The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | Hall of Fame surprise for AJ Styles on WORST Raw of the year, plus Chamber predictions!

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Jason Solomon is back with interesting notes from a recent John Cena interview, including how he nearly won his record-breaking 17th World championship at Summerslam five years ago, and why plans changed at the last minute (06:55). After announcing his retirement from the ring earlier this month, Big E spoke with Sports Illustrated and shared his reasons for stepping away. Solomonster shares that and his own thoughts on the man's career (18:36). Then, he dives into what he thought was the WORST Monday Night Raw of the year last night, which did include one great segment with the AJ Styles tribute and surprise Hall of Fame announcement from The Undertaker.  It was a show that included an injury to Bronson Reed and what it means for the future of The Vision, the underwhelming announcement of Brock Lesnar's open challenge for WrestleMania and Liv Morgan making her decision on which champion to challenge (25:39). He then gets into the final card for the Elimination Chamber this Saturday and his predictions, but not before sharing some news on another local blackout for the show in Chicago when it comes to watch parties, the same tactic they're using in Las Vegas for WrestleMania (52:50). For as boring as Raw was this week, he thought AEW turned out its BEST episode of Dynamite last Wednesday, largely off the back of a stellar main event with Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland, and a MAJOR heel turn after the match. He gets into that, plus the big stipulation added to the match with MJF and Hangman Page at Revolution (1:03:36). One person who's NOT too happy right now is the Ring of Honor Women's Pure champion, Deonna Purrazzo.  He explains why, based off her recent comments, her frustrations with Tony Khan and management there are valid. (1:12:01) Solomonster wraps up with some listener Q&A on topics including how to make AEW Collision more must-see, the men that have truly benefited from working with Brock Lesnar and when the Smackdown archives are leaving Peacock. (1:17:45)

This is the uncrown wrestling show with Jason Solomon, episode three, Tuesday, February 24th, 2006. You know, a few days ago, they were saying one to three inches of snow here in New York. Not looking too bad. Then it turned into a blizzard warning, and now we're buried under two feet of snow. After we just got done digging out of the last storm, I swear if that groundhog was in front of me right now, I would love to do to him what Swerve Strickland did to Kenny Omega on Dynamics. last week. That's one of the things that we're going to talk about here this week.

What I thought was the best episode of AEW Dynamite so far this year with a great main event and a major angle at the end of the show. And what was easily the worst episode of Monday Night Raw all year outside of the AJ Styles tribute, which was fantastic. But man, otherwise, what a terrible show that was. We've got Elimination Chamber to talk about. We now know all of the participants in the men's and women's matches. including one who was not supposed to be in the elimination chamber, but now will be because of an unfortunate injury. I've got some John Cena interview notes here.

Biggie officially puts a period on the end of his in-ring career and explains why. And Deanna Parazzo speaks out about her unhappiness with the way that she is being used right now. By the way, she is the current Ring of Honor women's pure champion. And she is saying this publicly. So we've got a lot to tackle here, including that groundhog, if I find his sorry. Have I mentioned how much I hate that guy? I just want that to be noted. Thank you for supporting the show.

Three episodes deep and you guys are killing it. Spread the word. We've got a dedicated pro wrestling show now here on Uncrowned. Each and every Tuesday, and email your questions to me at the Solomonster. Or you can tweet me on X at Solomonster. If you have a question for the show and be sure to include the hashtag Uncrowned.

I hope everyone south of the border is staying safe. There has been a surge in violence in Mexico after the killing of one of the biggest, if not the biggest, cartel leader down there, El Mancho. There have been bombings and killings and people on vacation there who were stranded because they can't get out. They have to shelter in place. It's very scary. Enough so that CMLLL canceled today's event at Arena Coliseo in Guadalajara. They announced the following. In light of the events, of the last few hours in our country and following the recommendations of security authorities, we've made the decision to suspend our event schedule for Tuesday, February 24 at the Arena

Coliseo, prioritizing the safety of the best fans in the world. This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring a safe environment for the audience, the talent, and all personnel involved in the event's operation. So safety first, but CMLL, they just recorded its 20th sellout so far in 2026. And we're not even a full two months into the year yet. Every Saturday show so far has been a sellout. It is just historic, this run that they have been on, dating back to last year. But as far as today's event, and I don't know if this is going to extend out to other events this week or next week,

but as far as today's event, it has been canceled. Tom Brady pissed off a bunch of WWE stars a couple of weeks ago when he made a comment on Logan Paul's podcast. about WWE being cute. They were talking about the fanatics flag football game that the two of them are going to be playing in next month. In Saudi Arabia, when Brady said he likes WWE, it's cute. But this is like real football. This is real competition.

And the WWE stars have been reacting to it ever since. Drew McIntyre told Sports Illustrated, I don't get annoyed. It just comes from a place of ignorance. and Randy Orton was on ESPN's Get Up this week promoting Elimination Chamber and he said He's never met Brady before But he would love to meet him and hit him with an RKO

He is at the top of the list Well, I mean he dropped Mark Cuban with one many years ago No reason he can't drop Tom Brady with one Obafemi said for those who think it's cute and fluffy And it's all sweet and stuff You can come and try You can lace up some boots and then let's watch you puke I thought CM Punk had the best answer of the bunch.

He said, what's wrong with cute? I'm cute, Tom. I think it's cute that Tom Brady is flying all the way to Riyadh to play flag football. But for however many millions of dollars, they're paying him for one game, as ludicrous as it is, I can see why he would do it. I know Dave Portnoy of Barstool claimed that someone told him Brady was getting $75 million just for the one game. I think Brady has disputed it. It may not be $75 million, but I'm sure he's getting a handsome sum to go over there and play. Look, Tom Brady is one of the lucky ones who did not play in the NFL and end up blowing out his knee so that he would have to end up wrestling just to make money.

But plenty of his colleagues over the years have done just that. That's how Bill Goldberg got into wrestling. And they learned very quickly that it's more than cute. You know, Braun Breaker, he got signed by the Ravens years ago as an undrafted free agent. and never played a game for them, but he went through the NFL training, and he has said that wrestling training was harder on his body than his NFL training was. You know, it's like McIntyre said. It just, it comes from a place of ignorance.

It's not something to be taken personally. You know, the two of them were throwing friendly jabs at each other. It's not like he meant it in like a malicious way or anything like that. But there is ignorance there, you know. I mean, you don't know what you don't know, especially the scheduling. that these men and women used to have. I mean, forget today. Not that I'd want to have that schedule today, but the schedule they had years ago, my God. So, I mean, it's not apples to apples. There's a difference between playing football for 18 weeks and bumping around 52 weeks a year

with no off season being dumped on your head. It's not exactly the same thing. You know who also got signed by an NFL team, but never played in any regular season games? Hacksaw Jim Duggan. and he posted something pretty cool on social media this week. He posted a couple of old pay stubs from his time with the Atlanta Falcons in 1977. And in one of them, he made over $2,800. Yeah. Adjusted for inflation, that would be the equivalent of more than $15,000 today. John Cena has made a hell of a lot more than $15,000 in his day.

And he appeared in studio on the No Contest Wrestling podcast, with O'Shea Jackson Jr. and T.J. Jefferson this past week, you can find it on the YouTube channel for the Rich Eisen Show. He sat for two and a half hours talking about his career, his retirement tour, and he shared some interesting things that we did not previously know about. So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of those things here and encourage you to watch the full interview. They did a very good job with it.

But this to me was the most interesting thing to come out of it, which as far as I know is something that Sina has never previously shared before. A little inside baseball when it comes to the night that he was supposed to win his 17th World Championship five years ago at SummerSlam in his match with Roman Rains. Now this was at a time when Sina had made a surprise return to the company at the end of money in the bank the month before, and Roman was in the midst of what would end up being 1,300-plus days as champion. That almost didn't happen. And it had everything to do with Brock Lesnar's return

being finalized at the very last minute. Sina said that night was supposed to go very different. In the last moment, we had a surprise guest booked and he came out after the match was over. Brock. They didn't secure Brock until 5 p.m. that day. I was going to win 17. We were going to have someone come out and restart the match

and Roman was going to take it back. The way we put the match together was we were going to give them a hell of a match, everything out the door. No rules, tons of finishers, all this stuff, because I was going to win. And then Roman was going to take it back. So you have this hard fought battle and then through a nefarious set of rules. The match is restarted. Then we secure Brock. And talent relations comes over and says, I need to see you. We're switching the finish. To what? Roman over. Yep. Clean. Yep. Okay. What do you want to do? do. Let me just talk to Roman and Paul. And I go in and they're like, you got the news and I said,

I got the news. What do we do? One spear, that's it. Whatever match you want to have, that's fine. You beat me with your finish once. He said, I love Paul. Paul Heyman has been a great mentor. He gets it and he recognizes somebody who sees that it's not about them. It's about the story. This is going to make Roman better because they're having him win so he can go on to bigger and better things. and it switched right there. We're on the West Coast, so it's like an hour before the thing. It happens to everyone. It happens from the top of the card on down to the bottom.

They will switch. They will cut your time. They will give you different creative. It happens all the time. So I didn't flip out. When Travis, talking about Travis Scott, didn't want to do it anymore. When Rock chose to go another way, it happens. I saw Steve Austin leave.

I saw him get fired. I was there when they fight. him in Atlanta. It happens all the time, but I was supposed to win 17 that night. Steve Austin wasn't fired in Atlanta. He walked out in Atlanta. And I seen, I guess that, well, that would have been 2002. It was right around the time he probably would have been doing dark matches. So I don't doubt he was there that night. But that was Austin's choice to pack his bags and leave. You know, it's interesting. Summer Slam, 2021. That is the night that Cowboy Brock debuted with the ponytail, which was quite the sight to see.

you had never seen Brock Lesnar with a ponytail before. And they had also, if you don't recall, added a stipulation to the match 24 hours earlier on Smackdown, where Roman Raines said, you know, we're in Vegas, and so let's just put it all on the line. And if I don't leave with the WWE championship, I will leave WWE. So I was thinking about this story because of that were the case. You know, if John Cena was supposed to win, then in theory Roman Raines would have had to have, you know, left. Yeah, but as he said there, through a set of nefarious

means, the match would be restarted, and, you know, Roman was a heel, so I guess it would be easy enough to get around that with some sort of loophole. But I'm listening to him explain this, and I'm just like, this is a terrible idea. I mean, here I thought him winning number 17 and breaking the record last year, the way he did in Vegas was bad. And believe me, it was. Don't get me wrong. It was pretty fucking terrible. Funny enough, I just realized that Subberslam that he's talking about was also held at Allegiance Stadium, just like WrestleMania last year.

So I guess 17 was just destined to happen there. But regardless, like, imagine the record being set, only for him to lose it right back 90 seconds later. Like, that would have been awful. I don't know whose idea that was. I don't know if that was Vince's idea because he still would have been running things. I don't know if Sina had any input in that.

He's always talked about being very hands-off when it comes to a lot of stuff, so maybe he wasn't, but man, what a terrible idea. But he also revealed a few things about his retirement tour. He said that AJ Stiles was not originally supposed to be his opponent for Crown Jewel in Perth, Australia. He was initially set to wrestle Drew McIntyre, but the decision was made to give the fans a feel-good moment instead. He said AJ was supposed to be Drew, but it pivoted. We wanted to give them a feel-good moment because they were listening to the data points. They listen to you guys.

They do. It's real. It's too bad. We didn't get that program with McIntyre. He was having a hell of a year last year. And I think the promos between the two of them would have been gold. He was one of those guys where, like, at the beginning of the year, if I would have made a short list of stars that I would have liked to have seen Seena work with, he would have been not at the top, but he would have been pretty high up on that list. And I just think it came down to Sena's limited number of dates more than anything.

You know, Sina has said that his original idea was to work a full year. He wanted to do 220 dates, which I think would have wrecked him. I think that sounds like a bad idea, which I think he kind of realized. But like the company came back at him and said, no, we only need you for 36, which sounds very, very low. So I don't know if maybe, you know, they could have met in the middle somewhere, but had he worked a a longer or larger schedule than McIntyre absolutely, you know, should have been one of his opponents. But it's like, for what they had him for, who do you replace? I mean, he wrestled Randy Orton and C.M. Punk and Cody and AJ. And those are matches that you want to do. So do you take it? I mean,

he was in the ring like three different times with Logan Paul. I mean, I guess you could have, you could have substituted him. But, you know, Logan is one of, Logan is one of the ones. of the newer faces on the roster who I could see them wanting the two of them to work together. Or maybe Sina requested and say, hey, I want to get in the ring with this guy. I don't know. They just ran out of time. That's really what it boiled down to. He also said the original plan had been for him to turn back babyface during his match with Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam, as opposed to the go home show 48 hours before. he confirmed that the decision for his character to smile and tap out in the match with Gunther on Saturday night's main event was his own. So now I know who to blame for that.

He said Bruce Pritchard is the one who pitched for his final night originally to be a one-match show. He said, I remember Bruce, who is a great friend of mine, came up to me and was like, for your last show, I'm thinking about a one-match show. And I said, you will kill the audience. you will absolutely murder the live event audience. Now, WWE is great at production. If you were watching at home, that would have been great. But the wind would have been out of the sales in D.C.

I said, no, fuck that. Do two or three-minute packages here and there, but let's get some matches. Let's bring in some marquee guys. And that was a good call on his part. Because if you remember, I mean, they featured a bunch of NXT faces on that show. So they were able to put a spotlight on people like, Obafemi and Sol Ruka and Javan Evans. You got to build towards the future.

He's absolutely right. If you could take something like that where you know there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on that show. And on the undercard, you feature other names and other faces that you are going to build this company around for the next five, ten, ten, fifteen years. I don't know why you wouldn't do that. It just seems like a missed opportunity if you don't. Now, he also provided an explanation for his decision. decision to end his career in December, as opposed to waiting for a WrestleMania moment. And he said that his choice was driven by a data-centric approach

to the WWE business model. He said traditionally the road to WrestleMania begins in January. December has historically been a month in limbo, suffering from low viewership and softer live attendance due to holiday spending and travel. And he explained that he initially pitched the December retirement to Nick Kahn and Triple H to address. To a recurring weakness in the annual calendar by putting it in the middle of December, a dry zone between Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, he was aiming to drive fourth quarter profitability. He said retiring at WrestleMania is selfish. It doesn't do anything for the business. We retire in December, our weakest month, and we take the middle of December that dry zone, that desert. From the end

of Survivor Series to the beginning of the Rumble, let's show a profit in Q4. Ever the company guy, John Sina, and that's not a bad thing. It just shows how his brain works, you know, when it comes to business and when it comes to this kind of stuff. Post wrestling and Brandon Thurston, they had a story this week about just how much money seen his final match on Saturday night's main event helped generate for the company, and it was massive. the largest arena gate in WWE history, and probably in all of pro wrestling history when you take inflation into account, this is according to the live event trade publication,

poll star, more than $6.5 million for one night with over 17,000 tickets sold, which surpasses the record they set at the beginning of last year when Raw premiered on Netflix in Englewood at the Intuit dome. Up until last year, when you take inflation into account, no WWE arena event and possibly any event

in history wrestling-wise, had surpassed the gate of WrestleMania 5, which was headlined by Hulk Hogan against macho man Randy Savage. The gate for that one was over $1.6 million. This was in 1989. So today that would be the equivalent of over $4

million. I remember that match and storyline very well. That is part of my wrestling childhood. That is the mega power story. Still to me, the greatest story ever told storyline-wise in WWE. It was such a simple one, too. But clearly, you know, the business that that match did at WrestleMania tells the tale right there as far as how much of a success that was. It's still kind of crazy to me that up until recently that record still stood. But again, it just goes to show how much of a success that story

really was. Let's talk about Big E. It has been nearly four years since Biggie last wrestled a match, and people have been hoping for a comeback at some point, holding out hope. He up until recently never really shut the door on the idea of an in-ring comeback. They shot that incredible angle with the New Day at the end of, not last year, but in 2024, where the New Day turned heel. And they included Biggie in that angle. And they just insulted him and just verbally attacked him and it was it was terrible right you watch this and what a sad thing and you're waiting and thinking okay maybe this is sort of a tease of a potential big e return at some point you know for the rumble or for wrestlemania and unfortunately that never

happened and even worse they never really followed up in any meaningful way on the new day heel turn so they just sort of floundered after that but if you don't recall what happened to big e it was a tag team match on Smackdown back in March of 2022, where he teamed up with Kofi Kingston against the brawling brutes. It was Seamus and Ridge Holland when he took an overhead belly to belly suplex on the floor from Holland outside. And it was a very, very scary moment. He landed right on top of his head, and he broke his neck. And he has not wrestled a match since then. So he took to social media earlier this month to officially announce his retirement from in-ring. action saying, I entered the pro wrestling industry at the age of 23, with an injury history that

included a torn left ACL, torn right ACL, torn left peck, and a broken right patella. At 39, I'm well aware that one day I will have to pay the piper. I put my body through a lot, and somehow I feel great. I don't battle daily pain. I'm able to function normally and healthfully. I'm eternally grateful for the wonderful career I stumbled into. I pray for all of my fellow athletes. I pray for all of my fellow athletes and performers who have not had the same good fortune. A sincere thank you to everyone who has taken the time to follow my in-ring career. It was an immeasurable gift to get to perform for you all. So a sad but very classy statement there from Big E.

And he gave a little more context to why he made that decision when he spoke to John Alba. The takedown on SI had a story that dropped last week. and he revealed that the decision to retire came almost immediately after he broke his neck. He said, for me, especially when I first broke my neck, I really didn't think a lot of it. I wasn't in pain. I wasn't concussed at all. I didn't have any real nerve issues. I was like, okay, we'll heal up. And they told me initially, I think it was eight weeks being in a neck brace, and you should be good to go. And he noted that they soon realized that he had what is referred to as a Jefferson fracture,

which is a type of break that has a severe impact on the C1 vertebrae? My C1 was broken in two places, and oftentimes when that happens, the C1 will heal like cartilage. So in those gaps, it'll form cartilage instead of ossifying, instead of forming new bone. So after talking to Dr. Uribe and a few other doctors, the doctor almost damn near begged me. Like, hey, please, even if you get your all go, you're clear, you're allowed to get back in the ring, please really reconsider it. And when I told him, I think I'm definitely leaning towards being done. He almost quite literally breathed a sigh of relief.

So for someone who's been doing this for so long, who knows a lot more about spines and necks than I do, I definitely took heed. You see so many of the veterans, the legends around WrestleMania time, oftentimes that's when you see a lot of the guys you don't see year round. And man, it's sobering. So many of them who aren't even that old are struggling. They're struggling with pain, clearly not very ambulatory.

They're using walkers to get around, and man, I told myself, as much as I love my career, as much as I love being an athlete, I am really gambling with my health. And I've always said, I have to believe that his neck being so strong is what saved him from a much worse outcome. I felt the same way about Brock Lesnar when he did that shooting star press at WrestleMania 19 back in 03. You know, he's in the main event against Kurt Angle. Somebody gets in his year before the show, hey, and want a WrestleMania moment, right? This is the night to bust out the shooting star press. Because he was doing that like nothing back in developmental.

But we had never seen him use that move on the main roster. Why would a guy like Brock Lesnar, big as he is, have to go to the top rope and do a shooting star press? But he did it, and he almost killed himself. He landed right on top of his head, and it's a miracle he didn't break his neck. And I said it's the way he trained his neck. and I mean, you just look at him back then.

And I'm sure that's what probably saved him. Remember that spot years ago at Elimination Chamber. And if you don't, I don't blame you because it's not like he's around anymore. But remember Mad Cat Moss, you know, he had a match of Drew McIntyre. And there was a very scary spot in that match where McIntyre gave him a reverse Alabama slam and dumped him right on his head. It was very, very scary. I have no idea how he didn't break his neck, but the way he trained his neck,

I'm sure had a lot to do with it. So with Big E, it could have been a lot worse. You know, Owen Hart was one of the safest people you could be in the ring with by all accounts, and he dropped Steve Austin on his head and nearly crippled him. I mean, he shaved years off of his career, but at least he had a run after that. So, I mean, we sometimes take for granted,

you know, because we watch this stuff every week, just how dangerous pro wrestling really is, no matter how cute Tom Brady says it is. I mean, you're always one bad landing away from being paralyzed in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, or worse. And Biggie, you know, when he looks back at his career, I mean, look, he had a hell of a career for himself. I think his greatest matches came as a tag team wrestler as part of the new day, which in itself will go down as a Hall of Fame group.

I mean, it's a group that not a lot of people gave much of a chance to when they first formed, but they outlasted everyone's expectations. And they made WWE a hell of a lot of money over the years. But he is a triple crown winner. He was the WWE champion, the intercontinental champion, multiple time tag team champion. I think like eight times over or some crazy number like that, former NXT champions. So he had quite a bit of success in his career. So his career might have been cut short, but his resume, I think, speaks for itself.

And he had more success than most do. more importantly though, he's a quality human being and he's a great ambassador for WWE and for wrestling in general. And I'm glad he still has his quality of life because that's more important than any title he could ever hold. Monday Night Raw last night was in Atlanta. It was the final Raw before the elimination chamber.

And it was without exaggeration, the worst raw of 2006. And truly one of the worst raws that I have seen in a hell of a lot longer than that. It was a show that did nothing to get me excited for the chamber this weekend. A show, it really dragged on and sounded like the fans were attending a funeral.

And this is hardly the first time that this has been the case in recent weeks. There is a pattern here with these shows that is very troubling. They're still selling tickets, but these crowds are just not invested in what they're seeing. But for the top, top names when they come out,

right? Roman Raines comes out, they'll pop for Roman Rain. CM Punk comes out, they'll pop for CM Punk. And not much else. You know, the most interesting and exciting period in WWE, typically, on the calendar, is the road to WrestleMania, as they love to call it. And right now it feels like we're sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on that road with a 10-car pile up up ahead.

That's what it feels like. And the only redeeming thing on the program, easily the best thing all night, had nothing at all to do with the elimination chamber. It was their tribute, a very classy tribute, to the phenomenal AJ styles. And for all the talk about AJ possibly wrestling elsewhere this year, be T&A or A.W. That feels a lot less likely. I won't say impossible, but that feels a lot less likely now after what we saw last night. Throughout the night, they had little segments in the back showing you that there were people from AJ's past that were gathered here tonight for the big tribute.

A lot of names from the TNA days. People like Jeremy Borash and P.D. Williams, who both work behind the scenes now for WWE in varying capacities. Frankie Kazarian, who is currently on the TNA roster, The Monster Abyss. We've never seen Abyss in character and make an appearance on WWE television before. He works as a producer behind the scenes. You could see him.

He's all over the Unreal show on Netflix. But this is the first time he's been in the Abyss Mask. the Abyss get up. And I'm like, oh, wow, okay, cool. Right? We never got to see Abyss in WWE. So they were doing that throughout the night. You know, Carl Anderson and Luke Gallows, they showed up. Obviously, they were with AJ in Japan during his new Japan run and then later in WWE. And it all built to the closing segment where AJ came out all by himself. And he said he was grateful to be in Atlanta. This is after a great video package, by the way, that they aired. They set it to the song

Higher by Creed. My God, I have not heard Creed. Not on this show anyway, in a very long time. We went through a period over 20 years ago in WW where you would hear Creed all the time on these shows. But he said he was grateful to be in Atlanta.

He grew up right down the road in Gainesville, Georgia, and he wrestled at the fairgrounds in TNA and the Tokyo Dome and under the bright lights of WrestleMania. And he's wrestled some OGs, and he named drop Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe and Frankie Kizarian in TNA. And then he left TNA and he went to Japan and he met some good brothers.

Gallows and Anderson, they showed him what it's like to have fun in pro wrestling. And he's done almost everything. The one thing he has not done is be a full-time dad. And they showed his wife and kids in the front row. And he's talked about missing birthdays and anniversaries and games. And, you know, he might stand there and say his big. flex in life is all the championships that he's won all over the world. But honestly, his biggest flex is having the best wife in the world. What they say? Happy wife, happy life.

See, AJ subscribes to that theory. Putting her over here. And he knows things may not have gone the way that the fans wanted it to go against Gunther at the Royal Rumble, but it was kind of poetic that, you know, not many people get to go out where they started. His debut was at the Royal Rumble in 2016 and his last match was at the Royal Rumble in 2026. And he knows that there were questions about him maybe, you know, not being done yet because he didn't leave his gloves in the ring at the Rumble. And at that point, he took his vest off. He laid it down on the mat.

He said he didn't take his gloves off at the Rumble and leave them in the ring because he wanted to bring them here and leave his gloves at home. And he proceeded to put his gloves down on top of his vest. And from the bottom of my heart, I would have been nothing without you. Thank you for your love, and I love you right back. And at that point, you know, he's posing for the crowd and the copyright box comes on and I'm like, that can't be it. They've been showing people all night backstage.

Where are all the people? Now all of a sudden the wrestlers start coming out on stage. And then we hear the gong and the lights go out. And the Undertaker rides down to the ring on his motorcycle. and he gets in the ring and he asked AJ, you're just going to leave your stuff in the ring and leave? He said, me and you, we got unfinished business. And he asked AJ if he ever heard the phrase,

If you see me coming, you're already gone. Well, I change that phrase a little bit because if you see him coming, that means he's going. He said, AJ, it is his esteemed honor. And at that point, you could see AJ mouthing the words like, holy shit. like as reality said in about what's happening here. But it's his esteemed honor to inform him

that AJ Stiles is the newest inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2006. And I'm sure that the reaction was genuine. They didn't clue him in. He looked surprised. He was happy. He was laughing and smiling. His family came into the ring to hug him and embrace him.

It was a beautiful ending. and a very deserving induction for a man who influenced a generation of talent. You know, this is a man who Undertaker himself has said was the Sean Michaels of this generation. I believe Kurt Angle has said the same thing, as he got to work with AJ as well in TNA. Now that is the ultimate compliment coming from those guys. And I remember when he came into WWE all those years ago

and the excitement around it, but there were a lot of questions, because there wasn't exactly some great track record of WWE bringing T&A talents in and pushing them to the moon. So here comes A.J. Stiles, and it's like, all right, well, how are they going to humble this guy? Right. How are you going to screw up A.J. Stiles? And they didn't. You know, he came in. He debuted at the Rumble. Had a memorable debut there. And I think he wrestled Chris Jericho that year in his first WrestleMania match, and he lost. And then he wrestled back-to-back pay-per-view matches with Roman Raines, and he lost both of those.

but he was in the pay-per-view main event for the World Championship against Roman Rains, and he had great matches with Roman, some of the best matches of that run, frankly, that Roman had. And then came the program with John Sina, which I think really defined his career in many ways in WWE. He beat John Sina not once but twice. Back to back. That SummerSlam match in Brooklyn, I was there for that match in 2016, still to this day one of the greatest matches live that I've ever seen. just a fantastic match, and then one month later, he's the WWE champion.

This all happened in his first year in the company. It's kind of crazy that for the decade he spent in WWE, his first year in 2016 was still, to this day, the best year, start to finish, that he had in the company. But for a guy who, you know, came from TNA, and it would have been very easy for WWE to sort of marginalize him or maybe not push him as hard as they would push other people. They took AJ Stiles, and they were able to put him in the ring with some of the biggest stars on their roster. He went out there and he did what AJ Stiles does. He went out there and he made memories and had incredible matches and made the most of the

opportunities that were given to him. And he won multiple championships. Could they have done more with him at different points? Sure, right. I mean, we could always quibble about, man, they should have done more with this guy or that guy. But looking back on it, he had a hell of a run in WWE. And evidently, they are trying to get John Sina to induct him into the Hall of Fame. That was the first name that came to my mind last night when I was watching the show, when the show was over and I was talking about it, was

John Sina would make the most sense. John Sina thinks the world of AJ Stiles. Every time he talks about that guy. I mean, he just speaks about him in glowing terms. They had that incredible send-off together in Perth last year. If they could, you know, schedule-wise, if they can get Sina in Vegas from any of this year, then he would absolutely be the right person, I think, to do that induction. Unfortunately, the tribute could not fill the entire two and a half hours last night. We had the rest of the show. And we had an injury to Bronson Reed.

Bronson Reed was in a triple threat qualifying match, the final one on the men's side for the elimination chamber. it was Bronson Reed, Jay Uso, and El Grande Americano, Gable, as I call him, the OG, El Grande Americano. And there was a spot during the match. Actually, I think it was the one where El Grande came off the top rope with a diving headbutt, almost completely across the ring because Jay Uso was so far away. And I don't know why he thought he could make it.

He came up just short on the headbut. Totally missed Jay Uso. But he covered him anyway and Reed, who I think had been outside of the the ring. He got back in the ring and he dove over on top of them to break up the pin. It didn't look like anything out of the ordinary, but when they came back from a commercial break, they showed a replay. And as soon as Reed, after breaking up the pin, you know, got back up on his knees, he is holding his right arm and holding his right forearm. And then he went over to talk to the doctor and clearly he was hurt and something was wrong. We never saw him again

for the rest of the match. And multiple outlets. I think BodySlam.net was one of them, wrestle votes, which is part of Fightful. They all reported that Reed was supposed to win that match last night. But instead, they had to call an audible, and you could tell. Like, the match, I don't want to say it fell apart at that point, but the referee is trying to communicate with Gable and with Jay Uso, and the crowd is just quiet. And they're just trying to figure out, okay, what do we do now? You know, what's Plan B? Plan B was Jay Uso, qualified for the elimination chamber.

and we were alerted later in the show by Michael Cole that Reed suffered a distal biceps tear, which with surgery, and they didn't say this, they just said he would be out indefinitely, but from what I can gather with surgery, he's likely gone for four to six months. And I'm gutted for the man because this is now the second time that Bronson Reed has suffered a very serious injury that has taken him out of WrestleMania. You know, that happened a couple of years ago when he came diving off. the top of the cage in war games at Survivor Series and just shattered his foot on the landing. And so he missed WrestleMania. He missed a lot of things until he was finally able to come back.

That's still an injury that he is never going to be 100% recovered from. He's talked about this before. He still has pain in his foot that he works through every single day. It was a devastating injury. And so here we are again. And clearly he ain't going to be back in time for WrestleMania. But he is also now, the bigger story here is that he is now the third member of the vision, the top heel faction on this show, to go down to injury. Ever since they did the Seth Rollins' phony knee injury angle, the big swerve last summer, the vision has been decimated.

This group is absolutely cursed. Seth Rollins fakes an injury. A few months later, he goes down with a room. real injury to his shoulder. And he may be the only one who's back in time for WrestleMania, although I don't know at this point what you even do with him. But Rollins hurts his shoulder. Then Braun Breaker needs emergency hernia surgery.

That probably will take him out of WrestleMania as well. And now Bronson Reed. So that leaves Logan Paul and Austin Theory. The vision has been reduced to a tag team. The vision has been blinded, you might say. And at this point, I think the vision needs to be disbanded. I honestly don't even know where you go from here. You know, this mass man angle that they've been running,

that looks to be out the window now. There's no point in even continuing that. I don't know that I have ever seen a group more snake-bitten than this one. So right out of the gate, this was the opening match on the show. That injury cast a dark cloud over this program. We had Liv Morgan on the show last night making her choice for which champion she will challenge at WrestleMania 42. She invited both women's champions out to the ring.

It ended up being a swerve. She was saying nice things about Stephanie Vicar, turned to face Jade Cargill, then turned back around and blasted Stephanie in the head with the microphone and beat the hell out of her. And this all happened to dead silence. Nobody seemed to care. But it was the obvious choice.

I mean, who honestly believed that Liv Morgan was going to choose Jade Cargill as her approach? opponent for WrestleMania. The story was with Stephanie. It was the obvious choice. Raquel Rodriguez, she qualified for the women's chamber with a win over Eoskeye and Kairi Seine. We had a match, if I could even call it that, between Maxine Dupree and Natty. Went 90 seconds. It ended after Natty kicked her away. She kind of kicked Maxine off. Maxine turns around and takes a bump into the ring post. A very, it did not look great. I'm being generous what I say this.

A very weak bump into the ring post that evidently was so devastating. It looked like she was dead. She fell to the floor, face first, laying on the floor motionless. And Natty pounces on her and the referee's trying to pull her off and she just won't stop. And so the referee throws the match away. And I said, you know, on the one hand, one thing that I have complained about when it comes to Natty and this new character that she's portraying, this new persona. this new persona on television, is that it's never going to get over if she doesn't win any matches.

You know, Natty has been with this company for two decades at this point. And they're trying to put a fresh coat of paint on her character, which is one that she's been portraying off and on on certain independent shows, that they've allowed her to work like Josh Barnett's Bloodsport. And I think it could work if they actually cared enough to try to make it work on television. But what they've done is what I feared they would do, which is they basically half-assed it. You know, they changed her music,

and she's got new gear. She looks like, you know, like an MMA destroyer when she walks out. But there's nothing any different about her character on television, and she has not won any matches. So it's kind of hard to care when that happens. So last night, guess what? She won.

That's the good news. The bad news is the way they did it and everything about this was terrible. And again, to crickets. Actually, I shouldn't even say to crickets. It was booze after a while, Because once the referee threw the match away, it was more like, oh, my God. And then the fans started booing. I don't know who this is supposed to serve.

They're doing a disservice to Natty by half-assing this, I can't even call it a push. I don't even know what you call it. And then Maxine Dupree is not going to benefit from this in any meaningful way. It's not like when she was working with Becky Lynch, where they were at least trying to get her over. And Becky was doing her damnedest. You know, and they put that women's icy title on her and they gave her more promo time so she could speak and communicate with the audience. Like that is what is going to help get her over to that next level.

And now it's like they've regressed with her. But this is not doing Natty or Maxine or anybody any favors. And if they're not going to put the full effort into the Natty persona to try to really get it over as some kind of killer, you know, that the fan should look at and go, oh my God, what's Natty going to do this week? Then what's the point in even doing any of this? It's completely pointless. Speaking of pointless, it's a great transition into Brock Lesnar, who was on the show last night with Paul Heyman. First time we've seen Brock Lesnar since he was eliminated by L.A. Knight and Cody Rhodes in the Royal Rumble.

And I saw that they were advertising him for this show. And I said, well, must tie into the elimination chamber in some way. Because otherwise, why bring Brock back five days before the PLE? So maybe he's going to beat somebody up and steal their spot and get in the chamber, where they're going to hype up some kind of segment for him at the chamber in Chicago. Nope. They come out to the ring, and it is as standard a Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar promo segment, as you will ever see, all to set up the Brock Lesnar Open Challenge for WrestleMania. I'm not even sure why this had to be on the show last night, if Lesnar is not appearing on the show this weekend. All so they could just promote the upcoming dates that he will be appearing on most. Monday Night Raw so that people can go buy tickets.

I would say that what they did with him last night was not exactly a great advertisement for what he'll be doing on those shows. But he is now advertised for March 16th in San Antonio, Texas. I believe Steve Austin is, I don't think anything's confirmed, but I think they were working to possibly try to get him on that show, which would actually make sense because that's around the time I think that the new video game comes out. and Austin is he's part of that.

So I could see him being there too. But that's 316 in San Antonio. He'll be in Boston on March 23rd, New York City at Madison Square Garden on March 30th, Houston on April 6th, and then the final raw before WrestleMania in Sacramento on April 13th. They put the graphic up on the big tron in the arena and everything, basically like, go buy your tickets. Even worse. actually the worst part of this.

The crowd was actively chanting for Obafemi while Paul Heyman was speaking and they were waiting for him to come out because they're basically daring anybody in the back. They're saying in so many words, there ain't nobody in the back that has the balls to come out here and confront Brock Lesnar. And not only did Obafemi now come out, nobody did.

But the reason this was so bad is because in the segment literally right before this, in the back, they showed you that Obafemi was there. He confronted Rusev. He was there. They made that very clear, and still he did not come out. That was very strange. I don't know why you would do that. But as Brock Lesnar appearances go, this wasn't much of anything. Then we had the crate. I talked about that last week, the giant crate that says do not open until elimination chamber. And Adam Pierce,

had shipped it on over to Nick Aldous on Smackdown, let him deal with it. Aldous didn't know what to make of it on Friday. He said, ship it back to Raw. And so Adam Pierce said, well, I guess me and Nick will open it together in the ring this Saturday at the chamber. One person we know will not be popping out of the crate will be Chris Jericho, based on the latest update from Fightful Select, which is reporting that the belief from those around Jericho and and in AEW is that his contract was frozen after he took time off from the company in 2025.

Now, Variety had reported back in October of 2022 that Jericho signed a three-year contract extension with AEW that would keep him there through December of 2025. But Jericho is still listed on the AEW roster page, you know, usually when people leave or the clock strikes midnight and their deal is done. And this is what happened with Powerhouse Hobbs. they pull them from the page right away. Jericho is still up there. And promoters have frozen contracts before.

I mean, this would hardly be the first time something like this has happened. Typically, it will happen when there are injuries during their run. WWE did this with Ray Mysterio many years ago. I don't know how many months they tacked on, but it was during a period where Ray was just, he was having a lot of knee issues and injury issues. I believe that was the same situation with Ray Phoenix and AEW. I know he missed quite a bit of time with injury.

And look, I can understand it in certain circumstances. If there's an injury that is just so devastating that it lasts for the majority of someone's deal, right? And they're continuing to be paid. But generally speaking, I think it's very shitty to extend people's deals out like that. Or if they're healthy and they're ready, willing and able to work and you can use them, but you just opt not to. Right? That's not their fault. So that was my issue when it came to people, like Ray Phoenix and Ricky Starks and AEW,

or it was like, just you're not going to use them, just let him go. In Jericho's case, if it was his choice to leave and take time off and say, hey, I want to, you know, pull me off TV for a while, I'm going to go on tour with Fazi, I'm going to go film some movie roles. You know what? Then I can understand it. It's not like he got hurt and he was on the shelf for six months. Yeah, but instead it was like, hey, you know what? I think I'm going to take nine months off.

still get paid, and then I'll leave and go to WWA. Yeah, you know what? I can understand that. But we just don't know. We don't know what the deal was. We don't know what kind of clause he may or may not have had in his contract. We don't know for how much longer he'll be under contract with them. But it will not be him inside the crate. Now, one person who actually fits exactly into this very same argument that I was just talking about

in terms of people who have been under contract to AEW and have wanted out and did not get what they want, Danhausen is one of those people. And Danhausen is somebody who isn't even being used. So I think he tore his peck and maybe he missed eight or nine months. And to my knowledge, that was the only time he was out with any kind of significant injury. But it's not like Danhausen is any sort of like main event player, big time draw. you know, we can't let this guy go, or we have big plans for Danhausen. I can't even remember the last time we saw him on television.

But I believe he may have asked for his release at one point. He was denied. But there were reports going back many months that his deal with AEW would be up in February of 2026. And here we are. And so if anybody was going to pop out of that crate, as ridiculous as the concept even is, of somebody coming out of the crate after two weeks in there, you know, the Dan housing character, it's just weird and wacky and silly enough that it could work. And as long as they're not really propping this idea up, like, oh, it's going to be a big

name that's coming out of there, then it's fine. I mean, if that's the way they want to debut him, because I do think he's going to end up here. And this would be as good a place for it as anything. And I think that, you know, it's kind of a fun character. I think that it played right could get over. So I'm thinking Danhausen, I mean, if I had a venture a guess. The only other thing I could come up with here is, you know, Finn Baller is wrestling for the World Heavyweight Championship this weekend. I do think that we are going to see the demon character return at some point, possibly for WrestleMania against Dominic. We could see him pop out of the crate as the demon this Saturday. It could have the crate just sitting there

on stage, but then Adam Pierce mentioned last night that he and Nick Aldus will open it in the ring together. So that seems very unlikely. I think we're probably looking at the arrival of Danhausen in WW. Now next week on Raw, they're going to be in Indianapolis, and the elimination chamber will be over and done with, and so the next big event is going to be WrestleMania. So the build to WrestleMania can begin in earnest next week. We have Dominic Mysterio defending his intercontinental title against Penta. We have Gunther wrestling Dragon Lee, and we have the return. Yet again, another return. I've lost track of how many this is. Of Roman Reigns, we'll be back on TV. So that's Raw coming up next Monday. But let me talk about Smackdown here from this past Friday

because there were some developments on this show. Drew McIntyre was on the show. He was not supposed to be there. Nick Aldous had sent him away, but there he was. He was up in his own luxury box at the beginning of the show. And Jacob fought too, wanted to get a piece of him he had to be held back and, you know, he brought up the same point, did Jacob in his promo with Cody Rhodes that I made last week, which is that in the elimination chamber qualifier, which was Cody, Jacob, and Sammy Zane, Jacob had the match won, and it was Drew McIntyre interfering that arguably cost him a spot inside the elimination chamber. He was also, I should mention this, he was on busted open radio this past week, was Jacob fought too?

he mentioned that he had 11 teeth pulled during that dental surgery that he had a few months ago. That's why he was gone for a while. Eleven teeth. I joked about this on my Soundup podcast this weekend. I said, don't tell Danhausen. It's his whole gimmick. Danhausen goes around with a jar full of teeth. Maybe we just found out who attacked Jacob Faw, too.

I don't know. Boy, that would be a terrible idea for Jacob Faw, too, to go from, potentially wrestling for the championship of WrestleMania to wrestling fucking Danhausen. Drew McIntyre also caused Randy Orton his match at the end of Smackdown on Friday against Alistair Black. So Alistair Black actually got

a rare big win on the show. I don't know if it'll be followed up on, but he got to beat Randy Orton. And Alistair Black has been telling Randy Orton, you need to go back to your roots. You got to get back to being the real viper, right?

2009, Randy Orton. Randy Orton is going to be inside the elimination chamber with Cody Rhodes. And I would say easily the most compelling part of that chamber match would be the potential interaction between Cody and Randy. So let's talk about the chamber. Elimination Chamber takes place this Saturday in Chicago. And before I get into my predictions, last week I talked about the anger from various establishments in Las Vegas over TKO and WWE blocking them from hosting WrestleMania watch parties this year within

a 50 mile radius of Allegiance Stadium. This is an effort to force people to buy tickets to come to the show. They've sold over 35,000 tickets for both nights, but that's not enough, right? They're behind last year's pace, and so they're panicking, and they want to move more tickets, and so this is their effort to try to do so. Well, now

it sounds like this may be a new strategy going forward for all PLEs, or at least the ones that they're struggling to sell out, because the same thing is now happening in Chicago for Elimination Chamber. Per Fightful Select, several venues in the market have been informed that they cannot host watch parties for the show. Now, based off the last Wessel Ticks update that I saw on Friday morning, there are a lot of blue dots on that seating chart, open seats when it comes to floor seats.

And I don't even want to know what they're charging for those. I didn't even look. But they have almost 15,000 tickets distributed for the show, and that was as a Friday morning. So very likely it's a little bit more than that by now, 15,000 on a setup of 17,000. Right? Not bad. Cheapest ticket price for the nosebleeds, $261. Not including tax.

And by the way, I mentioned that 25% off discount that Allegiant Stadium did last week for WrestleMania. ticket. Evidently, they didn't move hardly any new tickets with it. People are still scared off by the prices that they're charging. But look, the watch party ban, it's just greed. I mean, it is what it is. It's pretty transparent. It's just pure greed. Nothing more, nothing less. And I want you to be honest when I ask this question, who in their right mind, who may have been attending an elimination chamber watch party with their friends at Applebee? or TGI Fridays or whatever the equivalent would be out there in Chicago, is suddenly going to go, oh, gee, I guess I'll have to pay 500 bucks now to go to the United Center

and sit in the upper deck to watch the show. No one. The answer is no one. No one is doing this. Certainly not enough people to make much of a difference. It's just all very silly. And I pointed this out the other day on my Solomaster Sounds Off show. It would not at all shock me.

If at some point they lift the blackout on these events and they start charging these hotels and these restaurants some astronomical licensing fee for the show. Because Formula One tried this a few years ago in Vegas, they were threatening to obstruct people's views of the races unless they paid millions of dollars in fees. And there was enough of an uproar over it. They ended up slashing it down to something like $50,000 per establishment. Don't be surprised to see TKO take a similar route. at some point. Because, you know, instead of asking why tickets may not be selling as quickly, let's just figure out other ways that we can gouge people for it.

But as for Saturday's card, we have the crate reveal. I talked about that already. We have the Women's Elimination Chamber match, which we now know will be for a shot at Jade Cargill's WWE Women's Championship at WrestleMania with Tiffany Stratton, Oscar, Alexa Bliss, Ria Ripley, Kiana James, and Rakel Rodriguez. And that's a very good lineup. But I'm a little surprised because it means that Rekyll, Ria, Alexa, are all in the match.

And yet none of their friends or tag team partners qualified for the chamber. I don't know why you would do that. I'm not saying that all of their partners should have qualified. I'm just saying it eliminates any potential. drama that there could have been inside the chamber with some of these partners, especially like Ria and Eo or Charlotte and Alexa. That's just very bizarre to me. But I'm going with Alexa Bliss to win the chamber.

And it has as much to do with the fact that I don't really think they have a good challenger set up for Jade Cargill for WrestleMania. Bianca Bel Air is out. We know that she ain't going to be back in time for WrestleMania. Thankfully, she had her finger surgery, and it seems like she's on the road to recovery finally after almost a year on the shelf. But it's not going to be her. And I thought, well, Charlotte Flair would be the next one in line that would make sense. That'd be a big marquee match as far as that division goes.

But Charlotte lost. Charlotte and Nia Jax, they lost to Keanu James on Friday, which was a surprise. So now I'm looking at this and I'm going, they don't really have a good option here for Jade. Jade against Alexa on its own, that's not big enough. I think Alexa wins, and somehow Charlotte Flair is going to end up being involved in that match. So instead of just doing Charlotte, let's say, against Alexa at WrestleMania, you work both of them into the title match and make it a triple threat. That way it makes it a stronger match. At least you have the story, whatever's going on between Charlotte and Alexa, and they're both going after the championship.

and they will both likely fail in getting the championship. But I think you need both of them in there. And that way you can make the match a lot stronger that way. So how they end up getting Charlotte in there, I mean, look, we've got another seven weeks or whatever it is to work that out. But I think Alexa gets in, and then Charlotte will find her way in, as she did years ago when they did the Becky Lynch-Rounge Rousey match, and we get a triple threat at WrestleMania.

Speaking of Becky Lynch, she will defend her women's intercontinental title against AJ Lee. This is AJ's first singles match in 11 years, and it's for a championship. They had a segment on Raw last week. It was not great. I do think that if AJ Lee is going to win the title at some point, this is the place to do it.

I think you do it on this show in Chicago. It's pretty clear, you know, when they signed her, they signed her for a limited schedule. She's not going to be someone who is in the mix week to week. and I just feel like if you wanted to give her like a token title run, you do it now, and then you run the matchback of WrestleMania in Vegas, and you have Becky win the belt back. As opposed to Becky winning here, and then AJ gets the big WrestleMania moment, but then is she going to be around?

If she's going to be around, that's fine. But assuming that's not going to be the case, I'd rather her just win it here and then drop it back to Becky at Mania. So I'm going to go with AJ Lee for the win. And I'm going to go with Mr. A.J. for the wins. CM Punk defends his World Heavyweight Championship in his hometown of Chicago against Finn Baller. We know the WrestleMania match is CM Punk against Roman Rains. That ain't changing. So it goes without saying CM Punk is going to retain his title. And in the men's elimination chamber match for a shot at Drew McIntyre's WWE Championship at WrestleMania. We have Cody Rhodes,

Randy Orton, L.A. Knight, Javon Evans, Trick Williams, and the Yeat Man, Jay Uso, one half of the World Tag Team champions in a spot that was supposedly going to go to Bronson Reed, I'm sure for the mass man to somehow get inside the chamber and screw him over.

I think I'm going with Cody Rhodes to win the chamber. I think the chamber comes down to Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. And Cody wins. And the show ends with Randy Orton dropping Cody with an RKO. maybe even a punt kick. And then at that point,

Cody is guaranteed a title shot of WrestleMania, but you've also got Randy Orton, and you've got Jacob Faw too, right? They're feuding with Cody and Drew, and it sets up a fatal four-way for the championship. Otherwise, you've now set up Randy Orton as Cody's first challenger, if nothing else, coming out of WrestleMania.

You could do it that way as well, right? That's assuming Cody wins the belt back. But honestly, like, if they end up doing a multi-man match of some kind. They may as well just go all the way and include Randy Orton and make it a four way instead of a three-way. And I'm going to tell you why. I understand the criticism that some people may have that, well, if you're just going to do a

multi-person match for the championship, then why even bother with the elimination chamber? Right. It negates the need for the elimination chamber to decide the number one contender. Fair enough. But they did it to themselves. I don't think a whole lot of people have too much of the number of. of an appetite for another singles match between Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. But here's why I'm setting it up this way. I think that we need to get a resolution to the

who attacked Jacob Fattu storyline. So when Jacob got, you know, kicked in the face or whatever happened, right, teeth laying on the floor, blood laying on the floor, that was their way of writing him off television back in, God, was it October, November, whatever it was. I think it was October. We still have not gotten an actual resolution to that story of who attacked him, right? He clearly thinks Drew McIntyre did it. When he came back, the first person he went after is Drew McIntyre. Drew has always denied it. And he has said, well, if it was me, I would be bragging about it to your face. And of late, it's like the story has just been dropped, right? Or was it? If Orton turns on Cody at the end of the chamber, especially if he does give him a

punt kick. Then coming out of that show, I think we end up getting the reveal that it was not Drew McIntyre who kicked 11 teeth out of Jacob Fawto's mouth. It was Randy Orton. And that cements the heel turn. Then you can do your four-way match or WrestleMania for the title. And who's to say that Cody Rhodes even needs to get the belt back at WrestleMania? You give it to Randy Orton. And then you got Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fautau right out of the gate. As two guys set up to chase Randy Orton coming out of WrestleMania. That's what I would like to see, and I'm going to go with Cody for the win, because if nothing else, Cody Rhodes is going to the main event, probably of night one of WrestleMania.

He will be in the title picture. That's a guarantee. But I think that's how you work Randy Orton and Jacob Fatu in there as well. As much as I thought Raw was just a terrible show largely last night. I actually thought that AEW Dynamite last Wednesday was their best show of the year. and it was helped along greatly by that main event, first time ever main event, between Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland.

And Swerve not only beats Kenny Omega, but they shot a major angle at the end of that match where Swerve Strickland turned heel, and he didn't just beat Kenny Omega. He viciously assaulted Kenny Omega and gave him a vertebraker through the announced desk. He was choking him out with a chain. It was clear watching this,

that this was their way of writing Omega off. television for a while, likely because he will not be wrestling at Revolution, which is one of their big annual tent poll events. But it was reported a few weeks ago that he has previous obligations that he made to be part of the Capcom Cup event in Japan. And it happens to coincide, or the end of it anyway, happens to coincide with the date of revolution. So they may be working on a way to get him back to the States in time to at least appear on

that show and maybe return there. but as far as him being booked for a match on that show, that looks very unlikely, unless something changes. And so this was their way of sending him on a little vacation. And story-wise, it all goes back to the in-ring promo on Dynamite the week before, where, you know, Swer was talking about him being the most dangerous man in AEW, and Kenny Omega didn't take him seriously. He looked him dead in the face and he told him Right now, not only are you not the most dangerous man, Brody King is the most dangerous man in AEW because of those chance that follow him around wherever he goes. But he wasn't taking Swerve seriously.

That's the story. And so Swerve had to send a message and you could send a message without going full-blown heel, but I don't see how you can look at what happened on Wednesday and call it anything other than a heel turn here. Now, in addition to that, we had a face-to-face with Hangman Adam Page and MJF. They are going to be in the championship match March 15th in L.A. at Revolution. MJF turns 30 years old that day.

All the success that he's had, he's still only 29, which is kind of crazy. But Hangman is so sure that he is going to beat MJF and win the championship back, that he made a guarantee that if I can't beat you and win that championship back at Revolution, I will never again challenge for the AW World title. Not that I won't challenge for it so long as you have it. I will never challenge for that title ever again. And that didn't work out so well for Cody Rhodes. The last time they tried something like this,

all those many years ago, MJF on Twitter later on said we both pitch a stipulation for the match. We both have to agree to the stipulation. Hangman has given his word that if we do, He will never challenge for the world title again. On Wednesday, we decide on the stipulation for our match. So the stipulation I just mentioned, that's not the only one. He wants this, Hangman does, to be a Texas death mat.

That's what the crowd was chanting. That's what Hangman said he wanted. And, you know, again, they're stretching it out to this Wednesday. So it feels like if it was just going to be a Texas death match, then there's no need to really drag this out for an entire week. So it sounds to me like they're going to, I don't know if, It's not going to be Texas death and it'll end up being something else or it'll be some combination of that and something. I don't know. There's obviously going to be more to it. We'll find out on Wednesday. And I get why they're doing this. They want it as a hook for the pay-per-view. Right? Hangman, oh my God, if he doesn't win here, he will never be able to challenge for the title ever again. He's like the main character in AEW and how can you take that away? And what's he going to do if he can't challenge for the world title? I get it.

I'm not a fan of it. I think that Hangman beating him clean twice last year. That's enough of a story for this match. He beat MJF twice last year. MJF cannot figure this guy out. And he's the champion now. To me, that would be enough of a story. But they obviously wanted some big hook for the main event.

That's one of them. And look, there are ways around it. To me, when I'm thinking about, like, how could they get around this stipulation if Hangman does lose? Because he could always win. I think that would be a mistake to, to, take the title off MJF right now. But assuming that doesn't happen, right, the easiest way to get around it, and this did not

exist when Cody Rhodes was still with the company, it would just be to have him go in there and win the casino gauntlet match at all in this summer, Wembley Stadium. That would guarantee him a shot of the world title. So you can always use that as a way around it. And also, who's the one guy that you would think would have a problem with what Swerve Strickland did to Kenny Omega on Wednesday? Hangman. So how does swerve work into all this, right?

If hangman were to win the title, we could end up with hangman and Swerve, possibly in April at Dynasty in Vancouver for the championship. And that would be a big match too. But I think it's more likely we see Swerve cost him the championship than anything. Because Swerve right now, he's locked in as far as the title is concerned. He will do anything, whatever it takes to get his hands back on the championship and clear the deck as far as all of the potential competition. So we already took out Kenny Omega. And now you are in a situation here where, If Hangman loses that match, he can't even challenge for the title anymore. So why wouldn't he get involved and screw him over? I think it's way more likely we see that. But it's very clear, the world title scene right now in AW continues to be the best thing on their television programs right now. Like they have so many different ways that they can go with these stories. They have so many different potential challengers for MJF or whoever is the champion, really, that it has made the shows a lot more fun to follow,

especially when it comes to the top of the card. Now, they also confirmed that John Moxley will be defending again, his Continental title at Revolution against Kenosgate-Teccia this time, unlike their Australia match. No time limit. So they will not be handcuffed by any time limits. FTR and the Young Bucks, that is your tag team title match. They shot an angle on collision on Saturday night.

actually the rascals beat FTR in an eliminator match. So they're going to have a title shot of their own coming up soon. But they shot an angle where FTR beat up the Young Buck's younger brother Malachi. They threw powder in their father's face in the front row. And then they dragged their younger brother into the ring and gave him a spike pile driver. So like they did with Beth Phoenix months ago, they're back to FTR attacking family members as a way to really put more heat on things. And we saw the return of Thunder Rosa this week. She popped up on dynamite.

She wrestled on collision her first match since the casino gauntlet at all in Texas. That was in July. And on Saturday night, she beat Julia Hart. She had been out dealing with an unspecified injury. And a few days ago, she told, busted open, off the ropes. She made an appearance on the show and said that she wasn't sure she would ever be able to get back in the ring. She said physical therapy was key for me to come back. and the way that I came back, and it was rough.

Just the fact that I had to take smaller steps to even do simple things, it took me a while and it was very scary. Everything that I'm doing I'm doing to prove to myself that I still got it, that I deserve this spot. But I get an opportunity again. Life gives me an opportunity again to do something that I have worked so hard for the last 12 years. It's important not to give up, especially during dark times, because this injury, believe me, it was dark.

there were some moments that I was like I'm probably never going to wrestle again. So it's very cool to see her back. She's had some, I know the previous injury that she dealt with was a back injury and the way she was talking there that interview that makes me think it might have been the back again. But again, she didn't specify what the injury was.

Hopefully now though she can stay healthy. You know, because to be on the shelf and to be out for an extended period of time like that, you're just kind of sitting around wondering, am I ever going to be able to do this? You know, am I ever going to be able to get back in the ring? It sucks. You know, it's a shitty feeling, so it was good to see her back.

Deanna Parazo, though, is not very happy these days. She says that she is very disappointed to have not defended her Ring of Honor Women's Pure Championship since winning it. She beat Billy Starks to become the inaugural champion in final battle. That was back at the beginning of December. but she has yet to defend the title.

And funny enough, since doing this interview, she actually at the Ring of Honor tapings this past weekend, finally defended her title against Trisha Dora at the taping. So she has now had one defense, but I said she's like the resident Jade Cargill now of Ring of Honor. Up until recently, her only match this year so far had been a six-person tag at the Esports Stadium in Arlington. But during an interview with BCP Plus,

Parrazo was asked about her title range so far, and this is what she had to say. I think I'm a little disappointed to not have defended my championship yet. I am constantly trying to rack my brain of like, what else can I do and what more can I do? How much more of myself can I give? And for that not to be reciprocated in any environment, not just ring of honor, is really defeating for me.

A lot of my self-worth comes from my work and my body of work and being able to participate actively and feel like I'm making a difference in women's wrestling. I don't know what else I can do to change that. So for me, it was saying, okay, if I'm not going to get these opportunities here, I need to stay ready. I need to stay crisp for when they do come.

Now, back on the January 22nd edition of R.O.H. On Honor Club, which is where the show airs, there was a backstage segment with Parazo issuing an open challenge for her title. That has not been followed up on. And on February 10th, she posted on social media that she is accepting independent bookings. She said it's really defeating. It's really upsetting.

But at the end of the day, this is a business and I have to continue to run my own at whatever stakes that costs. For me and Steve, that's Steve Macklin, her husband, it's being able to give back and doing all of this advocacy work through tunnel to towers and through the New Jersey education systems. And now I need to do that in my wrestling life. and that's taking independent bookings and staying busy and staying active. Now, this is not the first time that Parazo has expressed her booking frustrations with Tony Khan. About a year ago, Fightful had a report that Parazzo was very vocal to management about wanting to be utilized more and utilized better, especially around the time that full gear came to New Jersey, which is her hometown. And she was there.

They had her jobbing to Anna Jay in the opening match on the pre-show is what they had her doing. Then last summer, she told SoCal Val on her podcast, I'm not ever out here like I deserve to be a world champion. Like, I just want to be used. Win, lose, draw? Good story. That's all I want. I think that being able to ride with the ebbs and flows of wrestling right now and realize that if my plays isn't to be world champion or be on top or in a main storyline, let me do something. I'll be in a vignette every week.

If there's not even that, right now I've been able to take a ton of independent bookings and stay consistent in the ring because I also feel like at the end of last year, that was something I was lacking. I wasn't able to get in the ring on TV consistently. So when I was like, oh my God, I don't know how to wrestle anymore, it just came to a point where I disappointed myself in a match and I disappointed a lot of other people backstage. I had to take a look in the mirror and say, this isn't the virtuosa.

I didn't give them the virtuosa with the reputation that I had to be. been able to build for myself. And I really disappointed myself. So what do I need to do in 2025 to make sure that never happens again? Look, Deanna had a good run as knockouts champion in T&A. At one point, she held that title for almost a year. I don't know what happened when she came to AEW. She wasn't going out there and having the same kinds of matches.

She even admits it in that interview, right? She was disappointed in herself. It wasn't the same virtuosa that we've seen previously in the ring. She acknowledges that. But she also wasn't thrust into any major stories on the show. And so the fans weren't reacting to her. Is that a product of the fans just not being into her matches? Or her not having anyone big to really work with and play off of, right?

Probably a combination of both. I can understand her being frustrated. I mean, they made her a champion. They put a belt on her. And it has been collecting dust ever since. But again, at least now this past weekend, she was actually able to defend that title for the first time. So she was able to work some of that dust off. Now, is that going to be the start of something?

Is she suddenly going to be defending her title a lot more? Probably not. But at least she finally defended it. I just think Tony lost interest in her. He has signed so many more women since then. I think that she was the shiny new toy when she first came in. She did not get over right away. and he lost interest in her.

And her advocating for herself, publicly like that, probably didn't do her any favors, but it's like if you don't advocate for yourself, who will? Like, I can't blame her for that. I'm just wondering why they even added a third women's title to ring of honor in the first place if it never gets defended.

Like, they barely have enough women on that roster to support two titles, let alone three. Anyway, let's get to some of your questions here. keep emailing me and tweeting me. We got a message here via email from Danny. It says, I have a question about AEW collision. Despite there being consistent quality matches and storyline moving promos, it doesn't get as much spotlight or viewership as the other three main wrestling weekly TV shows,

Raw, Smackdown and Dynamite. How would you make collision a better show and elevate it to where it is viewed in the same light as the other three? When I've been asked about this before, I always rule out the idea of a brand split, because I've had people ask me, oh, they should do a brand split like WWE does, right? And I just, I don't like the idea. But if they wanted to try one, you could do one where just certain big names are exclusive to collision, right? Like CM Punk. That was going to be CM Punk show.

Or you could just simply feature big matches on the show that you would normally expect to see on Wednesday. Just do a better job of splitting them up between dynamite and collision. But here's the thing, like, the people have already been conditioned to collision being the little brother of the two shows. And that stigma will always be there, right? It wasn't the first show. It wasn't even the second show. Rampage was the second show. This is the third show that AW had, unless you count dark.

But I also think the time slot has a lot to do with it. It's just not going to perform well on a Saturday night, especially when the show gets bounced around so much for sports coverage. and it's about to happen again in March for March Madness. So you need consistency in the time slot. But Saturday night, 8 p.m., I mean, this is not the days of the mothership on TBS. 605 p.m., WCW. Saturday night. Like, that was 40 years ago. You know, Saturday night is not a good night to have a weekly wrestling show.

So I don't think there's much they can do. If you want to make collision a great show, you can do what they've been doing, which is, I mean, certainly they have very good wrestling matches on the show. show, it just doesn't feel like an important show. It's one of those shows where if you miss it, you didn't miss much. So if they really wanted to try to elevate it, the best thing to do is just you got to put bigger names on the show and more important matches and angles that actually feel meaningful. That's really about all they can do. Christian from Fort Worth, Texas. When I was growing up watching WWE, it always felt like WrestleMania was reserved strictly for the very best

facing each other. Felt like the card was built around elite once-in-a-lifetime clashes where only the biggest names earned a spot. But nowadays, it seems like WWE prioritizes getting as many people as possible onto the card rather than making sure every match feels like a true main stage showdown. When did WrestleMania stop being primarily about the best against the best? A match like L.A. Knight against Brock Lesnar feels more like glorified backlash main event. rather than something worthy of the grandest stage of them all.

Well, I'm actually going to counter this and ask you a question. Have you seen some of those early WrestleMania cards? Like, I want you to go back to 1990. Okay, I want you to go back to the Skydome. The night that Warrior beat Hogan. You know, we had other great clashes on the show that night, like Rick Martel against Coco Beware. Okay, we had Rick Rude against Jock.

Jimmy Snooka long after Jimmy Snooka had his prime run. Not exactly the best of the best facing off. Okay, although I do love Rick Martel and I do love Rick Rude. No shade on them. But we can't just pretend like the early WrestleMania is were just nothing but like the best against the best elite showdowns. Like the majority of those WrestleMania cards were just undercard matches that you would find at any TV taping or Coliseum videotaping. Like there was a lot of them. that on the undercard. And it gave way to like the one or two really big matches at the top of the cards. So let, we can't pretend like all those WrestleMania is were only about the elite level

matches. That's absolutely false. That's not true. But I do agree that, you know, these days it is more about getting as many people on the show as possible. I mean, they just, they can't do that. That's why they have the Andre Battle Royal on Smackdown the night before. But now they divided it up into two nights so they could have more matches.

on there and not tired, the crowds out, because it was just getting ridiculous. I mean, you had these one-night WrestleMania's that had so many matches. They would go six, seven hours. I mean, it was just out of control. But that is a real thing, though. And I agree. I wish that, you know, they would keep it to matches that were either paying off a story or that were some attraction of some kind, to make WrestleMania feel like a bigger deal. That I agree with. Nathan, from Portage, Indiana, last week when you brought up the potential of Brock Lesnar against as L.A. night at WrestleMania, I was disgusted, even disregarding the Janelle Grant stuff. Brock's schick is so tired and almost no one has benefited from being in the ring with him, let

alone beating him. Suplex City was fun at first, but it's well past his expiration date. Since his return in 2012, only nine guys have beaten him one-on-one. Sina, Triple H, Undertaker, Goldberg, Reins, Rollins, McIntyre, Lashley, and Cody. And of those nine, the only person I truly feel got any kind of rub from beating Brock was McIntyre, even with his win happening at the worst time it possibly could. Of those nine, do you agree that McIntyre is the only one to benefit from beating Brock, or is there anyone else you could think of who truly became a bigger star by beating or feuding with him? Yeah, I mean, I would throw two more names at you. I do think that Roman should be on there. I mean, he worked with Roman so many times,

and I wasn't a fan of, not all, but most of the matches they had. Yeah, and it was very tiresome between them, but I do think that you could argue that Roman did, in the end, benefit from working with Brock so many times. Because Brock was just at a higher level than him, and so by working with him, it helped elevate him that much more. And I would throw Cody in there as well. I wouldn't say that working with Brock made Cody such a bigger star. But like the last match they had, that Summer Slam match a few years ago, Cody beat him.

And then Brock did something that we never see Brock do when that match was over, which was he endorsed him, right? Not verbally. But he shook his hand and he raised his arm. And like, we never see Brock Lesnar do that. So to me, that was as big of an endorsement that we have seen Brock give anybody since he came back in 2012. So for that reason, I would put him on there. I would say Roman and Cody, not just Drew.

Doug writes in, given Drew, Cody, Jacob, Randy, and Sammy all fit into this puzzle. And with the WWE's trend for consolidating the number of matches on PLEs, could they go for something like NXT's Iron Survivor Challenge for WrestleMania, maybe extending it to 45 minutes or an hour? Yeah, I mean, what are those matches usually? 20, 25 minutes? No, the answer is no. They're not going to do that.

Absolutely not. Although I could see the Iron Survivor Challenge being adapted one day on the main roster. That will not happen to WrestleMania. Evan from Athens Greece. This is for Uncrowned, he says. I love the new show, brother. Buy or sell, what would or what should be inside the box?

A cardboard tree or the Geratron 5,000. I'm going to go, none of the above. I'm going to say Tom Brady should be in the box. And then finally, we got this question from Donald on X. DJ Mathers, 127. Where do you think Smackdown will end up once it is off Peacock, ESPN, or Netflix? And that's a great question I wanted to use it here because we don't have any further clarity on that. But you are absolutely right. When I log into Peacock, it is showing that Smackdown, the archives, are leaving the service in 21 days. So you got three weeks left if you want to enjoy the Smackdown archives.

Only the episodes, though, through November of last year. Everything from December. to the present, they don't have that label. So most of it does, as do the NXT special events. So like the old NXT takeovers, they all say the same thing. Three weeks, and then they're being pulled from the service. Saturday night's main event is fine because they have a separate arrangement

for that. Those shows they are exclusively now on Peacock in the States. They're not on NBC anymore. So I don't know where SmackDown is landing. Netflix has the Raw Vault, and they have done an absolutely horrific job of updating it with classic episodes.

Just awful. Just go check the navigation bar there and check some of those earlier years. I mean, you'll have entire years where they have like six episodes, seven episodes. Doesn't make any sense. And they've had the Raw Vault now

for well over a year. They just don't update it. So I actually, for that reason, hope they don't land on Netflix. But I just question how much of a priority that's even going to be for ESPN or anyone else who might get it. They just don't care about the classic stuff.

It's very frustrating, but, you know, they see the viewership data, and it's clearly not great, so they don't really seem to, you know, put much effort into it. I think it's very sad. I mean, obviously, I'm a fan of that old content. Not everybody is. But yes, if you want to check out those old episodes, you got three weeks left to do so, and then into the ether they go. Keep sending those questions in the Salammonster at gmail.com or tweet me on X at Salamaster.

make sure to include the hashtag uncrowned. Congrats, by the way, to Ariel and the uncrowned team for landing the inside boxing show. They are the newest addition to the uncrowned family. They've got all the bases covered now when it comes to combat sports. MMA, boxing, pro wrestling. What more do you need? I'll be back with you next Tuesday for episode four talking all of the fallout from Elimination Chamber and the news of the week. I am Jason Solomon

And when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you next week. Take care, guys.