The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | Pat McAfee Controversy, WrestleMania Lineups revealed And Punk Goes Scorched Earth

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Jason is back and he's got a LOT to say about the WrestleMania 42 card reveal on ESPN this morning (00:38) as well as the bizarre Pat McAfee reveal on Smackdown last Friday, his inclusion in the Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton story, the TKO executive responsible for it happening and the REAL thing this company needs to be saved from (15:01). Thoughts on another CM Punk pipe bomb promo on Raw last night where he went SCORCHED EARTH on Roman Reigns, The Rock, Pat McAfee, TKO and their outrageous ticket prices (30:28). News on the new Shawn Michaels documentary dropping next week, his appearance on Carmelo Anthony's podcast discussing why he and The Rock never had a match and the truth about the heat between the two of them, plus news on the Hulk Hogan docuseries premiering on Netflix later this month (38:39). Thoughts on Chris Jericho's return on AEW Dynamite and choosing AEW over WWE (42:52), and previewing AEW Dynasty this Sunday from Vancouver with predictions for each of the matches (49:24). Injury updates on a pair of AEW stars (55:00) and thoughts on the controversy around Mercedes Mone dropping her last independent wrestling belt without losing it in the ring (58:24). Other news and notes on a shocking title change in New Japan, why the reigning TNA champion could be leaving the company soon, Alberto El Patron arrested for domestic violence AGAIN and the former WWE star deemed fit to stand trial for his wife's murder (1:04:15).

Welcome to the Uncrowned Wrestling Show for your Tuesday, April 7th, 2006. I am Jason Solomon. Things are getting very busy. It's that time of year. We got WrestleMania to talk about. We have AEW Dynasty to preview this weekend. We have a phone call reveal that has turned everything on its head and went over like a lead balloon on Friday. We've got TNA news.

We've got New Japan news. We got a lot to cover. But let's get right down to brass hacks here, not wasting anything. anytime. Joe Tessitore appeared on ESPN's Get Up this morning to break down the WrestleMania Saturday and Sunday cards. So this is fresh and up to date as of just a little while ago. Next Tuesday on Uncrowned, I'll be breaking down the entire card and giving my predictions for each match. But for now, these are the matches and where they have been slotted. This is not the match order for each night, just the matches that are happening.

WrestleMania is Saturday with the first hour simulcasting live on ESPN 2 has the World Tag Team champions Logan Paul and Austin Theory teaming with I Show Speed. We have two YouTubers in the match. Taking on the Uso's and L.A. Night. This match was made official on Raw last night. You know, it is celebrity mania this year. We've got Pat McAfee we're going to be talking about.

Jellyroll's been on television for weeks. I don't know if he'll be a mania or not. I Show Speed popped up a few weeks ago, and they have Lil Yati, who was on Smackdown on Friday. I think he may be in Trick Williams Corner at WrestleMania. There's been rumors about Tom Brady and how WWE's trying to get Tom Brady for the show. Does John Cena count? Because they got him to host the show. It's Celebrity Mania this year.

Everybody can participate. It's like Fantasy Camp. If you're an influencer, if you have a big enough following, you two can be on WrestleMania. Speed, though, I don't really mind him so much being on the show. I find him entertaining. He's athletic. He gets it. And I was entertained by what they did with him in night last week when I broke into his house and threw him into his streaming setup. I thought that was great. I just wish it wasn't Celebrity Mania where we have five or six different people all at once, hogging up all this television time going into what should be their biggest show of the year for the actual wrestlers.

But anyway, that's now official. That will be airing on ESPN 2. And the other match airing on ESPN2, that first hour is going to be the unsanction match between Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fawtoo. I'd probably open the show with that if it were me, and maybe it will. As far as the rest of the card for Saturday, and I say Saturday, this is April 18th. Stephanie Vakere is going to defend her women's world championship against Liv Morgan. Possibly. I say possibly because on Raw last night, there was a backstage segment where Liv Morgan was talking to Roxanne Perez. And as they're face-to-face having this conversation, Stephanie came up from behind Liv and gave it was either a hard shove or a forearm shot right to the back. And it was with such force that it knocked

Liv Morgan into Roxanne. They were close enough together where their heads balked together. And it made this just violent, sickening thud. And Roxanne Perez looked like that. like she was just killed and she fell to the ground. Liv then got thrown into a flat screen that was behind them. So Stephanie wasn't playing around, but it sounded brutal. And it looked like somebody got hurt for real. I mean, you look at it and go, how do you get hurt in a backstage segment? But just go ask Ria Ripley.

I mean, she got hurt in one with Liv Morgan, funny enough, a couple of years ago. So it was very violent. And then we got the update from Brian Alvarez, who is reporting that both women are now in concussion protocol. Uh-oh. Not good. Now, that doesn't mean they have a concussion. It just means they're being evaluated for a potential concussion.

Liv Morgan, a little while ago earlier this morning, posted some photos from backstage last night, so she's alive. The goose egg that she has on her forehead is gnarly. It looks like she has another person growing out of her head. It is not pretty And she's got what 12 days I guess To get better

Hopefully she's not concussed But even if she isn't She has one hell of a goose egg on her head Now Roxanne was not in the photos I'm more concerned about her to be honest with you Because she looked like she got the brunt of it last night She is not in a match at WrestleMania But still hopefully she's okay

All I'll say is this Hopefully Liv is cleared for the show But if for some reason she's not You got Rekyll Rodriguez is right there. They're all part of the same faction. They've all been feuding now for weeks and weeks. If they wanted to have a women's world title match on the show and they couldn't get Liv Morgan cleared in time, I'm just saying, Raquel is right there. Now we have A.J. Lee, defending the women's intercontinental title against Becky Lynch. We have Seth Rawlins, one-on-one with Gunther. That is also happening on night one last night on Raw.

We didn't really get much of an explanation from Gunther. I was waiting to see what the explanation would be on why he suddenly reappeared and went after Seth Rollins, of all people. Rollins was theorizing that maybe there must be a business relationship of some sort with Gunther and Paul Heyman. That was not confirmed, but there was a segment in the back where Gunther told Hayman in no uncertain terms after Hayman said thank you. You owe me a lot more than a big thank you, indicating that there may be a favor coming. To me, it all seems to be a setup for Gunther wanting a match with Brock Lesner. And if they do that match, that's got SummerSlam written all over it. Summer Slimes at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis this summer.

It could very well be, you know, Brock Lesnar's retirement match. That's been the rumor going around. John Cena sort of alluded to it last year that Brock might wind down in Minneapolis. So it seems to me that's the direction we're headed in here. We got a fatal four way for the women's tag team titles. Nia Jackson, Lash Legend will be defending against Charlotte Flare and Alexa Bliss, Bailey and Lyra Valcira, and the Bella Twins. possibly because Nikki Bella

heard her ankle the other week and they said that she is currently doing everything she can to try to get cleared in time for WrestleMania so there's a question mark there as well and in the main event of night one it will be Cody Rhodes defending the WWE championship against Randy Orton

a match with rich history between the two men going back nearly two decades you would think that would be enough but you would be wrong I'm going to have a lot more to say on this here in a little bit. But that's seven matches. Then we have WrestleMania Sunday with the first hour simulcasting on ESPN. These are the ESPN matches.

Brock Lesner, one-on-one with Oba Femi, which in a lot of ways feels like a genuine main event. If you look at the way they've built this matchup over the last few weeks, it has been flawless. I mean, compared to everything else, all the other matches and everything that's been built for this show, the one thing I will give them credit for, and they have done a flawless job with is the hype for Brock Lesnar and Obafemi.

Even last night on Raw, they went off the air. Really wasn't much of a contract signing. The contract never got signed. They started going at it. We had the typical pull-apart brawl, very abrupt ending to the show last night. But everything they have done so far has been A-plus, and it makes sense that they would open the show on ESPN with the widest audience possible with that match. The other match airing on ESPN in the first hour, a six-way ladder match for the Intercontinental Championships.

So I approve of both these choices here. You got Brock and Oba. You could see where that would have mainstream appeal, especially to a sports audience. And then you go right from that to all action and just wackiness and craziness in a ladder match. You want to keep people tuned in. You want to keep them hooked in. Hopefully they tuned in for the rest of the show. This makes sense.

Tenta is defending his intercontinental title in that match against Rusev, Javan, Dragon Lee, J.D. McDonough, and now we know a sixth spot has been added to the match. Last night we had the return of the legend Ray Mysterio, who has been out since the end of January with a couple of broken ribs. There were rumors that the match was going to be him and Gunther. I guess they got tired of waiting. They went in a different direction. And so at least Ray's going to be on the card. You know, he missed WrestleMania last year. He got hurt, I think, on the Smackdown, God, was it the night before?

It was either the night before or the week before. And he didn't make the card. But here's a thing, like Ray Mysterio, right? 50-year-old Ray Mysterio coming back off a couple of broken ribs, he's had his injury issues. And his first match back, like, welcome back, Ray. We're going to put you in a six-way ladder match. Good luck. Hopefully he can stay in one piece.

We have Finn Baller going one. one on one with Dominic Mysterio, but not just Finn Baller. It is the demon. It's been a while since we've seen Baller put on the face paint and the body paint and the headdress or whatever the hell that is that he wears. People love the demon character. To me, the demon died years ago. They didn't know how to book the demon. But I also never really saw the appeal in it as far as like he doesn't really work any differently. There's nothing terribly unique about the character. I could see them wanting to market it. Baller all but told us on Raw last night

in a backstage vignette that they aired that the demon was coming back. He never said it, but if you read between the lines, you can kind of surmise it. And then when Raw went off the air last night, they just went on their Twitter and they spoiled it. And they posted a poster for it. And flat out said, the demon

is going to be wrestling Dominic Mysterio or WrestleMania. So I don't know why they did that. I mean, it would have been, I mean, there were some people who probably would have had no idea what he was talking about. And then to see the demon come out at WrestleMania, it would have been a big surprise. But they're just in panic mode when it comes to selling tickets.

They are doing everything in their power to move as many tickets in these last 10 days or so, 11 days, as they possibly can. So they've already went and spoiled that it will be the demon at WrestleMania. Sammy Zane is going to defend the United States championship against Trick Williams. And it is looking increasingly likely that the former champion, and Carmelo Hayes will have no spot in this match or on the WrestleMania card, which is a real slap in the face. I mean, the work that he has put in over these last few months

with those U.S. title open challenges, he has been one of the few highlights on that show on Friday nights. He's been entrenched in this story. There's still time. I mean, look, they could find a way to add him in there on Smackdown this week. It just seems unlikely to me. You know, the story right now is between Sammy and Trick. they had the opportunity to add him to the match this past week,

and they opted instead to just give him a rematch with Sammy, and for the second week in a row, they beat Carmelo Hayes, only this time there was no outside interference. He just got pinned again in the middle of the ring. I mean, what sense would it even make to add him to the match at this point? Jade Cargill defends the WWE Women's Championship against Ria Ripley, and in the main event of Night 2, CM Punk getting his night two main event for the first time

and the first time that this current version of the World Heavyweight title is getting the night two main event treatment, putting his championship on the line against Roman reigns. So that's six matches. We have seven matches on night one, six matches on night two, which means there is room for one more match unless they're just going to use that time to, and what they usually do.

They introduce the Hall of Famers as they do on stage. ESPN did say this was the final card. And so that's how it currently looks, which means as of this moment, there is no match between Eoskei and Oskye. Which also, and this is wild, it means that a year after the two women's champions going into WrestleMania, you had Tiffany Stratton and you had Eoske.

Eoske, by the way, who went out there in that triple threat with Ria and Bianca and stole the fucking show. and they had what I felt like was the match of the year last year, at least in WWE, neither Tiffany Stratton nor E.O. Sky, as of this moment, are on the WrestleMania card at all in a match. That is wild. Now, we had a video promo from Aska on Raw last night, where she basically was challenging EO to a match. She didn't say WrestleMania. It was a very good promo.

After Raw went off the air last night, EO Sky posted this on her social media. Her response. She said, Aska, the achievements that you've made in WWE have been truly brilliant. Kyrie and I have always looked up to you, but the way you're treating her right now is changing all of that. If dragging Kyri around and using her as a shield is your idea of love, then my love is to go anywhere and everywhere to be rea shield. I'm definitely not afraid to face you. You, my senior whom I love so dearly, let's settle this once and for all. which of our loves deserves to have it all.

Hope to see you in Vegas. Yeah, hope to see you on the Raw in Vegas after WrestleMania is the way things are looking right now. Let me just say this. I'm looking at these two lineups here that I just ran down. Night two is to me clearly the stronger of the two nights, even though it has one match less. Night two to me, Trump's night one. But as far as EO and Oscar, I really hope they get added to that second night.

because it would be crazy to me. Eoske, and to take nothing away from Oskah, Oskah is brilliant. Eoskei has consistently been one of the best performers, male or female, in that company for the last few years. She is tremendous. And again, you look at the match that she went out there with those other two women and had in that very same city, in that same building last year. And if you can't find a spot for her on this show,

and she has a story now, you know, with Aska going into this show, if you can't find a spot for her on that show, you're doing something wrong. You know, I know we're talking about Pat McAfee and we're talking about I Show Speed and all these others. If you can't find a spot for Eoskeye, when you have two nights of WrestleMania, you are doing it wrong. Well, let's dive into the big story of the week.

A lot has happened over the last few days. We had a, what I thought was a terrible Smackdown show on Friday. and not just because of the opening segment, it was a terrible show. But they opened that show with the phone call angle reveal. This was an angle that was not needed to begin with because they started this a few weeks ago

where Randy Orton was on his phone with somebody. Maybe he was paying his Verizon Bill. We didn't know who he was on the phone with. Maybe he's getting one of those annoying telemarketer calls. I know that pain. But this big mystery angle, right? Who's on the phone? Who's on the other end of the line with Randy Orton?

This is now the third straight year that we have arrived at a Cody Rhodes WrestleMania main event in just bizarre fashion. WrestleMania of 40, it worked out great. WrestleMania of 41 did not. The jury is still out on 42, but I'm not optimistic after what we saw on Friday night. But Cody's path this year saw him lose the WWE championship on Smackdown back in January. And he lost in the Royal Rumble. He lost in the elimination chamber.

only to regain the title on Smackdown last month. To give us a match that a lot of us had been waiting to see for a very long time. And it was such a simple story, the teacher against the student, right? And Randy Orton going for his 15th World Championship after a six-year drought. He has not been a world champion in a very long time. And it was always going to be an uphill battle to get Randy Orton booed because he is in that legend territory that John Sino was in. And people want to see him win number 15, just like people wanted to see John Sina win number 7. 17 last year and set the record.

That coupled with Cody fatigue, which is a very real thing, that, you know, Cody fatigue has set in with a lot of fans, and you put all that together, and it was a recipe for Randy Orton to get cheered and for Cody Rhodes to, yeah, not get booed out of the building, but definitely get booed at WrestleMania, regardless of how they position them on TV. Orton's been going out there, he's been telling the fans, I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for me, and they cheer for him anyway. But they shot that great angle a few weeks ago when Orton bloodied up Cody and smashed his head in with a chair.

They were on the right track. They were in a good place. And then Randy Orton started chatting with someone on the phone. And you do an angle like this and you let it linger for a few weeks, what do you think is going to happen in the age of social media? People are going to be talking about it. They're going to be getting their hopes up. Their minds start racing with all kinds of ideas about who it could be.

Is it Randy's dad? Is it Kevin Owens? Is it one of the McMans? Is it the voices in Orton's own head? The voices in his own head would have been a better payoff than the one we got on Friday. That at least, you could have made more sense out of that one, too. But they had already established that Orton did what he did to Cody because Cody gave him permission, right, to be the Randy Orton of old. He didn't need Pat McAfee or anyone else to tell him to go around killing people. But there he was on Friday. Pat McAfee showed up on Smackdown. He kicked Cody in the crotch, just like John Cena did last year. Cody would be well served to wear some protection down there or the two kids that he already has will be his last. But McAfee said that a month ago he was asked about returning to WWE. Which is true. He was doing an Instagram live Q&A. And somebody asked him, you know, when are we going to see you back in WWE? And at the time, and I think I even talked about it here on Uncrowned, he said, well, I think the business has passed me by. You know, you're probably not going to see me for a while. And so, apparently, this idea goes back at least that far. They were planting the seeds for it. But he said that he thought the current product was shit.

And Randy Orton called him up and said the business had gone in a direction that he didn't like. So they decided to come together. And then McAfee is out there on television. On the very same network that aired all of those attitude era shows that he then went and started talking about, he brought up Stone Cold and the rock and the glory days of the attitude era, and how today he has to watch two five-foot-five guys do a 45-minute Iron Man match, 10 weeks straight for no rhyme or reason, when you've got Randy Orton right there. He said, WrestleMania tickets are somehow still available when Randy. Andy Orton is right there. And he mentioned they're coming off the worst rated episode in Smackdown History. We've got a puppet for a world champion representing everything that all of these older fans hate.

And he then revealed that he's the one who's been on the phone with Randy Orton, telling him to kill everything, not just to win his 15th world title, but because the business that Cody is leading is terrible. And Orton is going to save the business, which implies that the business, as it is now, is rough shape and it needs saving. No, the company needs to be saved. It needs to be saved from an aggressive pricing strategy that has priced a lot of fans out of attending these events. That is the biggest reason that WrestleMania is not sold out yet.

It has nothing to do with Cody Rhodes. It has nothing to do with 5'5 guys wrestling 45-minute Iron Man matches, which, by the way, that's the other company. That's what's funny about this. Like, he's not even referencing the company. he's working for. Because when was the last time you saw a 45-minute match on a WWE show that wasn't the Royal Rumble or a War Games match?

Like modern WWE television is not a wrestling show so much as it's three hours of commercials with a few minutes of wrestling mixed in. What they should have had McAfee out there railing on are the outrageous ticket prices and the 45 minutes that they spend on entrances for the matches on their PLEs. You know, on Raw last night, they let C. M. Punko out there and bring up the high ticket prices when he started popping off about Pat McAfee. He outright said, lower the ticket prices. It's wild that they have turned their own greed into a storyline. But I'll tell you what, if it actually leads to them lowering ticket prices, at least something good can come from this. Brian Alvarez is now reporting that TKO is looking to lower ticket prices for WrestleMania on through the summer. I'll believe it when I see it.

But if that's true, you know, if that's true, it's sad. It's sad that it took their own talent making a stink about it behind the scenes, which apparently is what has been happening for them to finally wise up. There have been reports about that. But it's not just the fans. It's not just the fans and the pundits and the podcasters who were talking about this because they're the ones that are affected the most. They're the ones who are being, you know, told, hey, if you want to come to the show,

this is how much it's going to cost you. you know, got to take out a loan, got to take out that second mortgage if you want to go to WrestleMania. But the talent themselves, I mean, they have to feel it too because they're out there and they look out and they have to see that the houses, I mean, look, they still have eight, nine thousand people in a building, but maybe that building would have had 12,000 a year ago. They see it every night they go out there. They see it, they feel it, they hear it. You can hear it in the reaction sometimes when the building is not quite as full. But it's sad that apparently it took this to get them to finally wise up.

up. But it doesn't change the fact that they had Pat McAfee go out on live television and talk about how, and this is their WrestleMania main event angle. They had Pat McAfee go out there on television, whether they told him to say this, or apparently he may have gone off script and he kind of went into business for himself. They put him in a position to go out there on their television show and talk about how much the current product sucks, the talent sucks, their champion sucks, and with two weeks to go, their biggest event of the year is not sold out. And this is supposed to get more people invested in the main event of WrestleMania? This is supposed to get them to buy tickets and book their flights for Las Vegas on short notice.

Now, McAfee tweeted later that night that if Randy Orton does not win at WrestleMania, he, McAfee, will never be seen or heard from again on wrestling television, which I think kind of telegraphs the finish of that match. And so a main event that outside of one terrible pull-apart brawl a few weeks ago, had the roots of a great story and a rich history to pull from between the two men involved has now turned into something very different, which begs the question, why? Why is this happening? The answer is one name, Ari Emanuel, the head of TKO.

And on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said, and Dave is hardly the only one reporting this, but this is what he said on Observer Radio a couple nights ago. they wanted celebrity involvement. Originally, from what I was told, Pat McAfee was the choice, and he turned it down. Then they were scrambling to get somebody else in the spot, and then obviously they were able to make a deal with Pat. So he did it, and he was there. This was not a WWE creative move. This was not a Paul Levec move.

It came over their heads, and there's a lot of people not happy about it. One person told me it was the single most counterproductive thing the company has done in a long time. but there you go. And that follows reports from PW Insider and Fightful that said TKO head Ari Emanuel was involved and that the deal was done for, quote, corporate synergy purposes between WWE and ESPN, given that McAfee has a daily show that airs on ESPN. It's very interesting that McAfee, I mean, if this is to be believed, that McAfee initially even himself said, I don't want to do this.

what his rationale was. I don't know. Maybe he recognized like this is a bad idea. But that's very interesting. Now, Mike Johnson, a PW insider chimed in later on and said those that we have spoken to believe that this was an edict from TKO Brass to WWE creative. Not a creative idea that originated in the writer's room and was approved by Paul Lebeck. One source believed the edict may have come from as far up as Ari Emanuel, but we have yet to confirm that.

The idea seems to be that including Macon, in the scenario gives ESPN a new promotional dimension for WrestleMania, given McAfee's importance and popularity on their platform, giving the ESPN audience something additional leading into their first ever WrestleMania broadcast. We are told the edict came down three weeks ago, but they were trying very hard to keep it quiet. The general belief among those we spoke with is that it was a bone for ESPN since

Pat is a big part of their platform, and of course, WrestleMania is on ESPN platform. forums this year. There have been rumblings that the alliance between the two sides has not exactly been the smoothest process. ESPN wanting subscriber numbers, while WWE has not seen ESPN get their streaming service available across all cable and satellite subscribers, as has been the plan. So this looks to have been a move to try and strengthen the alliance. Well, isn't that nice? Fuck the story. Let's just make sure that, you know, we keep the partnership smooth and we keep everybody happy on all sides. And I'm not saying it's not important to do that, but the fact that it took this, that they felt this was the way to do so, kind of sucks.

Now, Ari Emanuel also happens to be Pat McAfee's agent. If you don't think he has other intentions in mind here. McAfee hired him earlier this year to try to help him land TV and movie roles. Bloomberg said a while back that Ari Emanuel's goal is to turn Pat McAfee into the next Sylvester Stallone. He even got him a role on Stallone show, Tulsa King, next season. He's trying to get his client as much visibility as he can because that's what he's been hired to do. And he wanted WWE to find a way to make that work.

Work him into the WrestleMania build to try to move more tickets. We can kill two birds with one stone. We'll promote Pat McAfee and maybe we'll sell a few extra tickets. Not because it necessarily helps the store. but because it helps Pat McAfee. You can't put all the blame for this on Paul Levec if he's getting orders from his bosses, but you also can't pretend that WWE television has been spotless outside of all this. It hasn't.

There have been weeks where the shows, including this past week, are just absolutely brutal. And I thought Raw last night was a much better show than Smackdown, but Raw in general has been a much better show than Smackdown. You will have those weeks where Raw is not that great, and then you'll have a few weeks where Raw kind of kicks ass. and there's a lot going on, and there's more to like than not like. I haven't felt that way about SmackDown in a long time.

I mean, it is really just a vast wasteland right now on Friday nights. But TKO meddling in the creative process, that's a bad sign, because their motivations are not going to be the same as the creative teams. So my sympathy for Triple H, there's a little bit of it, but it only goes so far, because he bears a lot of the responsibility for what we see week to week on TV.

He's not an innocent party here. But I'm sure on this, he's as frustrated as anyone if they had a plan and it got blown up by someone above his pay grade. And on the subject of Smackdown Creative, we got some insight from Road Dog as to why he bowed out of Creative last month. See what I did there? Bowed out? Because he's a dog. Anyway, during a virtual signing, Road Dog, Brian James, he addressed his recent departure from WWE. He was the code lead writer of the show before quitting the creative team

early last month. He told signed by superstars, it was moving too fast. It was just moving too fast for me. We talked about my brothers and their grandkids, and I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with mine, so I'm going to do more of that now. And he was asked if he had any input into this year's WrestleMania card. He said, yeah, I did a lot. I think it's strong. I think it's as strong as you're going to get. I really do. I'm excited. excited about Brock and Oba. Look, I got nothing bad to say. I think they're moving fast and they're growing expeditiously. Financially, they're setting records like, you can't say anything bad. He was just moving too fast for me. I'm getting older and it's a young man's game. They're running fast and

they're running fast internationally. No mention of his being upset with his annual review, which is what Dave Meltzer had reported. That was sort of the source of contention there and what ultimately led to him leaving. I mean, there may have been other reasons, but there was no mention about that. I think Road Dog is owed an apology from a lot of fans who put the full blame on him

for how bad some of these shows have been. It's a collective effort, but he became the scapegoat for SmackDown any time there was a bad episode. You know, like he was the sole voice in the room responsible when it's very clear with him being gone now for a month. Those shows on Friday, they have not gotten any better.

Sorry, dog. But raw last night, there was a lot that happened in terms of, you know, the WrestleMania card shoring up the card, but also in terms of what was said at the beginning of the show by one CM Punk. Now, Roman Raines was not there. He was never scheduled to be there. He'll be back on the show next week. We got one Rawl left to go before WrestleMania. But CM Punk was there, as he is every single week. And CM Punk cut what I would say was a more explosive promo last night. than the OG pipe bomb that he dropped in 2011. I know some people are going to think,

oh, that's sacrilegious, how can you say that? This promo will not have the kind of lasting impact that the pipe bomb had in 2011, but if you just objectively look at it and who he went after and who he went scorched earth on in the promo, this was the more explosive of the two. No one was safe, not Roman Reigns, not the Rock,

not Vince McMahon, not Pat McAfee, not even TKO. there was even a veiled reference to Chris Benoit in the promo. For those who didn't pick up on it, because early in the promo, punk was sitting in the ring and he said, you know, we're in Houston, Texas. And he goes, there's a lot of ghosts here in this building and here in Houston, things that were supposed to happen that never did. And I think there were a lot of fans who didn't pick up on that reference or maybe they weren't fans at the time. They don't really know what he's talking about. What he was referring to there was the fact that it was at the vengeance pay-per-view.

in 2007, June of 2007, that he was scheduled to wrestle Chris Benoit for the ECW world title. I believe Punk was going to win the world title that night. But that was the weekend that Benoit didn't show up to work. That was the weekend that Benoit killed his family and then killed himself. Very morbid, obviously, looking back at it, people had no idea where he was.

So they slotted, I think, John Morrison in there to take his spot. Punk never did win the belt that night. So that was a match that we were supposed to get and didn't get because there was something else going on. So that's what that was in reference to. But, you know, I look at this promo last night. It was less of a pipe bomb and it was more of a truth bomb, especially when it came to his plea to lower the ticket prices.

Say it louder for the people on the back. He called Roman Rains a buck-tooth nepo baby who ate dog food for a weird old man, referencing Vince McMahon in that awful angle. Oh, my God, I try to put that out of my mind. You think Smackdown is bad now. Believe it or not, there were periods of time in the past where Smackdown was even worse. Back in the King Corbin days when they, I think, handcuffed him, right? They handcuffed Roman Rain to the ringpost outside and then they put dog food all over his face.

And of course, I look back on that now that we read these allegations about Vince and this sex trafficking lawsuit. And I'm just like, it puts it in a whole new light now because I could just picture him sitting in the back. He was probably getting off on that. So yes, he is a weird old man. but he said that weird old man for years treating me like a dog and he expected me to smile, but I had F you money, so I took that and my dignity and I left. And then he turned his attention to Pat McAfee, or Pat McAfee, as he called him, and he said, you want to talk about ticket sales.

Do me a favor and call up that agent that was foolish enough to shoehorn you into this business and this show and tell him to lower the ticket prices. And all the fans in Houston went wild because they probably realize what they paid for their ticket. He said, lower the ticket prices because I want all of these families to come and watch me stand on Roman Raines's throat at WrestleMania, because my name is CM Punk, and I approve this message. And that is just a sliver of everything that was said last night. He didn't just blow up the bridge. He nuked the whole damn thing. They knew what they were doing. Paul Vak knew what he was doing when they gave CM Punk a live mic and told him to go out there and

just shoot from the hip. But you know that a lot of what was said was from the heart, even though they told them, hey, go out there. And again, they had to know that he was going to say some explosive stuff, even if they didn't know the exact words he was going to use. But you just know he was talking from the heart. And I wouldn't be surprised if other people in that locker room felt the same way. Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality is something that punk has always been very good at, even going back to the OG pipe bomb. But it tends to lean more into the shoot territory than not, Nothing he says ever feels manufactured. Nothing he says ever feels forced or fake.

Whether you like the guy, you hate the guy, it doesn't really matter. When it comes to his promos and he's got a live mic in his hand, it's either from the heart or he's good enough at what he does to convince you that it is, which is a quality that not a lot of wrestlers have. You know, he is still in a very elite class when it comes to cutting promos and being able to connect and resonate with the audience. And so now the question is, as we look at this whole thing,

yes, it still has to play out. We don't know yet where this is going to go. We don't know what kind of involvement Pat McAfee is going to have in the long term. If this was an angle that he had to be sold on, he said no at first. And then they convinced him, hey, we need you for WrestleMania. Does this go to WrestleMania? And then he kind of drops off the face of the earth, which would be fine with me. But we don't know. Is he in it for the short term? Is he in it for the long term? Are they going to turn this into? And it seems to me, it seems to me, if you really pay attention to the people that Punk was targeting in his promo last night. And again, we don't know.

The WWE said, hey, take a shot at Rock, take a shot at this person, take a shot at that person. It could have just been punk going off on his own and adding people into the promo. And there's no real long-term creative vision here. But already you have people who are wondering, is there going to be some sort of new age corporation type group where guys like CM Punk and Cody Rhodes are going to lead the charge as the baby faces against, you know, Randy Orton and Pat McAfee's, the Rock gonna come back. People still, they're still waiting for the final boss to come back and certainly see, Munk took a few shots at Rock last night.

He called him bloated, Roman's bloated cousin who sits on the board of directors. He took a shot at his movie's not doing as well. So could the Rock show up and all this? I gave up a long time ago, wondering and waiting to see if the Rock would come back. after the Rock basically dipped out last year, and that was a big part of why that WrestleMania main event fell so flat, I just sort of wrote him off. I'm like, Rock will come back whenever Rock feels like coming back.

I'm done trying to play the guessing game and wondering if he's going to come back. And even if he does, even if he does. So he comes back for one appearance. What does that mean? I can't say it won't happen, but I can't say I'm terribly excited. I'm going to sit here wondering and getting all excited that the Rock might come back at WrestleMania. Maybe yes, maybe no. Who cares? Are we looking, though, at some sort of angle like that? Where they paint TKO as the villains in this story, and they're going to try to, you know, babyface, I guess, the W.

The W.E. guys that are in the main event scene like Punk and Cody and maybe some other people and try to get them over that way as like the saviors of WWE. I don't know. They could go in a direction like that. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. All I can tell you is that, watching the angle that they shot on Friday, seeing the payoff the big reveal with McAfee and all the stupid shit that he was saying in the ring on Friday. It got a lot of people talking. That is true. And I guess that's what they're going for.

The end of the day, they're trying to sell tickets to this show because they're not happy with where ticket sales are. They got $40,000 each night, but that's not enough. I don't know that that means that they have some great long-term plan here in vision creatively for where this is going to go through the summer. I would love to think that they do, but I'm pretty sure they don't.

So it feels like we're just sort of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. Week to week, I don't know what the television is going to look like. We'll find out this week. But I agree with some of these reports and people in the company who felt like what we saw on Friday was very counterproductive to where this story should have gone. Sean Michaels is making the rounds ahead of the release of a new peacock documentary on his career. That is dropping next Monday, April 13th. It's called The Heartbreak Kid, becoming Sean Michaels, covering his career, his battle with addiction, his current role with NXT. He addressed rumors of backstage heat between himself and The Rock. Boy, the Rock is getting a lot of play this week.

While appearing on Carmelo Anthony's 7 p.m. in Brooklyn podcast, Michaels was asked about why he and the Rock never had a match. And Michael said, he didn't like me. And they said, he didn't like me. And they started laughing. He said, no, I will say this. There's a big kerfuffle in the wrestling business about me and Hunter, you know, doing stuff to him and being mean and stuff like that. All of it blown way out of proportion, none of it even accurate. But things that when he was younger was fed a lot, again, later on and to this day, we get along and we talk about stuff, that's one that I think everybody would have liked to have seen. But by the time I came back, he was well off into his Hollywood career and stuff like that.

Well, by the time Rock really took off in 98, started getting hot as a heel, as a singles heel, Sean had retired. You know, he had the match with Steve Austin at WrestleMania, had the back injury. That was in March of 98. And he was done. And Rock was really just starting to get going around that time. And then by the time Sean came back in 2002, Rock was already off to Hollywood, like he said. So they missed each other like two passing ships.

But here's the thing. Rock never liked Sean Michaels. They seem to be cool with each other and cordial now, but there are lots of stories out there about why. Why he doesn't like Sean Michaels or didn't like Sean Michaels, why he didn't want to work with him. And it goes all the way back to Sean being a dick to Rock's grandmother on a show in Hawaii many years ago when Sean was a lot younger,

and Rock's grandmother was promoting shows down there. Now, also, there are stories of Sean trying to undermine him when Rock was first starting in WWE. This is what Sean alluded to in that interview. But that's straight from Brett Hart, who saw it happen. Brett watched out for Rock, which is something that Rock has said he's grateful to Brett for. And this was at a time when there were two distinct camps backstage in WWE. You had the Sean Michaels camp, which was very small.

The only other card carrying member would have been Triple H around that time. And then you had the Brett camp. And there were a lot more people in the Brett camp than the Sean camp. So there's that. And then there's WrestleMania 15, which saw Stone Cold and the Rock have their very first WrestleMania main event that was in Philadelphia. Originally, the idea was for that to be a triple threat match and mankind would be involved. Sean allegedly argued for it to be a singles match. He felt like it's WrestleMania, it's the main event, it should be one-on-one,

and that the singles match should be Stone Cold against mankind. But he got outvoted and they went with Rock and Austin instead. And that is a story straight out of Mick Foley's second book. So there were a lot of reasons that match never happened, because even though they were never really in the same place long enough at the same time, if they wanted to do that match at WrestleMania years later as an attraction, they could have done it. They could have found a way to make that work.

But for reasons, it never did. And look at them all now. I mean, Rock is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, despite what CM Punk may say. He's on the board of directors. Triple H is running creative for now. And Sean Michaels is running developmental, and he's dancing on TV with sexy red.

And that won't be the only documentary dropping this month. Netflix dropped the trailer yesterday for the Hulk Hogan Real American Docu Series, which is set to premiere on April 22nd. The four-part series provides an insight into Hogan's childhood, his wrestling career, and his transition to pop culture icon. And it also features his last ever interview, including this cryptic line where he says in the trailer, You want me to tell the truth? Okay, I know where all the bodies are buried. Sadly, that would include his own after he died last July.

Let's shift over to AEW here because we have some news on that front and a big pay-per-view coming up this weekend. But we'll start with Chris Jericho. The Jericho sweepstakes, if there ever really was a Jericho sweepstakes. weepstakes is now over and Chris Jericho is staying put in AEW. He showed up on Dynamite last Wednesday as a surprise in Winnipeg. Dave Meltzer says that he was told by someone in WWE, this is before Jericho showed up on TV last week, not to expect him back there anytime soon if ever. And this is on the heels of Jericho filing to trademark the term Cornerstone back on March 25th. So that gives us a sense of what his new nickname is likely to be. But dynamite opened last Wednesday with Tony Chivani in the ring.

They were getting ready for a contract signing for the Kenny Omega MJF dynasty match. And a shitload of pyro starts popping off and nobody knows why or what's going on here. And then we heard Judas. And then it became clear why we had so much pyro. It was the return of Chris Jericho. Comes out there at a purple jacket. He looked like he was in great shape. Again, he's been off for a year. He got cheered in Winnipeg, which is where he grew up. And then he continued to milk the reaction for an uncomfortable period of time. I say uncomfortable because it just felt like he wasn't quite getting the reaction after a while that he was hoping he would get. Like, it was really good when he first came out. And the longer

he stayed out there and he's throwing his arms up and he's trying to get the crowd to like make noise and stuff. And it's just getting less and less and less. So it came off very awkward. And then finally he shouted Winnipeg, A.A.W. I'm home. And then he went and he hugged his father, Ted Irvin, and a few other people at ringside, and he left. And there was no hint about what he would be doing next or what the direction is that they planned to take with him or even the next time we're going to see him. Although now we know he'll be on dynamite this week. I hope it's not often. But by the end, last year, man, that learning tree crap, oh my God. I mean, Jericho had go away heat with me. And not just me.

He had go away heat with a lot of people. Taking time off was the best thing. he could have done for the product and for himself if he was ever going to come back. Now Mike Johnson, a PW insider is reporting that the general belief backstage on Wednesday was that Jericho came to terms with AEW on a brand new contract. So this is not a case of Jericho only coming back because Tony Khan tacked on time to his existing deal. He actually signed a brand new deal that will keep him there for what I have to assume is going to be at least a couple of years, if not longer. The key to Jericho's longevity. Now remember, he's 55. He's 55. He's 5.5. He's 5.5. years old. And he's, it feels like he's done all that there is to do and he's worked with most of the

people on that roster. The key to his longevity, if he's going to be there for two, three, four years, whatever it may be, he doesn't want to retire yet. He wants to continue to wrestle. The key is going to be to use him sporadically. Because I don't know that there is anybody out there that is clamoring for Chris Jericho to be wrestling on television every single week or even be on the show every single week. It's not just being in the ring. I mean, he was doing some stuff with the learning tree, you know, garbage, that was just terrible. It was terrible TV. And nobody wants to see him doing the same redundant shit every single week on dynamite. That's the worst thing that you could do with Chris Cherico.

So use him sporadically, use him wisely, and be selective with who you have him working with. Because he's worked with most of the top guys there. He worked with Kenny Omega, although that was outside. That was in New Japan. And at this point, that was probably, what, eight years ago? It was a while ago. But he's worked with MJF, he's worked with Will Osprey. The last time we saw him, he was defending the Ring of Honor World Title against Bandito. Again, it feels like he's done all there is to do there. First ever AEW World Champion, he's led multiple factions.

But there are still other names for him to work with. He's never worked with Swerve Strickland, who just turned heel recently. Never worked with Kyle Fletcher or Rikishay or Cano. Mosque Takeshhta or even Kevin Knight. Like there are newer faces there that he can go and work with. Now, what value and benefit that will be to them? What is, you know, what kind of rub, so to speak, does Jericho have left to give them? I mean, that remains to be seen.

You know, I feel like they have squeezed that sponge nearly bone dry. You know, but there are new faces that he could potentially work with. I'm left to wonder of Jericho, and it would be very smart and savvy on his point. if he did this, if he manipulated the situation into getting a better deal from Tony con, if he never really wanted to leave. Because, and I said this the other day, like, if you really break it down and think about it, right? At some point, I firmly believe he will go back to WWE to at least do one last

WrestleMania match, and he will, of course, go into the Hall of Fame one day. That's a given. But, like, realistically, if he's not ready to hang it up yet, and WWE probably just wanted him for a retirement tour, hey, we need somebody else to feed to Gunther. He needs a new career to end. If that's really all they wanted him for, and then you look at what his current deal with AEW entails.

Like, why would he leave? He can pick up and leave anytime he wants to go tour with Fazi. He's got his annual voyage on the high seas with the Jericho cruise that he runs and has been very successful with that now for, God, probably six years or so now. He's been doing that, six, seven years. years. He went to WWE with him many years ago. He wanted to have WWE guys on there and they said no.

So he said, fuck you. I'll do it on my own. But he can do all of these things and I'm sure, you know, Tony Khan shows him so much deference and has so much respect for him probably the same way he does for Sting. Every time Tony Khan would talk about Sting, he talked about him in glowing terms, you could tell he was a big fan and I'm sure he let Sting do whatever Sting

wanted to do and felt comfortable with doing. Jericho's making a lot of money You know, why leave? Why leave? Other than just wanting to work with new faces, why leave? So if he manipulated the situation into getting more money, good for him. A smart business move. The Dynasty is coming up this Sunday.

I don't know if Jericho is going to have a role on that show. I guess we'll find out on Dynamite tomorrow night. But Dynasty is taking place at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver. They're looking at around 8,000 fans right now from last I checked. I know it's a building that fits 17,000. They were never going to open it up for all 17,000. But 8,000 sounds healthy enough. This is the card as it stands.

This is not the final card. But we have Marina Shafir taking on Alex Windsor, and I believe that's taking place on the zero hour pre-show. So I'm going with Windsor for the win. We have Darby Allen going one-on-one with Andrade L. Edelow. who was the person in the Don Callas family that Callis handpicked to represent them against Darby

because they have agreed to do MJF a favor and try to take out Darby Allen. So Don Callis chose Andrade to be the guy to go in there and do it. I don't think he will be successful. I would like for him to be. But I think Darby is winning this match because I think Darby is the one

getting a world championship match at Double or Nothing in New York City next month. We have Tecla defending the AEW women's world title against Jamie Hader. That should be a good one. Tecla is not losing. We have John Moxley defending the AEW Continental Championship against Will Osprey. This is really Osprey's first big match since coming back from the neck operation. If the Continental title was not on the line in this match, I would pick Will Ospre to win.

Now that we know the Continental title is on the line, I'm going with John Moxley for the win. Now, why did Osprey request this as a title match? He requested it as a title match because, as per the rules of a continental title match, there can be no one at ringside. Everyone is banned from ringside, which means no death rider's interference. So story-wise, it actually makes sense why he would want this to be a championship match. Like, that aspect of it makes sense.

I don't see the benefit in having Will Osprey win the Continental Title. I don't see what that accomplishes. Everybody has an eye towards Wembley in August. The story is right there. You got him back with plenty of time to work him into a world title story, going into your big stadium show in the UK. It's a layup. That has to be the direction for Will Osprey.

Nothing is gained by him holding this mid-card championship. That really doesn't mean anything. Okay, let's just be honest. the Continental title, what does it mean? It shouldn't even exist. Where I could see them going with this, though, and the reason I'm going with John Moxley to win, Will Osprey does not have to win this match.

What you can do is you can have John Moxley win the match, and you can run this back. I think you run this back as a final in a few months in the Owen Hart tournament. The Owen Hart tournament, the winner of that, will get a world championship match at all in. And I think you could circle back around to this in the finals of that tournament, and that is where Will Osprey beats John Moxley,

and not to win some inconsequential belt, but he punches his ticket to a world championship match by beating John Moxley, a former world champion. That to me is what would make the most sense. Like, if I were mapping this out, that's how I would do it. Now, we have FTR defending their AW tag team titles against Adam Copeland and Christian Cage. Two more Canucks. Getting a big title match here, it's going to be very hard.

I think for Tony Kant to resist putting the belts on them in Canada this weekend. I think that's exactly what we're going to see. I think Cope and Christian are going to be tag team champions again for the first time. And she, I don't even know how long. How many years has it been since they've been tag team champions? I mean, it has to be over 20 years, right? I mean, I can't remember a time in the last 20 where they held gold together. And then in the main event, MJF will defend the AWW World Championship against

Kenny Omega, and that is a big-time main event. I don't see Kenny Omega winning the world title of Dynasty. Again, he's challenging for the championship. They're in Vancouver. It's going to be very tempting, but I think it would be counterproductive. I really do. Which is not to say that Kenny Omega's champion would be a bad thing to do, or that Kenny Omega against Will Osprey at Wembley Stadium wouldn't be a big match.

It would be, but MJF is on a role right now, you know? He's killing it as the champion. He still has so many people left to work with. And if Darby Allen is going to get a world title match soon, what sense does it make to have Kenny Omega against Darby Allen? Makes a lot more sense with the history involved to do MJF and Darby at double or nothing. So I think MJF is going to retain the title. Tomorrow night, we're going to have more matches added.

I could see ricochet against Jack Perry, challenging Jack for the national title. Maybe we get an international title defense with Okada against Kevin Knight. a rematch from their match a few weeks ago. If not, then I would assume Kevin Knight and Speedball and Mystico would be defending their trios titles. But look, this is an AW pay-per-view. Right now they have what? What, one, two, three, four, five, six? I mean, give me a break.

That could just be the pre-shot right there on an AEW show. We're going to get at least ten matches on this show. It's going to go five and a half hours long. So the card is incomplete. Tomorrow night, we should find out what the rest is going to be. Unfortunately, two people that will not be on the show tomorrow or on Sunday or anytime soon are the TNT champion Kyle Fletcher and Mark Quinn of Private Party.

AW has really, and not to say WWE hasn't, but AWW has really been bitten by the injury bug. The Fletcher one hurts because Kyle Fletcher is one of their big rising stars, and he's a champion. He's the reigning TNT champion. He is believed to have suffered a meniscus injury. And this is coming from Fightful Select, a meniscus injury in addition to other undisclosed injuries that are expected to keep him out of action for quite some time.

This happened in a tag team match back on March 28th on collision. It was him and Mark Davis taking on the Rascals. And it was pretty early in the match, too. It was just one of these bumps where Fletcher went down, and as he fell backwards, his, I believe, left leg, got caught underneath him. So it looked kind of nasty. Didn't look like it, you know, didn't break or anything like that, but just the way he came down with his leg underneath him,

it looked like that probably was not going to end up well. We just didn't know how serious it wasn't. He finished the match. And maybe that made things worse. I don't know. But apparently it sounds as serious as, as some people feared. I don't know if they are going to strip him of the TNT title.

Tony Khan has done this interim title bullshit before. I know we probably have some MMA fans listening to this, and so you know all about interim titles. In wrestling, I just think it's goofy. I don't really see how it makes a whole lot of sense. I think it's just a stupid concept. And Tony Con loves doing it. So he may well have an interim TNT champion crowned

until Kyle is ready to come back. I don't really see the purpose. I think you strip them, and then you find a way to crown a new TNT champion and just cut out this interim bullshit. But it sounds like they're going to have to do something. Now, as far as Mark Quinn,

he is part of the private party tag team with Isaiah Cassidy. Isaiah Cassidy cut a promo backstage by himself on Collision last week, and he made reference to his partner being taken out by John Moxley and the Death Riders. And that we wouldn't be seeing him for a while. We don't know when we're going to see him again. and my spidey senses started tingling, I said,

hmm, is this a work? Is this a shoot? And then I come to find out that even before this news came out, that it is a legitimate injury, and he is not going to be back in the ring for a very long time. And I feel bad for these two guys. They just came back. They just came.

They've been back for not even a full two months after being out for a year. And they weren't out for a year because there was, an injury that kept them out for the entire year. They just disappeared if there was an injury. I mean, they were long since recovered from said injury. And now all of a sudden, the team has been broken up again, and Isaiah Cassidy is all on his own. And again, it sounds like that injury happened on the March 28th episode of

collision in the match that they had. So all the best to them. Hopefully it's a speedy recovery, but yeah, it does not look good for either one of them right now. there was some controversy with Mercedes Monet, the former TBS champion. She lost another title the night before Dynamite last week. Dynamite was in Winnipeg. Well, there was an independent show in Winnipeg for Winnipeg Pro Wrestling.

And Mercedes was on that show defending her Winnipeg Pro Women's Championship. She lost it to Jody Threat. She never did show up on Dynamite the next night. I figured they're in Winnipeg. Maybe she'll show up on TV. She never did. But what that meant, was that she was down to one independent belt, which is the A-PAC Wrestling Women's Championship.

A-PAC wrestling is a promotion based out of Malaysia. She defeated North Phoenix, Diana, to win the title here in the States, in House of Glory, back in November. I did the play-by-play on that match. There had been a lot of interest in that one because it was the first time that title was being defended on U.S. soil, so it was kind of a big deal. It was the only title that Mercedes had left in her belt collector phase, and she doesn't even have that one anymore, although the way she lost it was very anticlimactic. So in the latest edition of her Monet mag that she sends out to fans on her mailing list, she announced a few days ago that she had vacated the title, and she mailed it back to Malaysia. She said, while I was in London, I had to make a tough call. I sent the Malaysia

championship back. My team and I really tried to make things work. We put in the effort. We had the conversations, we explore it every option, but at the end of the day, they told us they didn't have the budget to fly me out, and they weren't open to working with other promotions. For me, that just didn't align with the vision. So not the most exciting way for her world tour to come to an end with UPS knocking on their door. But this caused some drama because evidently Winnipeg Pro Wrestling or whoever runs their ex account did some vague posting about the situation.

so this caused Shaucat to respond. He runs APEC wrestling. He is considered the godfather of Malaysian pro wrestling. He took to social media to push back on some of what was said about them. He said, I woke up on three hours of sleep to a flood of texts and tags and questions. So let me say this very clearly. I have nothing but respect for Mercedes-Money. She is a global star in high demand, and I understand that her schedule and travel

limitations are real. I do not blame her for this situation, and I appreciate the opportunity we had to work together. But the public narrative being pushed does not fully reflect what actually happened. We did try. We did explore working with other promotions because that was what we, or that was asked of us. I personally reached out, followed up, and tried to make multiple scenarios work. I did not ask other promotions to fly my wrestler in for us. I have the text and email receipts to back that up, and I am prepared to stand on that, if necessary. I have chosen not to post private communications lightly because I still believe in handling business.

professionally, but I will protect my name when needed. For more context, I was even willing to go beyond our limits on my side. I openly said that I would take on extra work. I would secure sponsors to try to bring Mercedes to Malaysia. That ultimately was not workable, which I understand. So we were pushed to explore solutions abroad instead. And he talked about some other promoters that he had allegedly been in contact with trying to make that work.

And he said it didn't make sense financially for us. He said, I also want to address. Winnipeg Pro Wrestling, our interaction was minimal. I reached out, but was initially ignored, and only received a single response declining based on budget and their story direction, which I respected. That was

the extent of it. So the public version being pushed does not reflect my actual communication with them. And then he went on to apologize to Mercedes for all of this, but he said in the end, the end result, nor Phoenix Diana did not get closure.

And that's true. It sucks that she never did get her win back. Look, it's a small promotion. They don't have a lot of resources to be flying people around. And here's my guess. Okay, and this is just me spitballing here. But my guess is that Mercedes is clearly on her way back to AW television very soon, that the plan all along was for her to one by one drop each of these independent belts

until she was beltless. And she had reached rock bottom. And then we would see her back on TV for whatever her story, her redemption arc, I guess, was going to be. But the story only works if she's lost all of her titles. And so in the limited amount of time that's left to make that match happen, there just wasn't an opportunity to do so in a timely fashion. If they want her back on TV soon, well, then when do you fly her to Malaysia to do this match?

I think the timing just didn't work. you know, in House of Glory, we got lucky to where the stars aligned. We were able to make the match happen. And it sucks that Diana never got her win back. You can't say that Mercedes didn't want to drop the belt to her because there's no evidence of that. You know, she's had no issue dropping any of her other belts back to people in those respective promotions. So I'm sure she would have done the same thing here. Just logistically, it didn't work out.

But I do expect her back on TV very soon. Tony Storm, she's gone, right? We still don't know why. Supposedly it's not injury related, but we're not going to see her for quite some time. That caught them off guard. There's a big opening now. There's a big void at the top of that AEW women's division. The timing is perfect for Mercedes to come back to TV.

She has yet to appear on television at all this year in AEW. With Tony Storm being gone, the timing is right. And you can build to a match with Tecla and Mercedes for the world championship. Maybe at Wembley. Maybe that's the big title match on that show. Some other news and notes for you. In a shocking bit of news, it was shocking to me what I heard about it. New Japan Pro Wrestling crowned a new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion

at its Soccera Genesis event on Saturday in Tokyo. And his name is Callum Newman. Now, Yotasugi had won the title from Konosuke to Kestha at Wrestle Kingdom 20. That was at the Tokyo Dome back in January. In what really felt like the crowning moment. for Yota Suji. It felt like New Japan was really ushering in a new era of young talent. All the old faces, they've either aged out or they've moved on to other places. Hiroshi Tanahashi, he had his retirement match back in January. It felt like, okay, it's a new era now. It's a new guard.

And it's long past time for them to be pushing people like Suji to the top. I mean, they have a strong core of young guys to build around. They were just very slow to do so. But I didn't expect Suji to drop the belt so soon into his run, let alone to Callum Newman, who had just won the New Japan Cup only a few weeks ago. He's just 23 years old, which makes him the youngest IWGP world champion in history. And he is also the protege of Will Osprey, who was there in Tokyo. He was in his corner for the match. I finally saw the match yesterday.

It was very good. And it's a positive sign that they're showcasing young. talents, but I don't know how I feel about this particular move. You know, it just, it feels like the wrong time to take the belt off of Suji, like he got the rug pulled out from under him. I mean, maybe it's a short run just to establish Callum Newman as someone and Suji gets the belt back at a few months, but I don't know. I think the jury is out on that.

I mean, between that and the way that they booked the Aaron Wolf thing, that's a whole other weird situation. The booking is very strange. Mike Santana, he is the TNA World Heavyweight Champion. For now, we found out this week that his current deal with TNA is slated to expire this summer. That is according to a report from PW Insider, Mike Johnson says there was an expectation that he would head to WWE when his previous TNA deal expired. But he ended up signing an extension instead. You know, having had the chance to call many of Santana's matches,

as the House of Glory world champion, and to see firsthand the work that that guy has put in. Not only to come back from a torn ACL that put him on the shelf for 14 months, but to go clean and sober, which he's been for a while now, to reinvent himself as a singles wrestler, and to transform his body because, I mean, his body went through quite the transformation as well. I would be shocked if he doesn't end up in WWE. Like I again, there's no

There's no inside track here that I'm spoiling. I just think if he doesn't end up in WWE, I would legitimately be shocked. Clearly they have an interest in him. He's made multiple appearances there with the NXT brand. He just appeared on NXT television last week in a six-man tag against Dark State. That was the show they did from the theater at Madison Square Garden. I think this summer, we know where that man is headed. And then there's this.

comes from Athlon Sports by way of Yahoo Sports Sports. Former WWE superstar Alberto Rodriguez, better known as Alberto del Rio, or as he's now known as Alberto El Patron, or as I call

him, Alberto del dipshit, was arrested on Monday on domestic violence charges, according to reports. The wrestler was detained in San Luis Potosi. Potosi? I think it's Potosi. Man, I'm just butchering this.

I think it's potosi. Anyway, following a complaint of alleged domestic violence, according to preliminary reports, elements of the civil guard responded to an emergency call to C5 made by his wife, who reported being a victim of physical aggression, and alerted about the dangerousness of the aggressor. And evidently, the authorities found reason to arrest him,

and then there's also a mugshot for him floating around online. one of multiple ones that you can find online. This is not the first time that this man has been involved in this type of situation. You go back to 2017. He was suspended by impact wrestling for domestic violence issues that were tied into his then-girlfriend, the former Page, from WW, or Soraya, if you would, from AEW. He was also arrested in May of 2020 in San Antonio, Texas,

after allegedly having sexually assaulted his girlfriend, according to local reports. And I believe that stuff ended up getting dropped. I mean, there was a lot of weird things about that situation. But this is multiple instances now where these types of allegations have been levied against this man. There is a reason why I call this guy Alberto del dipshit. He cannot seem to keep his hands to himself. And now you know why, when WWE acquired AAA last year, that Alberto went away,

despite all the fans chanting his name. He became the biggest baby face in the promotion. He was their biggest star. And they still didn't bring him back. He ain't going to be back. Nor should he be. And we have an update on former Portland wrestling and WWE star, Billy Jack Haynes. There's a name from the past that some of you may remember.

This is from the ABC affiliate in Portland on Friday. They said that a judge has scheduled the date to begin the murder trial of the 72-year-old former wrestling star for next year after he was found fit to proceed in his defense. This is according to court documents. This is a story that I covered on my own show when it happened. So what happened is that police arrested Billy Jack in February of 24, and they accused him of shooting and killing his 85-year-old wife, Jeanette. And in May of last year, Judge Angela Lucero found Haynes was unfit to stand trial, and the judge ordered him to be sent to the Oregon State Hospital.

Then in February of this year, the court found that Haynes had gained fitness to proceed after considering a report from a certified evaluator, statements from legal counsel, and observing Haynes' behavior during a hearing. This is a really sad story. He was arrested in 2024 after there was a two-hour standoff with police, and when officers went inside the home, they found his wife's body.

And the medical examiner determined that she died of homicide by gunshot wound. One neighbor at the time said that Billy's wife had dementia. I wouldn't be surprised if Billy had a touch of it himself, given some of the bat-shit crazy things that he has said over the years. For example, he has said, among other things, that Chris and Nancy Benoit's son, Daniel, was actually Vince McMahon's son. And then when Chris found out the truth, he went and killed his family and himself. So, I mean, that gives you a pretty good sense right there of what kind of person we're dealing with here. But some time ago, his wife's daughter filed an elder abuse lawsuit against Haynes for $750,000 in damages, accusing him of repeated mental, physical, and financial abuse towards her mom in the years leading up to her death.

And the lawsuit claims that Haynes made her mom cut off contact with her family, liquidate her retirement funds, abandoned her medical providers in favor of doctors that he had a relationship with. It claims that he introduced her to drugs, including heroin and meth, and it forced her to purchase a gun for him that he was unable to acquire due to his own criminal record, and that he coerced her into marrying him in 2021. He prevented food deliveries from her family from reaching her and had her change her estate planning so that her family would not receive any of the proceeds. her estate is not going to ever see a dime, even if they win that lawsuit.

It's a very depressing story. The whole story is just very sad. But one last bit of news here on a happier note. We got the announcement this past week of what the Immortal Moment is going to be at the WWE Hall of Fame this year. The Hall of Fame class is pretty well solidified, I think, at this point. But last year, they introduced this new award that recognizes the most important matches in WWE history. and the award went to the first one, went to Stone Cold against Brett Hart

from WrestleMania 13 in their submission match, a very worthy honor. And both men were alive and able to appear in person to accept the award. That will not be the case this year, although this one is just a no-brainer. The inductee this year for the immortal moment is Hulk Hogan against Andre the Giant

from WrestleMania 3 at the Pontiac Silver Dome, arguably the biggest match in WrestleMania. history, the match itself, the slam, the body slam, Hogan slamming Andre, single greatest moment, in my opinion, most iconic moments still to this day in WrestleMania history. In my opinion, it's Hogan slamming Andre, Brock Lesnar ending the Undertaker's undefeated streak, and Stone Cold bleeding in the sharpshooter, and the double turned that night with Brett Hart. That's your top three right there.

And for those of you who were interested, last week on the WWE Vault channel, they actually posted about 20 plus minutes or so of behind-the-scenes footage from WrestleMania 3. And then there's also some static, hard camera shots from the finishes of some of the matches. It's just from a different camera angle, no commentary. You really get a different feel for the event. It's very cool. So if you want to check out that video, it's up on the Vault channel right now on YouTube.

But the Hall of Fame class this year is looking pretty good. You know, we got Stephanie McMahon, A.J. Stiles, Demolition, Sid Vicious, Bad News, Brown, and Dennis Rodman as the celebrity inductee. Honestly, for AJ Demolition and Sid alone, this is a very strong Hall of Fame class. Although Sid's children confirmed this week that they will not be giving any sort of speech for their dad at the ceremony, which I figured, you know, with it being a legacy induction, that usually doesn't happen. It's still disappointing, though.

I mean, Sid deserve a lot better than a legacy induction, but I guess it's better than nothing. Anyway, for all my other content, subscribe on YouTube. Just search for Solomonster Sounds Off. And if you want to send in questions to possibly be answered here on the show, you could always email me to Solomaster at gmail.com.

You could tweet me on X at Solomaster. Just make sure to include the hashtag uncrowned. We got a busy week coming up. up. We have episode number 10 of the Uncrowned Wrestling show next Tuesday with full predictions for each night of WrestleMania, the only WrestleMania preview that you need. And thoughts on the AW Dynasty pay-per-view, which is coming up this Sunday. There may even be some pop-up updates after each night of WrestleMania right here on Uncrowned. I'll have more on that next week. But for now, I hope you enjoyed the show.

If you did, leave a five-star rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. It really has. helps the show out. Tell your friends, I'm Jason Solomon, and when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you next week.