The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | WrestleMania Adpocalypse, Hall of Fame thoughts, Darby Allin squashes MJF for AEW title

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Jason Solomon is back and has mixed feelings on this year’s WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, as well as changes needed for it going forward, and ESPN's Andreas Hale not being credentialed for WrestleMania (05:47). He reviews both nights of WrestleMania, focusing in on how TKO does business, writing off the dumb Pat McAfee angle, ending strong with an outstanding Sunday main event, and Brock Lesnar’s possible retirement (15:52). Plus, a new opponent for Roman Reigns heading into Backlash, a big tease for a future Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk match, and a series of NXT callups on Raw (45:01). Then, thoughts on Darby Allin squashing MJF in two minutes to win the AEW world championship on Dynamite, the way they built up to it, and why this was not a “burial” of MJF (55:32). Closing out with news on why former UFC champion Josh Barnett is shuttering his Bloodsport shows, and the death of a former WCW star (1:05:07).

What a week. It was a lot that went down, and now we get to talk about it all. I am Jason Solomon, and this is the uncrowned wrestling show for Tuesday, April 21st, 2006. I was in Las Vegas for a couple of days. Didn't stay for WrestleMania. I know. It's kind of weird. But I did do commentary for House of Glory on Thursday night at the Pearl Theater at the Palms. Nice venue. Packed it in. Stack card. Bandito against the Amazing Red, which was incredible. One of the other big matches of the weekend that was supposed to be taking place and did not take place was ricochet against Leon Slater. And that was slated for the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show at RussellCon. It didn't happen after T&A pulled Slater from the show.

They did not want their talents working against AEW talents. Even though everything was agreed upon in advance, they did not want their talents working against AEW people. And this was a very sudden thing turned into a big story last week. Carlos Silva, the president of TNA, he really took it on the chin. Partner Conflicts is what he told Fightful, which if you read between the lines, probably means the WWE flexed its muscle. And Michael Bokicchio, the promoter of RussellCon and the man who organized the show, he spoke with post wrestling, and he explained in a little more detail what happened.

He said, we went directly to Leon's boss. We went directly to Rikishay's boss. We told them what the finish of the match was going to be to protect the individual. A lot of people think, oh, they didn't want Leon to lose. Guys, I'm going to be honest, Leon wasn't losing. Come up with a different theory on why they pulled him because that had nothing to do with it. The match and the finish were cleared. And then he said he found out about the news on the internet, and Dave Meltzer called to ask him about it.

Never heard from TNA that they were pulling Slater from the show, which is a horrible look. But that shuts down the narrative of TNA wanting to protect its talent from. losing, given that Slater was not going to lose. But Tony Kahn, he got to play hero, and he approved a replacement match with Rikoshae in the Gates of Agony wrestling Kevin Knight, Speedball Mike Bailey, and Michael Oku. So they still got a hell of a wrestling match to headline with. We got two nights of WrestleMania to talk about, as well as the fallout on the Raw After Mania last night.

The Raw After Mania in the past, I mean, it's hit or miss in the last several years. I remember last year's Raw After Mania being very good. It tends to be a very newsworthy show, and it was last night, so we'll talk about that. I've got thoughts on the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony as well. Darby Allen, winning the AEW World Championship last week on Dynamite, which sort of got lost in all the noise of the weekend. So let's get you all caught up. There were a few things outside of WrestleMania that happened in Las Vegas this past week.

For one, the Sandman is officially retired for now. Again, you know how these wrestling retirements go. He lost to the Invisible Man at Joey Janella's spring break event on Friday night. Bill Alfonso, Fonzie, managed the Invisible Man, and the match featured cameos by Mick Foley, Missy Hyatt, Vampiro, Violent J, Kendra Lust, and the Invisible Man's brother, The Invisible Stan. And Foley helped Sandman fight off both Invisible Bros. He even took a bump.

He gave one of them a double-armed DDT. Fully looked like he was moving around pretty good, all things considered. Until he and the Sandman each got hit with low blows and the Invisible Man rolled up Sandman for the win. So yes, he got retired off a low blow and a roll-up. Now also on Friday night, former WWE world champion and Bellator fighter Jake Hager, he actually went unbeaten in Bellator, 3 and O, beat Devin Jenkins via knockout in the third round, of Power Slap 19. And he was not the only wrestler to have success

slapping the shit out of people that night. Lance Anawaii debuted with a knockout win over Amunpreet Singh and Haley James. Better known as Hollywood, Haley J, beat Destiny McCubbin via decision. After his win, Hager looked into the camera and he yelled, Fuck you, Tony Khan.

Hager used to work for AEW. He did not leave on good terms in case you couldn't tell. Tony Khan is living rent-free in this man's head, which is impressive since there's nothing in there to begin with. He's basically living rent-free in a penthouse apartment. The man got paid six figures to be Chris Jericho's backup dancer, and he got over because of his hat.

That was the story of his AEW run. Now he slaps people in the face to make money, and the first thing on his mind is fuck Tony Khan. And then there was the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony. Boy, Friday was a busy night. this is all to say nothing of Smackdown, where we got a nice baby face promo from Randy, I'm supposed to be the heel, Orton.

The kind of promo, honestly, that we should have gotten weeks ago, or maybe in a face-to-face segment with Cody on that final Smackdown, something we never got even one time, this entire road to WrestleMania. And also on that show, we had quite possibly the most heatless, meaningless Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal that WWE has ever done. And it went all of 10 minutes. Royce Keys picked up the win, which was the obvious choice. That was the correct choice. Not that winning this Battle Royal itself means anything, but it's at least a sign that they want to keep him looking strong.

But I have mixed feelings on the WWE Hall of Fame. You know, they opened with Stephanie McMahon's induction, and her speech went maybe 20 minutes. With video packages and whatnot, it felt more like an hour. They had her three daughters and her mother do the induction. her mother, who is a defendant in a sex abuse lawsuit against her, Vince McMahon, TKO, and WWE. That was filed by a group of former ringboys, that Linda McMahon. And when Linda spoke, I decided that was a good time to start unpacking from my Vegas trip, so I didn't hear much of what she had to say, nor do I care. But when Stephanie mentioned her father during her speech, the crowd broke into loud chance of, Thank you, Vince. Thank you, Vince.

In case you were wondering how the man would be greeted by the people, if he ever popped back up on television again. Vince, I didn't expect to be there. Shane McMahon, not being there. That was a surprise to me. As was Stephanie's comment about him and his wife and his kids in that no matter what has happened or what will happen in this life, I will always love you.

Very interesting. She also spent a lot of time talking about, about Conner's cure and her efforts in the fight against pediatric cancer, which was nice, pediatric and cancer, two words that should never, ever go together. We had the long overdue induction for Axe and Smash of Demolition with Haku, the Warlord, and Arne Anderson doing the induction. Three men who all shared the ring with demolition at one time or another, and they did come out to their Rick Derringer theme song.

There was some concern that they might not, because in the video, game 2K26. There's some sort of cover version that they used, but thankfully we got the OG theme here. This one put a smile on my face. Demolition is my favorite tag team of all time. Barry Darso during the speech, he even gave crush. Brian Adams a shout out, which was nice. Listening to Bill Eadie, speak is always a treat, right? Food to the stooge. And of all things, I was not expecting Eadie to close with a quote from one of his favorite movies, apparently, dumb and dumber. And he was showing off his Hall of Fame ring. He goes, I like it.

I like it a lot. So very cool stuff. And something that should have happened years ago, but I'm glad it finally did. Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman, they inducted Dennis Rodman. And Nash's voice was just totally shot. I mean, he sounded more like Scott Hall than he did Kevin Nash. Rodman was Rodman. You know, he didn't dress for the occasion.

He dressed like it was casual Friday, but that's what you would expect from Dennis Rodman. He was out there wearing a Hollywood Hogan t-shirt. He thanked Jimmy Hart, Eric Bischoff, and his 80-year-old neighbor that he talks to every day. He was kind of coherent until he got closer to the end. Then it kind of went off the rails a little bit. But, you know, he didn't overstay his welcome. He went about seven or eight minutes or about the average length of a WrestleMania match this year. This year's immortal moment induction was Hulk Hogan against Andre the Giant at WrestleMania 3.

And unlike last year, neither man was alive to accept the honor. So we had Jimmy Hart, we had Nick Hogan, and we had Robin, the granddaughter of Andre the Giant. They were on stage for this. Jimmy gave the speech. Nick and Robin didn't speak, but they did unveil a bust of Hogan slamming Andre. Still, not only the biggest moment in WrestleMania history, the biggest match in WrestleMania history. And it's not about, you know, the quality of the match itself or the work rate or the moves or anything like that.

It was just a monumental spectacle. and the body slam is a moment that has been replayed, you know, countless times over the years, all the video packages, highlight packages. That is still the defining WrestleMania moment. So, you know, inducting that match was a no-brainer. Bad News, Brown and Psycho Sid, they got legacy inductions, which basically means that they will acknowledge you, they will air a video for you,

and then they will very briefly show your family members in the crowd as they wave and then they will move on to the next. And Sid's son Gunner was not happy about the way this was all handled. He posted on Facebook after the ceremony. Thank you to everyone for all the love and support that you've shown our family. It means the world and I appreciate every single person who had my dad's back. Last night's so-called Hall of Fame induction, he put that in quotes. For my father, Sid Udi, Psycho Sid, Sid Vicious, was straight up disappointing and disrespectful as

hell. I'm glad my dad was big enough to put himself over even in death because WWE damn sure wouldn't. I didn't see one single ad for him here in Vegas. The Hall of Fame gift shop had zero merch for my dad, not a damn thing. But they were loaded with all of the Dennis Rodman crap that you could want. It felt like they just swept him under the rug like a footnote rushing to get him out of the way. Maybe if we had waited another 20 years until all those jealous, insecure ex-colleges were gone, you know the ones who can never match his athletic ability, his looks, or his unbreakable willpower to tell them no. Maybe he would have finally gotten the full induction that he actually deserved. Still, I'm trying to stay positive for my son's sake.

I got to bring him, and he doesn't know what they did or that they did, his grandpa dirty. He just got to see his hero honored. That moment with my boy made it worth it. And at least we walked away with the real Hall of Fame ring. I'm adding pictures of it here. And again, he talks a little bit. bit more about it. So he was, he was very upset. Now, he and his family were there on stage at WrestleMania for the Hall of Fame segment that they did. I wasn't sure if they would

ban him the way they banned Andreas Hale of ESPN from being credentialed for WrestleMania this year. And before people start with the, oh, he posted dumb things on Twitter 10 years ago narrative, or, you know, he's been complimentary of AEW, and that's why they banned him. Or he gave Russell Paloza a C grade back in September. No, I don't buy that for a second. I believe he was banned because he wrote a story covering the latest filing in the Janelle Grant Sex Trafficking lawsuit against the company and Vince McMahon. That's why.

It's no coincidence. That story was posted only a few weeks ago. It's still the headline item, by the way, on the WWE page on ESPN.com. And all of a sudden, they block his access for WrestleMania? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see what's going on here. That separation of church and state that ESPN talked about when they first made the deal with WWE, it turns out, is not a view that is shared by the brain trust at WWE. But then we had the Good Brothers, Doc Gallows and Carl Anderson. They did the induction for their friend, AJ Stiles, who kept it very economical and did not go much longer than Dennis Rodman did with his speech.

Although I think coming in, AJ said he would try to keep it short. It would have been nice to hear him talk more about his TNA days or his New Japan. hand run before coming to WWE. But it was late enough for a lot of people by the end, and this is the problem now with the Hall of Fame. East Coast time. It started at midnight. Even locally, though, they did it an hour after Smackdown ended. So you probably had people rushing to get from one place to the other.

The Hall of Fame has become an afterthought with all of the other things that are going on WrestleMania weekend. Now you have two nights of WrestleMania instead of one. I think the Hall of Fame used to be the Saturday before Maine. Now it's into the wee hours on Friday night. Something has to change. And evidently, A.J. Stiles agrees because on his phenomenally retro podcast, he said this. He said, I really believe that we could probably do the Hall of Fame every other year,

or maybe put some years in between and make it more special. I think it's going to be really difficult to do this every year. Just a suggestion. I don't know if it's about money. Well, it's always about money. There is a reason WrestleMania is two nights. One night, WrestleMania was difficult because it has a lot of matches. You didn't want to be the main event because everyone was cooked.

And I heard that. And I'm like, this is what I've been saying about AEW pay-per-view main events. Like the last place on the card that I would ever want to be if I was wrestling on that show would be in the main event spot. But I agree with him that there needs to be a change. Now, I disagree with him that they should skip a year or they should skip multiple years in between. it is bad enough that some legends, they don't get acknowledged at all. And by the time they finally do, they're dead. And they can't be there to accept it.

They can't be there to enjoy it. That's what happened with Sid this year. It's what happened with Vader. It's what happened with Randy Savage and countless other people. So I get what he's saying about it feeling more special if you don't do it as often or worrying that they're going to run out of names to induct. It does feel like they're running thin on big names. Right.

Some of the big names that still aren't in yet aren't going in so long as they're working for another company. That includes Chris Jericho and Big Show. They still have Sina. They have Rock. They have Batista. Randy Orton, the whole OVW class, basically, Brock Lesnar. But the well is running dry. And I think moving it to Summer Slam weekend could be an option, but I get them wanting it to be tied into WrestleMania.

Plus, there's probably more people in town for WrestleMania. I would not relegate it, though, to after Smackdown. I would do something maybe on that Thursday before. But I also would, like, me personally, I wouldn't open it up to more than maybe a handful of fans. I really think it should be kept to talent, employees, other legends, their families, in like a smaller banquet-type event similar to how it was in the early years. But then they can't make any money off of it, which is the whole purpose. Like, the real reason they even do it is so they have another event that week that

they could sell tickets to and make money off of. And speaking of money, that brings me to WrestleMania 42. And the story of this year's WrestleMania, it's not Roman Raines beating CM Punk to win the World Heavyweight Championship. It's not Brock Lesnar retiring or possibly retiring from the ring.

It's not WWE retconning that terrible Pat McAfee angle in the main event of night one. It's not Paige making her return to WWE after a nine-year absence. These were all big headlines coming out of the weekend, but it is the over-commercialization of WrestleMania. That is the big story. The over-commercialization of WrestleMania at the expense of actual wrestling on these shows. This is the TKO way. I actually think Ariel referred to it as soulless. The entire product has felt soulless for a while now,

but it was on full display this weekend. You know, Night 1, for example, on Saturday, never felt like a WrestleMania. Night 2 did at times, but the same problems that plagued night 1 were still there for night 2. It just happened that night 2 was a much better show, even with one less match on the card. And I said coming into this, like on paper, night 2 looked to be the stronger of the two nights, and it was, I mean, by far. But the constant barrage of commercials during a show where, that never used to be the case. You know, the lack of video hype packages,

other than for the main events, even for stories that in some cases had months or years of history behind it. The lack of backstage interviews before or after the matches that were once a staple of these shows. The short matches with the rushed finishes. I mean, it might pass for a Saturday night's main event,

but not for WrestleMania. The lack of actual wrestling on the shows was alarming. I don't have the numbers for night. two in front of me, but night one, we didn't even get 90 minutes of action on a four-hour show. Your women's world championship match, which was one of the better promoted matches on the card with real heat between the two women, got barely seven minutes of ring time. Like the actual wrestling has never felt less important in WWE than it does right now, and that

just should not be the case. I understand the in-ring is not the end-all be-all. I understand that it's a more entertainment-focused product, you know, than a lot of other wrestling shows tend to be. I mean, that's to be expected. And with WrestleMania, you have the elaborate entrances that take up a lot of time, and that's fine. I enjoy those too. But when it feels like a wrestling match is intruding on your commercial time, there's a problem there. Obviously, they don't see it that way, and that's not going to change. I mean, they literally had a billionaire CEO sitting next to Michael Cole and Wade Barrett for the women's title match on night two. Headset, everything. He never said a word. He just sat there at ringside for the match because he was one of

their priority past VIPs. So, of course, he paid to be there. Even before they said that, it was very clear he paid to be there. How long before those VIPs can pay to referee a match or to manage one of the wrestlers for a night? I mean, between this and all the celebrity nonsense, we now live in what I call the fantasy camp era of WWE. Now that being said, I got a lot more enjoyment out of Sunday than I did Saturday. But let's start there. LA Night and the Uso's they beat Logan Paul, Austin Theory, and I Show Speed. They kept it very short.

It was too short to really mean anything, but it was all about the post-match angle. That one spot where I Show Speed climbed to the top of the ring post and he dove off through Logan Paul on the announced desk. Very impressive. That one spot will garner. more views and impressions than Hogan slamming Andre has had over the last 39 years. This is why they do it.

They do it for the moments on social media. Jacob fought too. He beat Drew McIntyre in an unsanctioned match. Pretty tame for an unsanction match. I mean, it was your typical WWE plunder match, but they did what they could with it. I thought they had a good match and it was the right guy going over at the end. Page and Bree Bella. They are your new WWE women's tag team champions.

Now, how did we get here? How did Paige end up teaming with Bree Bella? Nikki Bella unfortunately suffered an ankle injury on SmackDown several weeks ago. She fractured, tore, and sprained her ankle. She is hoping to be medically cleared in about six to eight weeks. She was rehabbing and trying to get back in time for mania. It sounds to me like she didn't find out until just recently the extent of her injuries, because that was just never going to happen.

I mean, if she fractured and tore and sprained her ankle, there's no way she was going to be back for WrestleMania. But she was rehabbing and she was trying. She showed up with her sister. She had a crutch and a walking boot, and she said, I tried. I just couldn't do it. But I didn't want to ruin this moment from my sister.

So I made a phone call to an old friend. And out came page. And I got to tell you, I really wish that Mike Johnson hadn't spoiled this. And if it wasn't Mike Johnson on PW Insider, it would have been somebody else. But this got leaked a couple of days before the show. So it was a great moment for her because Paige came out as she got this tremendous reaction. It's her first time in WWE in almost a decade.

And so it was a great moment. The people in the stadium, I'm sure some people knew, well, clearly some people knew that she was coming out. A lot of people probably didn't. I wish I hadn't known because it would have made for a much better moment. The funniest part about all this is Michael Cole saying, Oh, nobody knew that Paige was coming back, only for them to cut to a sign in the crowd immediately after that said, Paige is back.

Like, whoops. But again, she got a great reaction coming out. The entire match was built around her waiting for the hot tag on the apron. It's like nothing else even mattered here. And once she got it, the people went nuts. She ended up getting the winning fall. And so she is now, in her first match back, she is now a tag team champion. And it's a great story for her because if you remember, she was, God, what was she, 25 years old?

She was in her mid-20s. And she suffered a very serious neck injury. She had neck surgery. She had come back. And then there was an incident at a house show. It was actually here in New York out on Long Island where I think she suffered a stinger. She lost some feeling in her extremities and her fingers. And they would not medically clear her.

She was medically disqualified after that. And she's still super young. So they tried doing other things with her. They made her the general manager on Smackdown for a while, and she was managing her own faction. I think it was called Absolution. But ultimately, she left the company. And she did end up going to AEW. She had her own doctors, I guess, that cleared her, and they brought her in.

And she got to, you know, get back in the ring again. She won the AEW Women's World Championship at Wembley Stadium in the UK. That was kind of the peak moment for her there. And she didn't really do a whole lot in AEW of any great. great note after that. But now her coming back, it's like a full circle thing. And evidently, she's no longer medically disqualified, clearly. It's kind of funny to me. Like I remember when Adam Copeland many years ago made the announcement on Raw that his career was over. You know, he also had a neck injury. They were not going to allow him back in the ring ever again. And so

he was forced into an early retirement. And he was gone for about nine years. Funny enough, about the same amount of time that page was gone from WWE. And only when he went to Vince McMahon and said, because he felt he owed it to Vince, out of respect, he was going to go ahead and let him know that there was an offer on the table. There was interest from Tony Khan and AEW in, and this would have been in the early years. I mean, like 2019 probably, which was AEW's first year, that they were going to bring them in and allow him to wrestle.

And Vince's response was, well, if you're going to come. come back, you're going to wrestle for me. And then a few months later at the Royal Rumble, guess who made his in-ring return after nine years? It was Adam Copeland. So you're only medically disqualified until you're not. And she joins people like Copeland and Daniel Bryan, who got that news from WWE, and then eventually were able to get back in the ring. So it was cool to see her back. Becky Lynch, she regained her women's intercontinental championship from A.J. Lee. They had a solid match.

I didn't think it was as good as their elimination chamber match, but it was solid enough. And the right decision, too. I don't get the sense that A.J. Lee is going to be around much anymore. And so you had to get the belt off of her. Gunther, the ring general, picks up a win over Seth Rollins, thanks in part to an assist from the returning Bronbreaker, who underwent emergency hernia surgery a couple of months ago.

It was very touch and go whether or not he would be able to wrestle on this show. Apparently he was cleared weeks ago, so he could have. They opted to hold him out for this moment instead, and it made sense because you knew coming out of WrestleMania, these two guys, him and Rollins, were going to go off and kind of pick up with their feud. And Gunther is the guy who, you know, put John Cena down. He put AJ Stiles down in the last few months. I mean, what the hell are you going to send him to WrestleMania against Seth Rollins and beat him for? That wouldn't make any sense. Gunther getting the win was hardly a surprise. They had a very good match, though.

Seth Rollins has put together a very, very nice WrestleMania resume for himself when you look back at some of the matches that he's had over the years. This one was very good. This was the first really great wrestling match of the weekend. Liv Morgan, she won the women's world championship from Stephanie Vicar, basically turned into a handicapped match with Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez getting involved in running interference. And not a very good match. This was honestly the biggest disappointment of the night to me. These two women deserve better. They got barely seven minutes, bell to bell, to go out there and tell their story.

And this was one of the more heated rivalries that they had built up coming into this WrestleMania show. And this was the women's world championship. Liv Morgan won the Royal Rumble this year. She chose Stephanie Vakere to go after. They couldn't find more than seven minutes to give these women. Yet, on Raw last night, Liv Morgan wrestled a non-title match against Sol Ruka,

making her debut from NXT, and they had a very fun match last night, and they got, what was it, I think 11 minutes they got. So think about that. A non-title Monday Night Raw match, okay, two nights later, and Liv Morgan got four minutes longer with Sol Ruka than she did with Stephanie on Saturday. How does that make any sense at all?

It doesn't. Bianca Bel Air, she came out during a segment with John Sina. Good to see her. We haven't seen her in a while. And I was hopeful. Oh, great. She's back finally. It's been a year since she wrestled her last match. At WrestleMania, they had, in my opinion, the match of the weekend last year, her, Eoskeye and Rio Ripley. She came out, but it was not to announce her return. It was not to announce her return, her retirement.

It was to announce that she is pregnant. She showed a little baby bump and everybody celebrated and cheered and it was a really nice moment. And part of me is obviously disappointed that we're not going to be getting her back in the ring anytime soon. She's already missed a year. She's about to miss another year. How long did Alexa Bliss miss? When Alexa Bliss was pregnant, I don't think we saw her. It was over two years, I think, before she came back.

So it'll probably end up being, you know, more than that before we see Bianca back in the ring. I guess maybe it'll give her finger some more time to heal out. But it's great news, obviously. Congrats to her and Montez Ford. That's the best possible news, right? It's a lot better off than, oh, you know, my finger is all messed up and I can't come back to the ring. Now she has a good excuse why she can't come back to the ring. So that was a very nice moment.

And in the main event, we had Cody Rhodes defending the WWE championship against Randy Orden. A match steeped in history between mentor and mentee, right? teacher and student, how could they mess this up? Well, they found a way to. But what they did here was they wrote off the awful Pat McAfee angle. It was ruined because of Pat McAfee's involvement. And no shade on Pat personally, right? They offered him this spot.

Supposedly, initially he turned it down, which if that's true, I don't know what convinced him, maybe more money. I don't know. What convinced him to change his mind. But they put him in this spot and all of the stories tied it directly to TKO and R. Emmanuel, who was also the agent for Pat McAfee. But they wanted to sell more tickets, and I guess they thought that somehow this would generate more interest in the show. So we're going to have Pat McAfee in the angle, and we're going to shake things up a little bit, and it was completely unnecessary.

And by the way, you will never convince me that by involving Pat McAfee in this, they sold more than a handful of extra tickets. That had nothing to do with however many tickets they legitimately sold for this show. They claim 50,000 in the building. that was the attendance. That's not necessarily the paid attendance. But however many people paid for tickets, nobody who was not going to WrestleMania said, oh, Pat McAfee is involved in the main event angle. Pat McAfee has stolen the WWE championship from Cody Rhodes. I better buy a ticket to go to WrestleMania. I better sell my kidney for a nosebleed seat so I could see Pat McAfee at WrestleMania. Nobody said that. But right at the beginning of this match, McAfee's already getting

involved. And then jelly roll shows up, and they wrote McAfee off at the beginning by having jelly roll give him a diving elbow drop through the announced desk. So the best thing I can say about this is that they at least got McAfee out of the way at the beginning, although he did come back out. But for the most part, he was away as these guys did their thing. And it was the most ass-backwards psychology maybe ever that I have seen in a WrestleMania main event. You have Randy Orton, okay, the heel. And part of the reason they probably wanted McAfee with Orton is Orton was getting cheered.

Cody was getting booed, not totally, but for the most part. Orton was getting cheered. People wanted to see him win title number 15. Okay, well, we'll have Pat as the annoying, obnoxious heel. And that will rub off on Randy Orton, and it will dull the reactions that he's been getting. And it did. It definitely dulled the reactions.

It didn't completely get rid of the cheers. But you had Randy Orton supposed to, supposedly the heel here, bleeding, trying to mount a comeback from this debilitating back injury that they say he suffered during the week, right? He's obviously has back issues in the past. And so he's got this debilitating back injury and he's trying to make a comeback here. Cody is the aggressor. He's acting very healish. Then they send McAfee back out there late in the match with a referee shirt on in a neck brace, only for Randy Orton to drop him with an arm. RKO. That's their way of writing off Pat McAfee, which was a total baby face move, by the way,

having Orton drop him with an RKO, only for Orton to fall to a crossroads, and Cody pins him and retains the WWE championship. And then after the match, Orton steals the title away from Cody, wax him in the head with it, and then punk kicks him in the skull. Like, the whole thing was a fucking mess. The whole thing was a mess. I mean, the actual work between them, it was a very slow progressing match. Once it got going with some of the more dramatic near falls toward the end, it got better. It was not as bad as the WrestleMania main event last year

between Cody and John Cena. But just the whole thing was a mess, and it didn't have to be. Pat McAfee now, as per his own self-imposed stipulation coming into this show, will no longer be a part of WWE. We will never see or hear from him again in the business. And he is claiming that he is done

He was on his ESPN show yesterday, and he said the good news is the business doesn't need to be saved after all. And good for them. And for me, I finished my story. Well, that's great. I'm glad that Cody Rhodes finished his story two years ago. And now Pat McAfee has finished his. All of this was not needed. And unfortunately, it really dulled what should have been a very fun main event.

It ended up being a big disappointment. The whole night, night one, was. just a massive letdown. And so they needed to come back strong with night two to try to salvage this show. Now, the first hour on Sunday on ESPN had Brock Lesnar against Obafemi. And this was the match I was looking forward to the most the entire weekend. I knew it wasn't going to go very long, but it's the one that I was looking forward to. And honestly, probably the most important match of the entire weekend.

Big fight feel, I give them a lot of credit for how they built this up. every step of the way in building to this match, they did everything right, which is amazing when you consider some of the other matches and stories and what they did not do right, in my opinion. This, they got right every step of the way. And even the day of, even on the pre-show, they had Daniel Cormier on the pre-show talking about this,

like this was a big fight that Brock and Oba were going into here. Like it was an MMA fight. And they had the tail of the tape graphic and everything. So they really hyped this up big. and they go in there and the match did not go five minutes. I think it went a little under five minutes. And it would have been nice for it to get another like two, two, three minutes,

but I mean, we're picking nits now. Like, this was never going to go long. This was never designed to be a long match. It was exactly what it needed to be. It was two big guys in a quick smash mouth contest. Brock Lesner was doing stuff to this guy that under normal circumstances with anybody else in WWE, it would have an effect on them.

It had no effect on Obafemi. He brushed it off. He no sold it. Or if he went down, if he got dumped with a suplex, he got right back up. Brock hit him with an F5. And he didn't immediately bounce up

like totally no sell it, but like he slowly made his way back to his feet. Like it had no effect. And when Brock turned around, he got chokeslamed, and then he got propped up into the air for Oba's finish, which is the fall from grace.

And he got power bombed. One fall from grace. This was not finisher's spanned. this was not hit your move and kick out five times. He hit his move once. And he pinned Brock Lesnar in the center of the ring. And nobody was more surprised by this than Obafemi. Because they clearly told him, hey, sell the shock of it.

See, he's getting his hand raised and his eyes are wide and he is stunned by what just happened here. Paul Heyman, he's stunned. Everybody is stunned. But people are happy and they're cheering because they wanted so badly to see Obafemi pick up the win here. and Brock is laid out in the ring. He's flat on his back. He didn't roll out. He didn't walk to the back.

He waited until Oba had gone down this entire ramp to the back. 75 yards, they claimed. And once he went to the back, only then did Brock sit up in the middle of the ring. And they cut the music off. And Brock is sitting there and he takes his gloves off. And you can hear the crowd like they knew what this meant. And he started to unlace his boot. Again, I see Cormier is like right behind where the announcers are in the front.

Row and he's reacting to this because he's a big fan. And Brock starts unlacing his boots, taking his boots off. Paul Heyman joins him in the ring and embraces him. And this feels like a retirement, right? This is what you would see if somebody was retiring. Now, of course, you think back to The Undertaker, many years ago at WrestleMania after he lost to Roman Raines. And he took off his hat and he took off his jacket and he took off his glove.

He didn't take his boots off. But I'm watching this that night as everybody else is. And I'm like, oh man, like this is it. This is it for The Undertaker, right? Of course, it wasn't. So you can never be sure with these things. Paul Levec was on ESPN yesterday morning and he was asked about this. And he didn't give a straight answer.

He claimed, well, you know, there was no conversation with Brock when he came back through the curtain. Brock's not the kind of guy who's going to come back to the guerrilla position and have a long conversation with you. Brock Lesnar is the kind of guy who's going to go to the back. and he's going to go straight for his bus, and he's getting the hell out of there. So they never had, he claims anyway, they never had a conversation about, was this a retirement, was this not a retirement? But they paid tribute to him on Raw last night with a video package to some godsmack.

I was instantly transported back to 2002 watching this. And they flat out said that Brock Lesnar has wrestled his final match. So for now, he is retired. And I always say, you're retired until you're not. because that's just the way it works in wrestling. And Brock's all about the money, and if the money is good enough, could Brock Lesnar be coaxed out of retirement for a big match in Saudi or a WrestleMania? Sure.

But it does seem like for the time being anyway, he really is done. And I hope that's the case. I really hope that we have seen the last of Brock Lesnar because putting over Obafemi at WrestleMania in front of 50,000 people, you are not going to get a better send-off than that. Right? The next big thing, 25 years ago, putting over the new next big thing,

and doing the honors on his way out. I don't need to see a match with Gunther because Gunther has this gimmick now where he's retiring people. I think that gimmick is shit. And I love Gunther. But the fact that this is turned into a gimmick now where we got to find somebody for him to retire.

He's going to retire, what? Four, five, six different people. What does that even mean after a while? That's stupid. A Gunther Brock Lesnar match, that would have been great. Time just got away from them. Brock had to go away for a couple of years. We all know why.

And to bring him back for a match with Gunther, to me would be pointless when you had the perfect send-off for this guy this weekend. I don't need to see Brock Lesnar come back and kill everybody and suplex them around. Been there, done that. We've been seeing that since two. 2012, this was the best possible send-off that you could ask for.

Out with the old, in with the new. Oba is the guy. Oba came out on Raw last night. He got the opening entrance on the show. It took him longer to get to the ring than it did for him to cut a promo. And it was very clear. He just stood in the ring and said, the ruler has arrived. And he dropped the mic.

That was his mic drop moment. That's literally all he said last night. And that's all he had to say. Now, also on Sunday, we had the sixth. six-way ladder match for the intercontinental title, Penta, retaining his championship. Really fun ladder match with Dragon Lee, Jvon, Jvon, J.D. McDonough, and Roussev. And it was the right call, keeping the title on Penta. He hasn't even had it for two months.

He's super over. Why would you take it away from him? So kudos to all six of these guys. They all had a chance to shine. J.D. McDonough, I mean, he took a freaking destroyer onto a ladder bridge in the ring. and then he was right back on Raw last night wrestling Finn Baller. So kudos to all six men. Trick Williams.

Yeah, we're talking about the future here in the next big thing and Oba. And again, you could point to certain people and you could just tell, right? That they're probably going to build things around these guys in the next five, ten years. Oba is one of those guys. Bronbreaker is another. This guy is too. Trick Williams. Now, Trick Williams and Sammy Zane.

I'm looking at this match coming into it. and I'm seeing the crowd reactions. I'm hearing them. You are, too. I mean, if you watch the shows, you see it every week. Sammy hasn't done anything wrong. People have started booing him. And the reason they've started booing him is because there's no reason to cheer.

Sammy, he was going around on TV as like a sad sack, all depressed and all like downtrodden, feeling sorry for himself. And I mean, who wants to cheer that? But you know who's really cool and the fans would love to cheer for because he's fun? Trick Williams. He's fun. He's fresh. He's new. That's a guy that the fans want to cheer for,

even though he kind of acts like an arrogant prick. So the fans have already kind of created their own double turn in the last few weeks. WWE didn't really have to do much here in terms of a so-called double turn. And they didn't. I was kind of hoping, though, that Sammy would win. And the reason is he just won the title and only recently has, you know, have the fans begun to kind of turn against him. and he's playing it up like,

I don't know what I did wrong. I don't know why you're booing me. I know I've got my ride or die fans out there. And then he says this and he gets booed. I would lean into that even more. And you want to get more heat on this guy? You have him win at WrestleMania. You have him win by cheating to win.

So I'm not saying that Trick shouldn't win the belt or he's not ready for it. I just think this would have enhanced the feud between the two of them. You could have dragged it out a little bit longer. And it would have driven even more people, I think, in the camp of Trick Williams and wanted, you know, to see him win that championship. And they decided to just put the belt on him. And that's fine. But as with many of the other matches on this show, it was way too short to mean anything.

Again, they got, I think, seven minutes. I mean, you can't muster five more minutes for a United States championship match on this show and just really kind of build to whatever that finish is going to be. There were so many times watching these two nights where I'm like, that's it. Like, it just kind of came out of nowhere. And so it was a great moment for trick, as far as the match is concerned. I can't sit here and tell you it was anything special because it wasn't. Because they got shortchanged. They also gave Finn Baller and Dominic Mysterio 10 minutes for their street fight.

This was the return of Baller's demon persona. We have not seen the demon in several years. The demon, by the way, lost the last two matches that Baller was wearing that body paint. So he had to win here. and thankfully he did. Ria Ripley, brand new WWE Women's Champion, picked up a win over Jade Cargill in what turned out to be one of the better matches

that Jade has had in her career. I can't say it was the best, but it was one of the better ones. Not one of Ria's best. She's had some classics at WrestleMania. This wasn't one of them, but I thought the match they had was good. You know, again, it was good.

It was exactly what it needed to be in terms of, okay, we're going to move Ria over to SmackDown, We got to get the belt on her. And so we'll have Meeching and BFab come out to try to interfere. E.O. Sky comes out to sort of neutralize them. And then Ria wins the championship. Very simple stuff. But they needed a classic in the main event.

Because even though Night 2 was more enjoyable than night one, we still had not had that one match on this card that really like, okay, this feels like WrestleMania. We still didn't get it. and we had Roman Raines and CM Punk in the main event for the World Heavyweight Championship. They needed to go out there and have a classic to save this weekend. And these two men went out there and they knew the assignment. They got 34 minutes and they had an outstanding match.

This was the best, I would even go as far as to say the best match that CM Punk has ever had at WrestleMania. And his WrestleMania resume goes back to, uh, She's, I don't need. 2007, probably. I think he was in like three money in the bank matches in his first three years. But he's had quite a few WrestleMania matches. Obviously, we had that gap in the middle where he was gone for a while. But this was, in my opinion, and look, if you want to say last year the triple threat was better,

I won't argue with you. That was an excellent match too. But in my opinion, this right here was the highlight of his WrestleMania career. And for Roman Reigns, I mean, it's one of them. You know, he's had a lot of. a great match is at WrestleMania, including the last couple of, actually the last three years, to be honest with you. You can go all the way back to 39.

But they just had an outstanding match. And look at what they did. No outside interference. No Pat McAfee. No overbooking. Just two guys out there having a great professional wrestling match. And it felt like they earned the top billing that they got on this show. So I love this match.

I see Roman win the top. title though, and instantly I'm looking at this and I'm concerned as a fan because I'm just left to wonder, are we now going to have an absentee champion on Monday nights? Now, I've mentioned this before. The whole genesis of that World Heavyweight title when they created it in 2023 was because Roman never showed up on Monday Night Raw and he had unified these two titles, but he was never around. Raw had no champion. So the World Heavyweight Championship was born. Now he's the world heavyweight champion. What does this mean? And thankfully those fears were unfounded. Now he said on the post show,

I'm going to be here through the summer. All this talk about me being a part-timer, we're going to fix that. You got me through the summer. Which would seem to telegraph that whoever he defends against it SummerSlam may well be winning the championship from him. But he was on raw last night. He came out. He was flanked by his cousins, Jimmy and Jay. He was cutting a promo at the very end of the show. I was one. wondering who's going to come out. We had already seen Gunther at a backstage segment on the show, so I wasn't expecting him to come out. We had already seen CM Punk. I'm like, who's coming out? Obafemi, he opened the show. None of those men came out. You know who came out? Jacob Fatu came out,

even though he's on SmackDown. He may no longer be on Smackdown. That's not official. Maybe he's, maybe he'll go back to Smackdown after this. But Jacob Fatu comes out. And I'm like, okay, now you've, you've gotten my attention. I'm a big Jacob Fatu fan. This is a match they have stayed away from. It's a match that I've been looking forward at some point to them doing. I mean, you talk about WrestleMania caliber matches. If you were to put this on the WrestleMania marquee, it would not feel out of place. You got a big win over Drew McIntyre on Saturday. Now he's coming out and confronting the champion. And obviously, he's part of the whole bloodline. So they're talking about family. Batu's out there saying, I want everything you have.

I don't just want your world title. I want the bigger house. I want to be able to send my kids to the nicer schools. I want the Rolex. I want the private jet. I want the fancy cars. I want all of it. And Roman tells him, I want the same thing for you. I just don't know that you're ready to, you know, have the burden of being World Heavyweight Champion. I don't know if you can handle it. But Jacob wanted a match with him for the title of Backlash, which is their next PLE, which is only, I think, a couple of weeks away. And Roman said, I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no. I'm going to give you a week to think it over. And then you and I will meet back here on Monday Night Raw next week. So we're totally getting Roman Reigns and Jacob Fattu in the main

event of backlash for the World Heavyweight Championship. And that's a match that I can get behind. What I'm a little less enthusiastic about is the idea of just doing a bloodline reunion. We had Roman out there with the Uso's and they were acting like it was the good old days. Roman even told them, man, I miss this. We need to go back to this. I need you. We have to be together, together we're stronger. The mind manipulation, right? Roman never changed. I always said this about Hogan. Hogan was this big baby face, and when I was a kid, I didn't really see it.

As I got older and I look back and I watch all the old stuff and I look at Hogan, I'm like, man, this fucking guy was a heel the entire time. He was a heel, masquerading as a baby face. Even when he was a baby face in the 80s, he was eye gouge and back rake. I'm like, who does that? What baby face wrestles that way? Roman Raines has never changed Ever since he lost the Cody Roads two years ago And the fans started to really rally behind him

And they put their fingers in the air And they chant OTC What is different about this man now that they cheer for him Whereas before they booed him Nothing Nothing he manipulated his family and storyline back then He's still doing it now But do we really need to go back to a bloodline reunion here

Which is kind of where it feels like we're at now I want to see how this plays out, but I'm not a big fan of them just sort of rehashing the past and just going back to the way things were because, man, things were great. Business was great and everything was great. And so let's just go back to what worked. You know, hopefully they'll put a bit of a different spin on it. I don't know where Fatu is going to end up coming out of this because he's not winning the title. Is it a one and done? He goes back to Smackdown.

Does he kind of take over things and maybe the Uso's end up siding with him? I don't know. I don't know. we'll see how it plays out. But as a match, that's a strong match for that backlash card. Now, earlier on Raw last night, CM Punk came out to address the crowd. He talked about losing the championship the night before.

He's endured a lot of losses over the last several months. He mentioned his MMA trainer, Duke Rufus, who passed away back in October. He mentioned Larry the Dog, crossing over the Rainbow Bridge back in November and a few other people. And now he lost his World Heavyweight Championship. But he made it very clear. He's not going away.

He's not taking time off. He's not going on vacation. Because you never know when a championship opportunity might fall out of the sky. And Cody Rhodes came out. So we had a back and forth interaction between them for a few minutes.

And Cody, by the way, his eye is all fucked up. It's not swollen shut anymore. And apparently there's no orbital injury. They don't think it's anything terribly serious is what I gather from some of these reports. I don't know that he's medically cleared. I don't know when we're going to see him back in the ring. It may not be a backlash.

But yeah, apparently it wasn't the punt kick on Saturday that caught him in the eye. It was possibly a punch just before the finish from Randy Orton. I think a lot of people thought, oh, he got kicked in the face and Randy stiffed him on the punt. Apparently, his eye got all messed up before that. But yeah, his eye was all black and kind of right under the eye, and it was just very gnarly. But anyway, so they're out there and they're going back and forth. and this all ended with punk reiterating, hey, you never know when a championship opportunity might fall out of the sky.

And he went to go leave. And Cody told him, like, basically in so many words, like, you name the time. Like, whenever you want to do it, we'll do it. So a heavy tease for a future match between these two. I don't know if that's something they would want to do this year. Like, it's SummerSlam. I don't know if that's something they want to save for Saudi at WrestleMania next year. But it's one of, if not the,

biggest match right now at this moment that they could do that they still have not done is CM Punk against Cody Rhodes. And I don't know why you would tease it unless you already knew, okay, we're definitely doing this match. It's just the matter of, okay, what event do we want to earmark for it? Now, on Raw last night, we also had a whole bunch of NXT call-ups, which is great. It's great when coming out of mania, they decide to freshen things up a little bit. I like that. Ethan Page, man, he has put the work in in NXT. He came over from AEW, and they weren't doing much with him there. So they put him in NXT, and it was the best thing they could have done with him, because

what it allowed him to do was show them and show the fans, he could carry a brand, right? He won the NXT championship. He won the NXT North American Championship. He was one of the feature stars on that show. Still is. And I think he needed that. I think it would have been a mistake for him to go straight to raw. Smackdown. He needed to show on

NXT, hey, I could be that guy. And the work he's been putting in has been fantastic. So I thought maybe he would end up on Smackdown. He's on Raw. That's fine. He'll be Intercontinental Champion inside of six months. Sol Ruka made her official Raw debut last night. I mentioned earlier.

She went 11 minutes in an impromptu match with Liv Morgan, which was a lot of fun. And man, she hits that Soul Snatcher finish. Everybody's on their feet for it. And she didn't win. Live Morgan and got the win, but they protected her. They had Zaria, who Sol Rook has been feuding with in NXT.

In fact, they're having a match tonight. Sol Rook is not done yet with NXT. Although, it would seem that she probably is not going to win that match. But Zaria came out last night and basically cost her a win. So even though she lost, she had a very impressive showing in there with the world champion, and you can blame Zaria for the loss. So they did everything they could to protect her. She is going to be a massive star.

in that women's division. This was night number one. She had never been on Raw before. And I'm sure, I mean, fans, most fans, if they don't watch NXT, they at least know who she is. She had that match with Bailey on Saturday night's main event back in December, the night that John Cena retired. I was surprised that it took this long to get her back on the main roster. But people knew who she was.

And she came out. She got a great response. They also announced that Joe Hendry is going to be in concert on Raw next week and that he is is officially a member of the Monday Night Raw roster. So we've got some new faces on Monday nights, which means SmackDown is going to need some help because as things stand right now, and I'm sure by Friday, Smackdown will look different, but as things stand right now, Smackdown, they need some help. Now, it would seem to me, CM Punk moving over to Smackdown, is a move that would make a lot of sense. And I think ultimately that's where we end up,

especially if the idea is to do a match, maybe at some point this year with him and Cody Rhodes, he would have to be on SmackDown anyway. So let's say CM Punk potentially moves over to Smackdown. Ria Ripley has already shifted over because she's the women's champion on that brand. Royce Keys, he recently debuted, he's a new face. And then we look to NXT. What are some of the potential NXT call-ups? The first thing that comes to mind for me is Ricky Saints.

and I almost hate to break up the Ricky Saints, Ethan Page pairing. They've been working together on NXT. They've been entertaining together. But I feel like Ricky Saints, wherever CM Punk goes, because I know Punk and Saints are tight. I could see them working together at some point. Ricky Saints could definitely find a landing spot, I think, on Fridays. Blake Monroe.

I don't even know why she's still in NXT. That Smackdown Women's Division could use Blake Monroe. And then Jacey Jane, she just lost the NXT Women's Championship. I think she's absolutely due for a call up. Does she come up alone? Does she come up with her partners in fatal influence? You can call all three of them up. You know, the women's division could definitely use them. So those are some of the moves that I could see playing out on Friday. We'll find that on Smackdown this week. But I wanted to shift over to AW here for a couple minutes because something kind of big happened this past week, and I do think it got lost in all the noise of

WrestleMania this week. But after the AW Dynasty pay-per-view last weekend, Darby Allen got a win over on Dradi El Edelow, and he made it very clear that he was coming after MJF and the AEW World Title. Evidently, everybody knew about this except MJF, who went dark on all of his socials. So when he showed up to Dynamite in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, he was the only one who had no idea that Darby Allen wanted to challenge him for the AW World Championship. And they told this story from beginning to end,

the very beginning of the show, when he showed up to the building, and Renee Paquette informed him that Darby wanted his title match, and he wigged out, and he went out to the ring, and they opened the show with Darby and then MJF came out. So we had a promo back and forth between the two of them.

And the significance of them being in Everett, Washington, is that Darby is from Seattle, and he used to work indies in that area. That's his home. These are his people. And he's been the ultimate underdog in this company really since day one. And he, like MJF, is one of the OGs of AEW. And the two of them, they have a history that even predates AEW, let alone, you know, the early years of the promotion.

So there's history there. My issue with the entire thing, though, is that Darby Allen has never felt colder to me than he did right now. You know, he went to go climb Mount Everest last year. Had he not done that, it would have been him in that spot, I believe, beating John Moxley at all in to win the AW world title. He would have already been champion and probably would have lost it by now, too. But I think that spot was his. He chose to go climb the mountain.

It was something he really wanted to do. It was not an easy thing to do, respect to him for doing it. And he's the ultimate, you know, AW cheerleader in that he went to the top of that mountain. Very few people can say they've done that. and he unfurled this AW flag. There is a photo of him holding the AEW flag, the banner, on top of Mount Everest. And so Tony Khan, I'm sure, was already a Darby Allen fan,

but that was the day that Darby cemented himself, if he wasn't already, as a future AEW world champion. Because I'm sure Tony Khan saw that, and his heart warmed up seeing AEW represented in that way, and it was just a matter of time before this man won the world title. But it would have been nice to kind of build him back up a little bit more to where he felt like a hot commodity again,

which he has at different points, but I just didn't feel that that was the case right now. But they were doing dynamite here in Everett, Washington, and so they built up throughout the entire two hours, this story of Darby wants that title shot. MJF said, no, I'm not ready. He just had a 45-minute or almost 40-minute match with Kenny Omega Dynasty last weekend.

And he was beat up and he was sore, and he had no idea that this match was supposed to be taking place. One thing led to another, and it led to Tony Kahn making the decision that, okay, we'll give you two hours to get ready, but this match is happening tonight. And they really hyped it up throughout the entire two hours. It was a great hook for the rest of the show. It was actually very smart, I thought, the way that they did this. The rest of the show was very kind of hit or miss. I mean, there were a couple of good matches on the show, but it was really just all about this one angle.

I just thought the way they set it up, once I was able to come up, home from Vegas and watch the entire show from start to finish, it made more sense to me than when I initially saw the result on my phone. And I'm like, oh, Darby won the title, which I expected coming into this show. Once I heard that they were making the match, I kind of thought this is where it was headed, but not the way that they did it. So I initially see that he squashed MJF in like two minutes. And my initial thought was, again? Because they had just done the same thing earlier this year with MJF and Brody King on Dynamite. And in that one, he got squashed in about a minute.

It took even less time. Now, you could get away with doing that sort of thing with your champion every now and then and really shock people. But to do it twice in the span of a few months, I'm like, are you kidding me? But I'm watching what they're doing here. And all throughout the night, they have different segments. And, you know, Kevin Knight, who just won the TNT title at Dynasty. He cut a promo after his win.

And he was talking about the main event, the big match coming up in the main event tonight. This was the talk of the town for those two hours. And then we had a segment in the back and Sting showed up. We know all about the partnership between Sting and Darby Allen. Sting shows up and he tells him it's not showtime because Darby's like, oh, it's showtime. No, it's not. It's not showtime. It's your time. Like he's the ultimate hype man. Sting is fantastic. And he sends Darby on his way. Darby looks so nervous. He looked like a little kid going out there on his first day of school. And Sting is his father saying, okay, you've got to go to school today. You're going to be fine. Don't let the other kids pick on you. Just go ahead.

You're going to do just fine. This is your time. You got this. That's exactly what this looked like. And Darby goes out there. We get the big match intros. M.JF, he hands the dynamite diamond ring to the referee. And as the referee goes to, I guess, you know, put it away or whatever, he kicks Darby in the crotch. Right. And MJ.F. He hands the, he hands the, you know, the referee. special. And he was going to take Darby over in the headlock takeover. This is what I said last week. Not only is Darby probably going to win this title.

He's going to either win with a headlock takeover or he's going to counter out of one when MJF goes for one because this has been a recurring story with these two going back to their time on the Indies where MJF multiple times, twice in AEW, beat this man with a side headlock takeover. So he went to do it again. Darby shoved them off. And the referee kind of ducked out of the way, and Darby hit him with a low blow. Scorpion death drop.

We got a coffin drop off the top. Right back up. Second coffin drop. Right back up. Third coffin drop. Right back up. Fourth coffin drop. And then Darby picks him up and he grabs a side headlock takeover.

And he pins him in two minutes to win the AW World Title. And the locker room pours out. Everybody is celebrating. Lex Lugar won the title from Hollywood Hogan on Nitro? I think it was like the 100th episode of Nitro in 97. And they had a title match on TV. I'll never forget it. They were in Detroit.

I remember Mike Tenei on commentary. It's, you know, the Motor City. It's a celebration in the Motor City. And the entire roster poured out to celebrate with Lugar. Or when Kurt Angle beat Stone Cold, a few weeks after 9-11. And I think they were in Pittsburgh. I think they were in Angles' hometown. and he won the WWE championship from Stone Cold.

Entire roster comes out to celebrate. It was one of those moments. You send everybody out there. They're celebrating like he's the big conquering hero. And then Sting comes out. And Sting gets into the ring and he's hugging Darby. He's got a big smile on his face. It's the big feel-good moment.

So having seen the way that they did it, I thought it was very smart. if the goal here was to really try to build this up as a big deal. They did a good job with it. There's nothing wrong with doing a shock title change on TV like this. I mean, they were telegraphing it very hard. I mean, if Darby would have gone out there and lost after all of this, I mean, that would have made him look just really bad,

especially after Sting gave him that little pep talk in the back. Again, I question the logic of beating MJF in the same way like that, twice in the span of a few months. I don't agree with that. MJF is going to be fine because he's just going to play it off as you would expect, right? I wasn't ready. You cheated. Give me my,

he's already doing that on social media. Give me my belt back. And so MJF is going to just be MJF. I didn't have an issue with it when I initially thought about, hey, they might put the belt on him because they've got a pay-per-view coming up at the end of next month in New York City, right, which is MJF's backyard. They're going to be in New York for double or nothing. And I have every expectation that he's going to win the belt back on that show.

Even if he doesn't, though, Darby is not long for a run as the AW world champion. This is not going to last very long. We're not going to be looking at a situation where they're going into Wembley in August with Darby Allen as the AW world champion. Like, I'm not worried about that. The belt will find its way back onto MJF, and he'll be just fine. But these are the sorts of things you can only do every now and then. want to make a habit out of doing it.

I think by and large, A.W. It's done very well to avoid that sort of thing. They don't play hot potato with their world title. I mean, they do with their trios titles. I mean, those things have changed hands, I think, five times so far this year. But they don't mean anything. Who gives a shit about the trio's belts, right? We're talking about the world championship here.

So for one night, it made for a great moment. Him winning with the side headlock takeover. That was a clever little nod to their past. But again, like people saying, oh, MJF is buried. Why would they bury him? He's buried. No, he's not. He's not buried. And he'll have that belt back within six weeks.

Some other quick news and notes here. Former UFC heavyweight champion, Josh Barnett, has shuttered the Bloodsport events that he's been hosting for the last nine years or so. After beating Eugene Nagata in the main event of Bloodsport 15 in Las Vegas, Barnett took to the mic, and he announced the news. He told the crowd that for now the door is closing.

And he's calling it a day. He wants to call us to call. a day while they still have their dignity and the fans still love what they do. And so if you don't know, Bloodsport is basically shoot style pro wrestling done in the vein of MMA. So there's no ropes, there's no turnbuckles. Matches can only end by submission or knockout. It's an interesting concept.

WWE at times has allowed some of its talents like Maddie to work bloodsport shows. And Barnett is very friendly with Nick Kahn. He was also on with Ariel Helwani yesterday on his show. And he went into some more detail about why he chose to close things down. He said it was nothing that happened suddenly. This was something he had been thinking about for quite some time. He had a timeline in his head for where he wanted to be with it. And he just couldn't meet that timeline.

He couldn't meet the goals that he had for it. And he also shut down the idea that, oh, well, Bloodsport might go on under a different name or it might go on without him. He said, nope, it's his concept. It's not going to be revived under any other name. And it's too bad. you know, it's hard to stand out and be unique in the pro wrestling space. Because it feels like everything's been done already in some form or fashion. You know, as wrestling goes, Lucha Underground, that was a very unique concept that worked for a very niche audience.

I was part of that audience. I loved Lucha Underground. And there was nothing like it at that time in wrestling. Worked MMA, I mean, that's been done before. It's not really a new concept. I think it was, what was it, the Rings promotion, I think back in the 90s that started out that way before it transitioned into full shoot fighting. So it's been done

before in different ways, but it's hard to be different these days. And Bloodsport was unique in that way, and unique is good. And some sad news, Mark Hildreth, who was better known in WCW as Van Hammer. He passed away this past week at the age of 66,

or at least that's the belief, is that he was 66. The news was broken by Mark Merrow, who was friends with him. He said they're still awaiting the results of an autopsy as far as the cause of death goes. Moumero said, Mark was a fighter in every sense of the word. Life threw its share of challenges his way, but he had a resilience about him. He always found a way to rise, to push forward, to keep going.

I have so many incredible memories with him that I'll carry forever. We first met while he was vacationing in Venice, Florida, working out at a local gym. Not long after, I got the call from Dusty Roads to come to his office the next day. Mark didn't hesitate. He drove me eight hours so I could sign my very first contract with World Championship Wrestling. That's the kind of person he was, loyal, selfless, and always there when it mattered most. We went through wrestling school together, chased the same dream, and before long, he earned his own contract. We even lived together in Atlanta, training

and grinding and building a life around the passion that we both started. We were also chosen to help promote WCW for the United Kingdom Tour, doing countless personal appearances, TV spots, and even promotional work alongside Gladys Knight. Those were unforgettable moments, times I'll never forget. My heart goes out to his family, his friends, and the fans who supported him throughout his journey. Rest easy, my friend, you will always be remembered. I would say he's most remembered for his time in WCW, both in the early 90s, and then he came back during the Nitro era as a member of Ravens flock. He did have two tryout matches, though, for WWF in 1993. I think it would be cool to see their vault channel on YouTube post those up. I know one of them was against Virgil. The

The other one was against Damien Demento. It was a bit of a dark day back then with some of these gimmicks. They were lean times in 1993. Maybe that's why they didn't bring Van Hammer in. But very sad to hear about his passing. 66 is too young. Anyway, thank you guys for joining me here on Uncrowned This Week, episode number 11. A busy WrestleMania weekend is over.

Now we hit the reset button and we move forward here into the spring. And back next Tuesday with episode number number, 12. If you want to submit questions for me to use here on the show, you may do so. Email me, the Solomaster, at gmail.com. Just put Uncrowned somewhere in the subject line. Or tweet me on X at Solomonstra, using the hashtag uncrowned. We'll come back next Tuesday and do it all over again and talk about the news of the week. For all my other content, you can subscribe on YouTube. Just search Solomaster Sounds off. But for now, when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you guys back here next Tuesday for more on Crown. Take it.