were clearly building to something between those two, like a temporary short-term feud maybe.

And the very next time we see Gunther, he's showing up randomly on Smackdown to attack Cody Rhodes, the other champion. Like, come on now. Use your brain. Something happened that forced change to the creative. You don't need a backstage report to tell you that. All you need to do is watch the shows. But if they can get Randy Orton back a lot sooner than we were all led to believe a few days ago, that would be great because there's still a lot of meat left on that bone with him and Cody. You've got to pick up with that when Orton comes back. But here's an interesting rumor going around the campfire over the last few days. Baron Corbin, who currently goes by the Bishop Dyer name on the independent scene. And I believe he's

does some hosting as well, right, on the pro wrestling 24-7 is it? I think the 24-7 channel on Sirius XM. He could be on his way back to WWE very shortly. W.W.E opted not to renew his contract and allowed it to expire back in November of 2024. He had been there since 2012. And I said it at the time when they let him go. He was like a modern-day Brutus Beefcake in that, I don't mean that like in an offensive way, because I know. know that could be taken as a defense. But what I mean by that is once he got called up to the main roster,

he went through several gimmick transformations, let's just say, over time. He went from being the lone wolf in NXT, which was the best version of Baron Corbyn, to King Corby, one year, and he had to walk around

with that goofy crown on. Then it was Constable Corby, Corbin, then it was homeless Corby, then it was happy Corbin, right? he, what happened there? He gambled or whatever, and he won a bunch of money. He became happy, Corbyn.

He still owns the worst money in the bank cash in of all time. They paired him up with JBL at one point, which was a disaster, and ended with them having JBL on the mic just bury the shit out of him backstage on TV. And then they sent him back down to Nxty, where he actually found success

in a tag team with Bronn Breaker. They called himself the Wolf Dogs. And they had a good thing going there for a while. They were the NXT tag team. team champions. And then eventually they brought him back up to SmackDown. And that was the beginning of the end. They paired him up with Apollo Cruz.

I guess they were trying to replicate what he was doing with Breaker, but they didn't actually want to pair him up with Braun Breaker because, you know, they actually had plans for Braun Breaker. But it just didn't work. It wasn't ever going to work. And he knew it. And then a few months later, they let him walk. And I thought he was someone who would do well on the indie scene.

And he has in MLW. He's one half of the MLW tag team champions with Donovan DiJack as the skyscrapers, nearly a year as the champions. And now, according to Dave Meltzer and Sean Ross Sapp, a fightful, has said he heard something very similar a few weeks ago. That WWE has discussed a return for Baron Corbyn. And he says the situation may already be close to being finalized. Meltzer said on the Smackdown show when Danhausen was talking about something bigger, I need something bigger.

My gut was, that's who it is. That's just my speculation. He says, I just know that he's been talked about being brought in. It might even be done, but I haven't had that officially confirmed yet, but I have it 100% confirmed that it has been heavily talked about. Now, what he is referring to there with Danhausen, Danhausen has been doing these, and now I mentioned before how Smackdown is just the land of comedy misfits. I like Danhausen, and I think a little humor on the shows is fine. one of the issues with SmackDown right now, other than the fact that it just is not a very interesting television show, and they don't have any really compelling stories,

is that it is flooded with comedy. So you have Danhausen doing his stuff, you got the Miz and Kit Wilson doing their stuff. Chelsea Green is also treated as like a comedy character kind of there in the women's division. And then they have Johnny Gargano, who after, what, four or five months now has been laying catatonic on top of a crate. Just, that's literally all he does.

When he's on TV, he's laying on a crate and his wife is yelling at him. Okay, this is all happening on the same show, by the way. And this is to say nothing of the gingerbread man for which we had a funeral a couple of weeks ago for the fucking gingerbread man. Don't get me started. But with Danhausen, he's been doing these comedy segments in a makeshift science lab backstage, where it looks like he's trying to bring someone back to life. He wheeled in, this just happened on Friday. He wheeled in a stretcher with a dead body.

under a tarp, it looks like they're going to bring Corbyn back as some new Frankenstein monster that Danhausen is going to bring back to life. Like he's been laying on that gurney for the last two years that we haven't seen him on TV. Add that to the list of gimmicks, I guess, that Baron Corbin has had.

But, you know, Danhausen is over enough that as ridiculous as this all sounds, it just might work. It might just get over. Speaking of MLW, I may as well mention, this here. The promotion just announced a strategic partnership with Stardom. The news was announced at Stardom's Cork and Hall show on Sunday. They later released a statement

saying this partnership will emphasize talent exchanges, creative collaboration, and platforming athletes on new stages in Japan and America. And Stardom already has a working relationship with AEW. In fact, one of their talents, Hazuki, is in this year's Owenhart Foundation tournament in AW. But this is good. This is good. I like hearing more about collaboration between wrestling promotions because for so long, at least with the bigger companies, it was a very close, I mean, again, WWE in particular,

it was a very closed off thing. And that has changed over the years. That has shifted greatly over the last, I don't know, five years or so. So whenever we hear about stuff like this, companies working together and talent exchanges, to me, that's always a good thing. but Saturday night's main event is coming up this weekend, and so let's run through this card right now. I'll throw some predictions in there.

Just added last night on Raw, Becky Lynch, the women's intercontinental champion, is going to be challenging Sol Ruka, although it will not be for Becky's title. Becky says that she's got to earn it, she's got to show something to her, she's got to prove herself, she's 0 for 2, Sol is so far since debuting on the main roster.

So that makes sense. that it wouldn't be for the title. It also makes it more likely that Sol Ruka gets a win, and why not? She needs a win. You can't have Becky Lynch mocking her on television last night about how she is winless. You should go back to NXT, she said. And then they have their first match non-title and she beat Soul Ruka. How awful would that be?

That would be terrible. So this is going to be a Sol Ruka win. I like this, by the way. I like Soul working with Becky. I think Becky is great in this role. I think it did a lot for Lyra Valcari. Valchuria last year working with Becky over the IC title. And so I think Seoul is in a good position where by the time we get to SummerSlam,

she'll be holding that title. Ria Ripley will be teaming with Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss to take on Jade Cargill, Meachin, and BFAB. Now, Jade Cargill lost her championship at WrestleMania to Ria. Jay just showed up on television again about a week ago, I guess. and clearly they're building to a rematch with her and Ria. If that's the case, then this should only go one way. This needs to be a win for Jade Cargill and her crew,

and it should be Jade pinning Ria. You know, so many times we'll see in a situation like this, one of the other people get pinned to spare the champion or spare the big name from taking the loss. Jade should pin Ria Ripley to win this match. And then if they want to run the title match back, I guess in Italy the following weekend, that would make sense.

But then when we come out of clash in Italy or whenever they do the rematch between them, I do believe it is time to start building to a big match between Jade and Charlotte. It's a match that they've been teasing off and on now for many, many months. And so I think doing that is a undercard match, right? No titles or anything, but doing that at SummerSlam.

Or, you know what? They have a Saturday night's main event coming up in July at Madison Square Garden. You could even do it there. I think that makes a lot of sense. so I would expect to see that coming out of all of this. But I'm going to go with Jade and her crew, her baddies, to win this match. Penta will defend the Intercontinental title against all ego, Ethan Page.

Hasn't been on the main roster for very long, but I think Ethan is crushing it so far with everything they've given him. He just kind of fits like a glove. He's undefeat, unlike Sol Ruka, he is undefeated since coming to Mike. Monday Night Raw. And when I saw Ethan Page on Raw, I said, man, that intercontinental title was just made for someone like him. And so give it six months or so, and I think he'll be wearing it. And here we are now. He's been on the main roster for, has it been a month? I don't even, I don't even think it's been a month yet, right? Because I think it was the Raw after WrestleMania where he debuted. So we're right around that month right now. And already he's challenging for the

title, which seems awfully quick. But since they are doing this match, I wouldn't mind a title change here. I actually hope they do. I'm going with Ethan Page for the win. They've kind of created this weird, uneasy alliance. I can't call it a friendship. But this alliance with him and Rusev, I think there's potential with Ethan as champion for Rusev to be jealous

and he wants a shot at the title. And Ethan keeps trying to come up with excuses to kind of hold him at arm's length. I just think there are ways to make that very entertaining with Ethan as the champion. I'm going to go with him to win the title. I'd like to see it. The Vision. Logan Paul and Austin Theory. Defending the World Tag Team titles against the Street Profits.

I'm going to go with the Vision. I certainly would not mind them taking the belts off of them because I don't really care much for the Vision, but I'm going to say they retain. And I'm going to say Seth Rollins factors into this match in some way. Even last night on Raw, we had Seth Rawlins against Austin Theory in the main event. The Street Profits came out. after Montes Ford does not like Seth Rawlins.

Seth Rollins, not a fan of Montes Ford. I look forward to the eventual match between the two of them. But I think to get there, or before we get there, something has to happen that triggers it. And so I think Rollins, who has a bone to pick with the vision, is going to insert himself in some way, and it's going to backfire. And the vision retain. And then coming out of this, we can get a match between Seth and Montes Ford.

Because I'm all for seeing more Montes Ford singles matches. They teased us a few years ago. We're going back like three years now. Where they teased us, he was in one of the elimination chamber matches for the, I want to say, U.S. title. And it felt like, okay, they're kind of dipping their toe in the water and testing the waters for a Montez-Fords singles push. And then that push never came. And so he's just been doing the same street profit stuff now for years and years and years, kind of spinning his wheels is what it feels like. To me, I just think there's more you could be doing with him.

so if we can get something like that coming out of this, I'm all for it. And then we have Paige and Bree Bella, the women's tag team champions who have no chemistry whatsoever. I mean, the faster they can get these belts off these two, the better. This was not supposed to be what WWE had in mind. Nikki Bella got hurt, so we ended up with this makeshift team. It just, it doesn't work. And again, the faster they can get the belts off them, the better. I don't think it happens here, though.

They're defending the titles against the former champions, Naya Jackson, Lash Legend. I just feel like they're going to hold on to those titles. You know, I don't know that they're ready to take the belts off of them until Nikki is ready to come back. Now, Nikki Bella, she screwed her ankle up pretty good. I don't know what the timetable is on her return, but I'm just going to guess that whatever they do, when they do take the belts off these two, it won't happen until Nikki is ready to come back. And this, if she was to show up here, this would feel a little quick to me, so I'm going to say they retain. But that's the card.

And so unless they add something at the last minute on Friday, what is that? That's five matches, I believe. You know, again, Paul LeVec, he's generally allergic to going beyond that. That sounds like a full card. As far as what headlines the show, it's tough to say. It's missing that one big match. It's missing that one big main event. I could, honestly, I could see them closing the show with any of these matches except for the women's tag team title match.

Like, I legitimately could see any of the other four matches closing the game. the show. I, you know, I mean, I would say maybe the Rio Ripley six-person tag, but it legit could go to any of those. Now, let's shift over to AEW because we got a lot to get into here. We'll start with this, because John Alba had the story on Sports Illustrated, the takedown on on SI this past week, that AEW could be in pursuit of a WWE Hall of Famer. And that Hall of Famer is Mick Foley, who is set to allow his WWE Legends contract to expire next month. So just a couple of weeks from now, sources indicate to the takedown on SI that there is a chance that he could be AEW bound. Multiple sources tell the takedown that AEW has expressed real

interest in working with Foley this year, though the capacity of which is not known is also not certain whether or not the organization would be interested in signing the 60-year-old or if it would simply be for an appearance. A.W. is building towards its double or nothing pay-per-view, which is going to be held in Flushing Queens, about an hour from where Foley grew up on Long Island. One source indicated that while they did not have any direct knowledge of Foley coming in for the show at this time, they would not be surprised if there was a push to use him on it if a deal could get done. And it mentions here that the Hall of Famer has been outspoken about President Donald Trump and openly criticized WWE and TKO's dealings with the current administration

following Trump's comments about the death of actor Rob Reiner. In doing so, he said he planned to let his Legends deal expire this June. WWE Legends contracts do not prevent talent from working for other companies directly, but they do have some restrictions on royalties, merchandising, likeness use, and other IP-related matters. So that is where things stand as far as McFoley is concerned. And by the way, good on Mick Foley, putting his money where his mouth is and standing up for what he built. I mean, wherever you fall on the spectrum.

I mean, this is very easy for somebody who has ties to WWE or works for WWE who feels the same way, let's say, that Foley does to just keep their mouth shut and take the paycheck. It's easy money for Foley. I mean, I don't know what kind of money he's getting out of it, but he's getting money from this deal. And for him to go, you know what, I'm good. This bothers me. This doesn't sit well with me. And so I'm going to walk away from this. Good on him.

So now as he becomes a free agent, I guess you would say, Tony Khan using Mick Foley seems like a gimmy at this point. It's going to happen. The only question, as they mentioned in the report, is it something formal where he signs a contract? Like, think of all the legends that Tony Khan has used and in some cases still has under contract. Arne Anderson doesn't work there anymore,

but he did for a long time. Tully Blanchard is another one. Jake the Snake Roberts. You never see him on television. get used at all now, but Tony Khan has continued to, you know, renew him every single year. He still technically works for AEW.

And you can find other examples of this as well. So does he want to sign Foley, or does he want to just bring him in as a one-off? Maybe he could be a special referee for a match. You know, because that is something I could see. Maybe he look, the idea of him engaging with MJF on TV in like

a promo war, that could be a lot of fun. That is something I would like to see. What I do not want to see would be MJF against Nick Foley, right? I don't want to see that anymore than I really cared to see MJF against Jeff Jared. When they were, when they started teasing that direction early last year,

clearly Tony Khan got cold feet when he saw the negative feedback online and then that storyline just went the way of the dinosaurs and hasn't been mentioned since. But Foley, again, he's 60 years old. We know the physical toll that this

business has taken on him and the bumps and the dumb shit. that this man, the abuse that he has subjected himself to over the years. And what he wanted to do for his 60th birthday, he wanted to lose like 100 pounds, get himself in shape, and he wanted to retire by doing one last death match. Which sounded like a really bad idea, but that was his goal, right? And he did.

If you've seen Foley lately at, like, conventions and, like, in photos, he dropped a shitload of weight. He looks great, you know, compared to how he looked even a few years ago. He looks healthier. But that was his goal. He wanted to use that last match as a motivator to lose weight, get himself in shape, and then just kind of go out with one last death match. And in training, he wasn't even doing anything terribly, like egregious or anything, but he concussed himself. He doesn't even know how.

He didn't know he was concussed until later on. And it's like, wow, I didn't even do anything and I got concussed. This is probably a bad idea. So thankfully, he abandoned that plan. there was no death match. There should never be a death match. I just worry about that because Tony Khan loves his death matches. I mean, my God, look at some of the matches we have seen in AEDA, the blood that has been spilled in this company, you could fill a blood bank.

If Big Foley wanted to have one more blood match or death match or whatever you want to call it, he can't find a better promotion for it than AEW. But I would hope that that is not something he would do. Now, he made a cameo a few weeks ago in Las Vegas or WrestleMania. a Sandman had his retirement match against the Invisible Man. And Foley made a caveat. He even took a bump. He did a double-armed DDT. He fell pretty hard on his hip.

And he popped right back up and he did Mr. Soco and everything. And he looked pretty good. Foley doing something like that, I think, like fine. But him having a match, I can't imagine that they would look at that and go, hey, we want to bring Mick Foley in for something like that. I just think that would be a terrible idea. I also am of the opinion, and maybe I'm in the minority on this, because people are talking about if you bring him in, what would he do?

Oh, well, you know, he used to be the commissioner. Many, many years ago in WW8, like 25 years ago, he was the commissioner on TV. He was great. And he was. He was. And his interactions with Edge and Christian and very memorable. But that was also 25 years ago. And the idea of having a general manager,

the idea of having a commissioner, when it's already been established who the main authority is on these shows, and that is the man behind the curtain, that is Tony Kahn. It just feels like a WWE trope, right? I mean, not that there haven't been authority figures for decades in wrestling and in the territories.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's not the sort of thing that AW does, and it's not the sort of thing I think that they need on their TV show to have Mick Foley back in some sort of authority role on TV that doesn't have any real teeth to it to begin with. And you're just rehashing something he did when he was 25 years younger. Him coming in to do an angle or a special referee bid, maybe for an MJF main event?

I think that would be great. But we learned this past week about the brackets for this year's men's and women's Owen Hart Foundation tournaments. on the men's side, we have Samoa Joe in the opening round here against Will Osprey. That match is going to be taking place at double or nothing this weekend. And on the same side of the bracket, the new national champion, Mark Davis of the Don Callis family, will go one-on-one with the former champion, Jack Perry. On the other side of the bracket, Bandito, one-on-one would swerve Strickland, which is also going to be taking place at double or nothing.

And Brody King, he goes one-on-one with Claudio Castignoli of the Death Riders. And the only real surprise here in this bracket is that they have Claudio in there repping the Death Riders and not John Moxley. Because I thought for sure we were building to a final between Moxley and Osprey. And maybe they still do the match somewhere else. But I mean, I just thought that just was a natural. First from the story they're telling, that seemed like a natural sort of ending to that. Claudio being in there, it's a little weird to me.

I mean, I get that there's a CMLL connection because he's got that dual contract and he's a former CMLL champion up until a couple of months ago, but it just feels like that should have been a spot that went to Moxley. Mark Davis is in the tournament. I like Mark Davis. And I'm very, very happy for the guy that he's actually getting some semblance of a push. Would have been very easy for him to end up on the back bench, right? They had him in a tag team. His partner got hurt. Every time Davis goes out there, he basically would be out there on job duty. Now he's got a belt. He's doing stuff. I think that's great. But why would Mark Davis being there over someone like Andrade, right, who has told Don Callis, I want to go after the

world championship. Why would he not be in the tournament? Where's Kenny Omega? All right, Kevin Knight, the TNT champion, Speedball Mike Bailey. There's a lot of questions about, you know, the people that they decide to go with here, but we go through this every single year. This is a regular thing every year where we look at these brackets and we go, man, there's a lot of big names that are missing here. But there are big names that they don't want to beat. And so that's why they're not in there. This seems like a pretty easy, safe bet that we're going to get Osprey and Swerve in the finals. The finals take place at Forbidden Door, which will be on pay-per-view on June 28th. Forbidden Door happens to be where Swerve and Osprey had their first match a couple of years ago when Swerve was champion.

And Osprey lost that one. So I think they run it back again this time, but a little bit different now, because swerve's a heel. I think Osprey gets that win back, and he goes off to. Wembley. This seems like an easy an easy bet. Now on the women's side and this is harder to predict in the men's tournament, we have Persephone against Hazuki.

Hazuki is representing stardom. Persephone has a dual contract so she works for AW and CMLL. On the same side of the bracket, the reigning TBS champion, Willow Nightingale, goes one-on-one with Alex Windsor, and that will be happening at double or nothing. On the other side of the bracket, Athena, the Ring of Honor

Forever Women's Champion. She's approaching Roman Reigns territory. 1,250 plus days as champion. She goes one-on-one with Mina Shirikawa, and Sky Blue will go one-on-one with Surrey. Now, Persephone, I mentioned she has the dual contract. Makes sense that you would want her included in a tournament that has representation from different promotions,

but she's also out injured right now, as is Surrey, who just last week announced that she was taking a month off to seek treatment for her neck. Tony Kahn was asked about them the other day on the media call for the Ring of Honor pay-per-view. A pay-per-view, by the way, that Persephone was pulled from because of that injury. He says that he expects them both to be back in the ring in time for the tournament, and their matches won't take place until well into June, and that should give them enough time to heal up.

Now, on that Ring of Honor pay-per-view, the Supercard of Honor show on Friday night, Athena defended her championship in a multi-woman match. Of course, she won, as she always does. Had she dropped that title on Friday, she'd be my pick to win the entire thing. But she didn't. And unless Tecla, who is the current champion, is dropping that title before we get to All In in August,

Tecla against Athena is not the match that I see Tony Khan doing. Willow Nightingale, you know, I like Willow. I can't see her winning either. She's already won the other. Owen once before. I mean, so did Mercedes-Money. But if Mercedes was in this, she would have been my pick to win. Even more than Athena, she would have been my pick to win.

That's the biggest surprise of the women's bracket. Like Mercedes not being in it, that was a pretty big shock. But Willow is already a champion. She's got a belt. She's won this before. I don't see her winning. I'm going with Persephone. I think they could use this tournament as a way to really elevate her on the AW roster,

because she really hasn't been used that much on AW television. Yeah, she's made some spot appearances, but a lot of it has been either Ring of Honor or CMLL. But she's very good, and I think this tournament could be used as a way to elevate her to that next level. And there's history with her and Athena. If you wanted to come down, I mean, in terms of like what final could they do? Like a really good final. If they do the final, let's say a forbidden door next month like they're doing with the men. Persephone and Athena, I mean, they were matched up in Ring of Honor, I believe last year,

at final battle at the end of the year. And they had a very good match. And Athena beater. So now in a situation where the Ring of Honor title is not on the line and you rematch them, this could be a way for Persephone to get that win back. And then you do Persephone and Tecla,

you know, at Wembley Stadium for the championship. So that's the Owen. Now we talk about double or nothing because the pay-per-view is coming up this Sunday and it looks like this. And I'm sure they're going to add more matches. as the week progress. I mean, they usually have like three or four matches on the pre-show alone.

But this is the card as of the time that I am recording this. With the show sold out, by the way, making it the second largest U.S. gate in company history. Three matches from the Owen Hart tournaments will be taking place. Samoa Joe against Willow Osprey. That's going to be a win for Osprey, of course. Willow Nightingale against Alex Windsor. I'm going to go with Willow. I think she advances.

And then Swerve Strickland. we'll get a win over Bandito. Stadium Stampede. This is going to be quite the cluster fuck. We've got seven on seven. Chris Jericho has found partners to stand by his side. Chris Jericho or Jericho, I guess as he's now going by. Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, Kenny Omega, Jack Perry, and the Young Bucks.

They will take on Rickache, the Gates of Agony, Mark Davis, Andrade El Edelow, and the dogs, David Finley and Clark Connors. We have not seen a stadium stampede in many years. Stadium Stampede was something they did in the pandemic era. It was a lot of fun. It was basically cinematic. There were no fans. But they just brawled around the building.

It was mass chaos and it was a lot of fun. Since then, as crowds came back, we ended up with anarchy in the arena. And basically, they're one in the same. Except one's in a stadium and one is not. or one may have been cinematic when they first did it, and the other ones are live action. Last year, double or nothing, the anarchy in the arena match

was one of my favorite matches of the entire year. I had so much fun watching that match. That was the one where, and typically in these matches, they'll play music. Like when the match starts, and it's just mass chaos, and we have cameras in different parts of the building to try to keep track of what's going on.

They have music. They have a song playing in the background. I think the first time it was Jericho's theme. I think it was Judas. They just fucking looped it over and over again. Last year, God, what did they do last year? They played an oldie. It was the Pointer Sisters.

I think it was the Pointer Sisters. Right. Tony Khan, I mean, he paid for the rights of the Pointer Sisters and used it for like one week as the dynamite theme. Everybody's shit on it and then we didn't hear it again. So I guess he had to get his money's worth. But now they played Drowning Pool, Bodies by Drowning Pool, which was the perfect song, except by the sixth time that it's been loose. you're kind of sick of it.

I would imagine this is going to work the same way as anarchy in the arena, except this time it's legitimately in a stadium. They're Louis Armstrong Stadium, and it is going to be live and not, you know, pre-taped, I would assume. So I had a lot of fun with the one last year. This one could also be a lot of fun. The one thing I will say about that match last year,

it was certainly never boring. There was not one dull moment in that entire match. This could be the sleeper match of the entire card. But I'm going with Team Jericho. I think the baby faces are going to pick up the win here. We have FTR defending the A.W. tag team titles against Adam Copeland and Christian Cage. This will be an I-quit New York Street fight, where if FTR

retains, and they won't, Cop and Christian can never team up ever again. That is not going to happen. I think Copeland and Christian, they finally get those tag belts on Sunday. Tecla will defend her AW women's world championship at a four-way against Hikaru Shia. Chris Statlander and Jamie Hader. I have Tecla to retain. International title on the line. Kazuchka Okada defends against Konoska Takesha. This is the match I am looking forward to the most.

We got a little taste of it back in December during the Continental Classic. This, though, is going to be very different. And I think that they are going to go out there and they're going to kill it. And Takeshda is going to beat him. Finally, take the championship. I think that's how this ends. Unless Tony Kahn wants to extend this out to Wembley, maybe he turns this into a trilogy. It's always possible.

I'm going to say Ticccia gets the win, though. Walks out with the belt. And then in the main event, we have MJF challenging Darby Allen. For the AW World Championship, it will be title versus hair. In just the last seven days, since I dropped an episode of this very podcast, Darby Allen has successfully defended that title against Konosuke Tekhita and Sammy Gavar. And he's got another defense coming up on dynamite tomorrow night

against speedball Mike Bailey, who I think is going to end up challenging his partner, Kevin Knight, for the TNT title on Sunday. I really do. I mean, we'll see what happens after he loses to Darby tomorrow. But I can't see those two guys being left off the pay-per-view, right? They're not even on the card.

What are you going to do? You get a toss him into a pre-show match? I mean, Kevin Knight's been going out there, open challenges defending the TNNs. T title, I think those two are going to get matched up. But as far as Darby and MJF, that match tomorrow for Darby will be his seventh title defense in the span of one month. This man is working and defending at a breakneck pace. MJF, if he loses, will get his head shaved. Darby will not get his head. Darby doesn't have much to get shaved. But if Darby loses,

the bigger thing is he loses his title. That's why it's title versus hair. MJF is not getting his head shape. I can't sit here. Like, if you put a gun to my head and said, are you sure about that? No, I'm not 100% sure about that. He's a team player. I'm sure whatever Tony wants him to do, he'll do for the sake of the team, for the good of the show. But I just can't imagine him going in there. He already lost to Darby. And then after that, he continued to lose. So they've beaten MJF like a drum and it's like, how long do you want to keep this up for? Like, it was always, I assumed, with the idea in mind that when you get to New York, you run it back on the pay-per-view with a stipulation of some kind,

and MJF gets the belt back. And look at the pace that Darby has been keeping as he's been defending this championship, not even just week after week, but multiple times in the span of a week. It's going to end soon, whether it ends Sunday or they want to let it go for a few more weeks. Like, it's not going to be a long-run thing. Like, he's not going into Wembley as the defending champion. I don't even think he's going into Forbidden Door as the defending. champion. So I think

MJF gets the belt back here. I think that is the way to go. If they wanted to go for the shock factor, then sure, MJF loses and he has to get his head shaved in the middle of the ring, and then maybe they could run back the old Kurt Angle gimmick for many years ago, where he shows up on TV wearing the old, you know, the amateur wrestling headgear and a wig.

You know, I mean, you could always do, and look, if anybody can make that work, it's MJF. But you just watch these matches that Darby's been having when he wrestles Sammy Gavarra on Saturday on collision. He him in the Scorpion death lock, and he just fell forward. He collapsed from exhaustion, right? The story they're telling is that all of these title defenses and all of the abuse that he's been

taking, it's catching up to him. So you already had MJF lose before. You have Darby defending the title nonstop every week to where his body is physically failing on him. He's already 150 pounds soaking wet to begin with. And then you're going to send him out there and beat MJF again? you can't do that. You can't do that. This has to be a win. I mean, you look at the... Again, this guy is exhausted.

He would have fit right in with some of those Netflix fights on Saturday. This needs to be a win for MJF. And that's your double or nothing card. Pretty damn good card on paper, I would say. Some other news and notes here. Road Warrior Animal's Widow, Kim, Terman Laurinitis,

was, to put it lightly, not a fan. of A&E's Road Warriors documentary that aired this past weekend. A new episode of Biography, WWE Legends, premiered on Sunday, chronicling the story of hawk and animal. And Kim, who was married to Laurinitis at the time of his death, she was his third wife. She took to Facebook halfway through the episode. The episode wasn't even done yet.

And she took to Facebook to vent her anger and frustration. This was sort of like stream of consciousness stuff. I'll just read to you here, what she wrote. For all of you reaching out to me right now asking if I'm part of the A&E biography, no. His actual wife, the one who was with him the night that he died, and for years before that, was not contacted to film, believe it or not. The one who pays for the trademarks and works to continue his wishes and legacy with the LOD experience and many other things. But this is supposed to be about respect for Joe and the LOD slash road warriors, right? Yeah, okay,

believe what you want. I can guarantee you my husband is not happy in heaven, but his story, the real story, the truth of it all, will come out. This is disgusting, literally disgusting, at his expense, and I will not be quiet anymore. Shame on all involved. The truth will always come out. They only did it this way because he was not here, but I still am, and we will fight for his wishes. Do they give out Oscars for acting performances in this? Wow. I told you she wasn't happy. Now, Laurenitis's first two wives, Nancy and Julia, they were among those interviewed for the documentary, as was his daughter Jessica, who recounted the story of what happened the day he died. After the episode then ended, his wife again took to Facebook. And this was in all caps. What in the fuck am I watching? With about 10 question marks. OMG, I am so done. This is not how my husband died. And FYI, he died on September 22nd at our hotel, not a hospital. They never took him to a fucking hospital. They tried to save him in our hotel room.

I was the only one there with the paramedics. Are you serious right now? Now, one clip that I did see, I did try to at least watch that part. And his daughter in the episode talks about how they, there was something that happened, and they rushed him to the hospital, and he died in the hospital on the table. It's a very different story than the one that she's talking about here. But she says, I held him for over an hour trying to wait for Jessica and Lindsay, both daughters, to get there before they transported him to a funeral home. What the fuck is happening? I am about to lose my mind right now. I have never been so mad.

Can anyone tell the truth anymore? What fake-ass, phony people. People pretending to be friends. People pretending to tell the truth in my husband's expense. God Almighty help all of you who have used him for the last freaking time. Wow, wow, wow, wow. words, all of you, y'all just put on a fantastic performance. Standing ovation for that bullshit show.

Why didn't we talk about how disrespected my husband was during his memorial planning? Let's talk about the struggles and how much he went through and cried over the past 10 years about how he had been treated by the people he loved so much. Y'all want to talk about shit that's not true? Let's talk about the truth. And what was really important to Joe? Shady-ass-produced show not endorsed by his wife, the one who pays, for the trademarks, bills, taxes, etc.

I take it she's not on good terms with the daughter. That's my takeaway from all this, because her version of her father's death differs greatly from the version that Kim is putting out here, and she's very upset by it. But I don't understand what's gained by the daughter lying about it. I'm not saying that she did lie. Someone's not telling the truth here, though.

And I'm not sure why. I mean, the way he died, I mean, it should be pretty straightforward. I haven't watched the entire thing yet outside of that one part. I will say this, though. I did hear really good things about the two episodes on the Von Erick family that opened the new season. Like really good things with backstories on the family that have never been told before. I'm definitely going to have to check that out.

And former WWE star Reginald, Reggie. Remember him? I won't fault you if you don't. he was Carmela's Somalié on television for a while. Carmela, oh my God, it's weird. Like, even Carmela, like, there are some people listening to this who may not even know who she is, if they're like a newer fan because she's been out of the ring now for

at least, what, three years after she had her son? But anyway, Carmela, former women's champion, and they did a gimmick for a while where she had her own personal Somalié on television, and that was Reginald. And then later on, when that gimmick ran it, course. They sent him down to NXT and he worked at NXT. Before all that, he used to perform in

Cirque de Soleil. Now, he was a guest on the Rewind, Recap, Relive YouTube channel. And he talked about how he nearly got to headline WrestleMania 37. This is a wild one. Now, that was night one, the year

that Sasha Banks and Bianca Bel Air headlined. That was night one of WrestleMania 37. And they had an excellent match. The first all-female singles match to close out a WrestleMania. But it was almost a triple threat match with Reggie included, apparently. This is the first I'm hearing of this. At the time

he was involved in a storyline involving Sasha Banks, Bianca Bel Air, and Carmela. He even worked a singles match with Sasha on TV. Evidently, the story was to have seen Reggie splitting away from Carmela and getting close to Sasha only to then reveal that he was being added to her match at WrestleMania. This is what he said. So Carmela fired me and I was supposed to fall in love with Sasha. All of these different things.

So Vince calls all of us into the office, me, Sasha, and Bianca. And we have some producers and writers there. And he says, this is what I'm thinking. Reggie, you buy her a dog. She loves you. And you're playing every week in the middle. But the thing is, you have an end game. You will come out and announce that this is no longer a singles match.

This is a triple threat. And when he said that, Sasha had a look on her face and Bianca had the same look on her face. And I'm just like, I don't know what the hell is happening right now. I'm not going to look at anyone. I'm not going to say anything. And he said, Vince said, because Sasha and Reginal, you guys have great chemistry. And Sasha kept asking Vince, like, what do you mean? What is this chemistry?

And he's like, I don't know. It's just chemistry. And she's like, but what makes us have this? chemistry. He was like, I don't know, damn it. It's chemistry. We just didn't get an answer. He was just chemistry. Lo and behold, they came to their senses. That would have been stupid to throw me in that match. And so they went on to have a great match that's going to live in WWE history for a long time. Can you imagine? Can't even. I can guess what this supposed chemistry is that Vince was talking about. He didn't have the guts to come out and say, hey, you're

both black. That's totally what he was thinking, though. You know it's true. Apparently that means you have chemistry. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as it turned out, because Reggie got COVID the day of the event. Now, this was the first WrestleMania after COVID where they had a live audience. They kept it to a max of like 25,000, I think, for each night. They were in Tampa. He said, I was supposed to debut in front of a live crowd that WrestleMania with Naya and Shana, but I got COVID the day of. I drove to Tampa, got tested, got horrible news, legit been clean, negative the entire pandemic. First time I get to go, my first WrestleMania, COVID. I have to drive back home. So in the end, it would have gone from

a triple threat to a singles match anyway. You know, for someone as successful as Vince McMahon was, he would come up with the absolute dumbest ideas. How he thought that would be a good idea, I will never know. One last note, for I let you guys go. Former WWW. Deva, Layla, Layla Elv. She appeared on the Sport Shadow podcast and talked about dating current WWE champion Cody Rhodes when she still worked for the company. This is right before he started dating Brandy. I mean, he may have dated other people in between, but obviously he and Brandy ended up getting married and making babies together. But why this made news is the reason that Layla started dating Cody, and this is in her words, was because she knew he was going to be

star. She said, I started dating Cody because I knew he was going to be a star, and he had a lot of dreams and everything that he told me he was going to do, he's done it. So congratulations to him, because for someone who can tell you their dreams and they're going to make it happen and then they do make it happen, congratulations. Of course I saw it because I wouldn't have dated him or been with him if I didn't see everything that people are seeing now. Which is a hell of an answer. I mean, I had to watch it for myself to make sure that it wasn't taken out of context. It's possible that she was just saying she liked the man's ambition. But that's not exactly how it comes across.

But hey, I respect the honesty. You got busy weekend coming up. Next Tuesday, I'll be back with you here to talk about all the fallout from Saturday night's main event, double or nothing, all the news of the week. Have yourselves a great Memorial Day weekend. Jason Solomon. And when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you next Tuesday for another Uncrown Wrestling show. Until then, take care, guys.