The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | WWE Calls John Cena For WrestleMania, Gunther Returns And Their Randy Orton Problem

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Jason is back with thoughts on Sid Vicious and Bad News Brown getting Legacy inductions into the WWE Hall of Fame (01:54), as well as John Cena being chosen to host this year’s WrestleMania, why it���s happening and how Tom Brady could be involved (12:39). Thoughts on Monday Night Raw from Madison Square Garden, including the latest interaction with CM Punk and Roman Reigns, why Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi feels like the real main event right now for Las Vegas, Gunther finally returns to TV and gets his WrestleMania opponent, and possible explanations for why he would target this person (17:13). New tag team champions crowned as the plight of LA Knight continues (29:33), while Smackdown offers up the WORST show of the year and the fans continue to cheer for Randy Orton despite all of the nefarious things he’s been doing (43:31). Ronda Rousey speaks on her AEW appearance while Josh Alexander speaks on the “severe” injury that’s going to keep him out for a while and why Kyle Fletcher may soon be joining him on that list (1:00:55). A scary end to the TNA Sacrifice main event on Friday night and praise for how the referee handled the situation, plus major news for Scott D’Amore and Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling (1:10:10). And he ends with TWO crazy stories, one about a possible STABBING at an independent show this past weekend as one of the wrestlers was attacked by a fan (1:15:33) and another about an NYC school teacher who embezzled millions of dollars for, among other things, buying WWE tickets (1:18:44).

Welcome to the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. It is Tuesday, March 31st, 2006. I'm Jason Solomon. My favorite story of the week actually had nothing to do with wrestling. I ate a lot of Kit Katz as a kid, but nothing like this. Over 400,000 Kit Kat bars were stolen last week in transit from Italy to Poland. That's 12 tons. What does one do with 12 tons of Kit Kat bars? reminds me of the guy who stole 200,000 Cadbury cream eggs in the UK a few years ago. And it just so happens that Cadbury unveiled the world's largest mini egg yesterday. That weighs in at over 120 pounds.

I think there may be some kick-cats in there. I'm not sure. What the hell do you do with all of that? Like, what do you do? I mean, I guess sell it on the black market before it all melts. Anyway, I've got some more WWE Hall of Fame news. and some thoughts for you this week. A lot to talk about coming out of last night's Monday Night Raw. From Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous arena,

the WrestleMania card is nearly complete. They fleshed a lot of new matches out last night. And a lot of other news and notes for AEW and Beyond to get to this week. I also want to mention, again, that there is now a new dedicated feed for the Uncrowned Wrestling show. Wherever you get your podcast from, you can subscribe there. The show is still available on the, main Ariel Helwani show feed. You may be listening to it there right now, but just be aware you can go and sub to the exclusive uncrown wrestling show feed on Apple, Spotify, and again, wherever you get your podcast from. I was in the middle of recording this show last week when I got a text message with the news that Psycho Sid, Sid Vicious, was being inducted into the legacy wing of this year's WWE Hall of Fame class, which is an honor that's long overdue.

long enough that he died before he had the chance to see it. But I didn't really get the chance to say too much since I was finding out about it in real time. So I wanted to just talk a little bit more about it because I am very happy to see some of these glaring omissions from the Hall of Fame finally being corrected, like Sid and Demolition. As far as this legacy class,

because I know there are some people who are upset that he's going in as part of the legacy class. You know, the legacy wing, if you want to call it, of their Hall of Fame was introduced 10 years ago. And back then, there really wasn't a lot of fanfare at all. You know, no speeches from loved ones, nothing like that. They would just sort of announce you and you get a graphic. Last year, Kamala, Dory Funk Sr. and Ivan Koloff, they were the legacy inductees. And they were at least, you know, afforded video packages and they showed their family members in the audience.

So it's better now than it was when they first started doing it. It's just not a full-blown induction. And this is what they, it looks like they're going to be doing for everybody who's passed away, which unfortunately there have been a lot of names that have passed away. But not long before he died, Sid said that he was hopeful of going in now that Vince McMahon was gone. He thought that that made an induction a lot more likely, Vince not being around. Sid's oldest son, Frank, said, congratulations to the master and ruler of the world, grateful for the recognition by WWE, inducting my dad into the Hall of Fame.

He deserves this, and I wish he was here to be a part of the celebration. And his younger brother, Gunner, said, It is official. My father, Psychosid Vicious, is going into the WWE Hall of Fame. He said proud to be his son and to carry that legacy forward. The Hall of Fame just got a lot more vicious. And Gunner is planning a memorial show in his father's honor on August. 29th in West Memphis, Arkansas called the Psycho-Sid Memorial Benefit Show 100% of the proceeds are going straight to local animal shelters as Sid was a big animal lover.

But it was Gunner who broke the news, I guess, a couple of years ago now is when he passed away on Facebook that his dad had died after battling cancer for several years. And he said that his father was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2016. He was also given a pacemaker. And then in April of 2021, he was diagnosed with state four non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which was linked to Roundup weed killer. So between the cancer battle and then apparently he was diagnosed with COVID, Sid died.

But Sid, you know, when I think back to his career, everywhere this man went, he was super over. Didn't matter where it was. in Memphis at the very beginning WCW, WCWE, ECW, ECW, it didn't matter. Two WVE championships, two WCW championships,

member of the four horsemen, headline the only two WrestleMania as he ever worked. I had the chance to meet him back in 1996 at a signing, not long after he won the world title from Sean Michaels, and he was a very imposing figure. He was a big guy.

He was 6'9, 300 plus pounds. but could not be nicer. Came to the WWF as Sid Justice. Didn't have a long run, but it was memorable. And, God, think of all the big names that were on top there at the time. You had Hogan and Flair and Sid and Savage and Piper. Holy shit. But then he ended up back in WCW,

and he was supposed to beat Vader to win the world title at StarK in 1993. But that was before one of the more infamous incidents in wrestling history, where he and Arn Anderson nearly killed each other overseas in a drunken hotel fight that involved a pair of scissors and a lot of blood spilled up and down the hallways. It looked like a crime scene. The thing about this, Vader had to stick his thumb in the hole in Sid's stomach or else he would have bled to death.

So, he never did win the world title that year. He ended up getting fired. But because he looked the way that he did, and again he was over everywhere he went. He got another chance to go back to WWE in 1995 as the bodyguard for Sean Michaels, who ended up being the man that he would win his first world title from the following year. And by that point, Sid was as popular with the fans as he ever was.

Up to that point. I don't, whatever it was, they cheered him, they booed Sean Michaels. And I mean, I guess why not? Like, Sid was cool. Sean Michaels would come out looking like a Chippendale dancer. He would dance around and prance around. And I mean, it's no wonder the fans in New York that night at the garden

would boo him and cheer Sid. Sid was the man. Guy came out and just had that cool factor about him. Those New York fans, man, they know ball. But he lost the belt back to Sean. Then it was supposed to be a situation where he was going to win it back

from him. Sean conveniently lost his smile. So the title got held up. Sid ultimately got the belt back. He had headline WrestleMania that year with The Undertaker. You know, it's a sore spot with Brett Hart. Don't bring it up to him. Although I think he did okay with that match he had that night with Steve Austin.

But I mentioned earlier, like Sid went to ECW for a few months. Everywhere he went, they just wanted to see him come in and power bomb guys. That's all he had to do. You know, Paul Heyman knew exactly how to use Sid. Then he ended up back in WCW, two more world titles, and a horrific leg injury that, really for all intents and purposes ended his career. It is still the most disgusting in-ring injury

I've ever seen. I mean, again, outside of someone getting paralyzed or something like that, in terms of just an actual injury, it's one of those things I don't even like going back and watching it because to see the boot flopping around like, it's like, ugh, God.

And it was a four corners match for the title. Sid comes off the middle rope, which is something he never did, because why would he? the guy's six foot nine. And when he lands, his leg just snapped in half. And Sid blamed John Laurenitis for making him do the spot, even though he didn't feel comfortable doing it.

But again, just what got Sid over, it wasn't his technical ability, it wasn't his long list of five-star matches. I don't think he ever had one. I mean, maybe one of the war games matches in the early 90s that he happened to be a part of, like 91. That might have been the only quote-unquote five-star match he was ever a part of.

That's not what he was about. It was his size. It was his look. It was his intensity. It was his charisma. That's what made him a star. And if Sid came along today and they let him be himself, he would be over today too. I don't trust the booking in WWE to allow him to be psycho Sid. But no matter what era, no matter what part of the country, no matter what audience he was in front of, he was a big, big star. And I'm very happy to see him taking his rightful. place in the Hall of Fame. Now, after the uncrowned show last week, we had news of another inductee into the W.W.E. Hall of Fame legacy class this year, and that is Bad News Brown, or Bad News Allen, depending, I guess, on where you may have seen him. He is also going in. He has a very interesting background. One of bronze medal in judo in the 1976 Olympics, trained to be a pro wrestler under Antonio Inoki in the new Japan dojo. And Japan is really, you know, and Japan is really where he spent most of his career, often on, well into the 1990s.

But he was already 35 when he came into wrestling. And he was 45 when he got to WWE. You know, a lot of guys maybe are starting to wind things down. He's first coming up, 45 years old. And he did not enjoy his time working there. Vince McMahon evidently made promises to him that were not kept, including promising to make him the first black world champion in the company. This is what he claims.

WrestleMania, he had three different WrestleMania appearances. WrestleMania 4, if you remember that big battle royal that he won, came down to him and Brett Hart. Coming out of that, two of them worked together for several months on the live events. He's the one who gave Brett Hart his first real singles program. And Brett, this is when Brett was still a tag team wrestler.

But for months after that, they worked together one-on-one on the house shows. WrestleMania 6 is going to be the one. one that a lot of people point to the most memorable and not for not for all the right reasons. Yeah, he wrestled rowdy, Roddy Piper. This is the match where Piper painted himself half black. Andre the giant, he messed with the solution that was supposed to take it off after the match. Andre apparently poured it out and put water in it. So Piper had to stay that way, he said, for a good month before it all came off. Meanwhile, he's trained. traveling through customs because WrestleMania was in Toronto that year.

He's traveling through customs to come back from Toronto painted half black with a cowboy hat on his head that he woke up to find in his hotel room, had no idea who it belonged to, and a four-foot-tall Mickey Mouse that he had bought for his daughter. That's quite the image walking through the airport. But bad news main event shows with a lot of big names, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, the WWE Vault Channel, I will tell you on YouTube, just uploaded a few days ago. A pretty fun street, it's like 10 minutes long, but a pretty fun street fight between

Bad News Brown and Randy Savage. But he died of a heart attack in 2007. Hence why, like Sid, he's going in as a legacy inductee. His legacy, I would say, is that of someone that you didn't want to mess with. He was a no-nonsense

guy who kept to himself, did his job, made his money, and went home to his wife in 10 kids. I like the names they're going with, though, for this year's ceremony. Most of them. Most of them. Dennis Rodman and I can take it or leave it. But I think this is a very strong Hall of Fame class this year. Speaking of WrestleMania, we got some news yesterday about who will be hosting this year's event. They just can't quit this man. They just can't do it. John Sina, after losing his retirement match to Gunther on Saturday night's main event in December, is already

back and he will serve as the official host of this year's festivities. He posted a video from the set of the Netflix comedy that he is currently filming with Jennifer Garner that is due for a release in October. He said, ah, retired life in the sun. I'm kidding. Check out the backdrop. I'm shooting a movie for Netflix called One Attempt Remaining, which you can see when it comes out. I'm also on the road, which is ironic, because there's a road to WrestleMania going on. And Hollywood is really close to Las Vegas. Rumor around this town is WrestleMania needs a host. Well, I'm already on that road, so I will see you at WrestleMania. And Fightful Select is reporting that the decision for Sena to host WrestleMania was said to be made to help boost ticket sales for the event.

Still relying on John Cena to sell tickets, I see. I mean, I don't blame them. He sold a lot of tickets for them last year. Like a lot. And they would also sell more tickets. if they brought down the prices more than they have, but it's easier to just throw another big name out there to get people excited. And I see some people online that are, I don't know if it's anger or they're just negative on the news and kind of joking that, you know, he just retired

and people paid good money to see it. Now he's back, like that sort of thing. It's like, you know what, get over it. He's hosting the show. He's not getting in the ring and wrestling a match. Although I will say I can't see him hitting an attitude adjustment on somebody. I can't say that. that he won't get physical with somebody.

But he's not wrestling a match. He's hosting the show. It's not a big deal. Is it sad that they're bringing him back in large part to try to move tickets at a time when tickets are lagging behind where they were last year? Yeah, it's kind of sad that they feel the need to do this. Yeah, three weeks before the show. Hey, John, we need you.

We need you, buddy. We need you to make a detour. Come on down to Las Vegas. But in the big picture, it's not a big deal. You know, they're going to want to load the show. up with as many big names as they can get. Why do you think we see jelly roll on television so much? You know, Friday nights we got jelly roll in four different segments. Now we got I Show Speed on Mondays. See, I'm thinking there may be something brewing here with Tom Brady. It's been a lot of chatter

about Tom Brady being in negotiations with WWE and having conversations about having some kind of role at WrestleMania. Oh, I'm sure they'd love to get their hands on Tom Brady. Tom Brady, I show speed, and jelly roll, the trifecta. So if they can get their hands on him, believe me, they will. But now I'm wondering if maybe the idea could be some sort of segment maybe with Brady and John Cena. I could see it. I mean, look, they've clearly been working an angle in the media where Brady has asked

about WWE and he's made all these comments about, oh, it's cute. It's cute. You have their little play fighting, but it's not like the NFL. It's not a real sport. They're not as tough as us. Like, we've been hearing a lot of this from him. And I don't believe for a second. going out there and going into business for himself or that he honestly

believes some of the stuff that he says feels to me like it's building to some sort of big angle at WrestleMania. Is Tom Brady going to get his attitude adjusted at WrestleMania? If they want their big sports center moment, then there it is. That would be it. But let's talk about Raw. Last night from Madison Square Garden, before I do, though, unfortunately, it's going to be a little more expensive to watch Raw. Netflix going forward. Netflix this past week announced that they are raising prices yet again. The ad-supported tier, which is the cheapest one, is going up by a dollar to $899 per month. The standard plan without ads is going up $2 to $19.99 per month, and the premium plan will now run you $26.99 per month.

They are raising prices after collecting almost $3 billion from Paramount. as a breakup fee after dropping its bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. They got $3 billion for doing nothing. What a world. And this is a year after their last price increase, smacking us in the face and kicking us in the crotch. That's quite the combo. But last night we had another showdown between CM Punk and Roman Rains.

This is one of your WrestleMania main events this year. And I feel like most of the segments we've seen, from them since the first one. It's been this kind of downward slope where they have gotten progressively worse, although last week, last week was not as bad as the week before. So I guess we got a little bump up. But nothing has been able to match the, I don't know if it was the novelty of it or or what it was, but just that first face-to-face between them coming out of the Royal Rumble. And everything they've done since then has been inferior. Last night was not a a bad segment. There was no talking. First time there was no talking between the two and then

Roman Raines came out at the end of the show, took his sweet time, doing all the aura farming that he always does, standing there for minutes on and looking out at the crowd. Very exciting stuff. And CM Punk comes out and he's got jeans on, his fists are all taped and he looks pissed because last week he got power bombed through the announced desk. So now this was his shot at revenge. He comes down to the ring. They immediately start brawling. They're fighting. all over ringside. We got the obligatory WWE pull-apart brawl, which we get at least one of them every week on TV.

So they mean less and less. This one at least was not as bad as the one from Friday. I'll get to that. But they're fighting outside the ring, and it ends with CM Punk, power bombing Roman reins through the announced desk. So the exact same thing they did last week, only this week it was Punk doing it to Roman. And

punk was shouting out all kinds of crap and you know, talking smack. He had this look in his eyes. Even the announcers were saying he had this like craze look in his eyes. He was laughing at himself. He started he started mocking Roman by, you know, he kind of knelt down beside him and was singing the song that all the fans sing. Yeah, the Roman Rain song, chanting his name. I thought punk was actually really good in this segment. Roman didn't do much. So I can't really say a whole lot about him. I thought it was fine. It was fine, but it just feels

like we're treading water here. You know, there was no follow-up as far as the Uso's are concerned. There was no involvement, really, from anybody else. It was just the two of them. I appreciate the physicality. I mean, not a lot of creativity involved in terms of what they did. It was pretty straightforward stuff. And now Roman is not even going to be on the show next week.

He's not scheduled to be there. The last time that, or the next time, really, will be the last time that we see him before WrestleMania. It will be that final Monday, before mania. And perhaps we'll get a contract signing. We had one with Cody and Randy Orton. I don't know why they wouldn't do one with Punk and Roman. So, you know, they're in a decent spot right now.

There's just not a whole lot of, I guess, intrigue going into the match to the extent that I was kind of hoping for. You know, I do still feel like there'll be some family involvement. The Uso's will be involved in some way when it comes to that match. Beyond that, I don't know what they're going to do, but just you got two big names having their first thing. singles match. We've not seen them one-on-one before. So there's the novelty of that. It's a big-time match. It just has really, I feel like it's cooled off quite a bit from that level of excitement that we had coming out of the Rumble when we first saw them in the ring together. And Roman made his choice, right? I choose you. I'm going after you in your championship at WrestleMania. I hate

you. Remember that first promo? It was so good. And they just have not been able to match that level of intensity and frankly it just kind of felt to me like they ran out of things to say. There wasn't a whole lot of material there. They kind of blew their stack that first week. Ever since then, it's been like, eh, let's see what's going on over here with Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. Let's talk about Brock Lesnar and Obafemi. This is basically the opposite of what I just talked about.

This is a match that every single week, what they have done so far between these two men, has me more excited for this match than any of the game. other single match right now at WrestleMania. This feels like the WrestleMania main event attraction. Brock Lesnar, Oba Femi, first time ever, the beast and the ruler, it just sells itself.

At first week when Oba came out, he, again, Brock way up into the air and powerbombed him. It was this great scene. Even Oba had tears streaming down his face. He was so amped up and emotional. Such a big moment for him. and he got one over on Brock. Week number two, last week,

he gets one over on Brock again and clotheslines him out of the ring, and Brock has been selling this to perfection. So I figured, okay, they're at the garden this week. Brock has been embarrassed two weeks in a row. He has to get his revenge, right? He has to do something now to get back at this guy. And so he comes out last night,

and he's dressed for combat. He's in the shorts, he's got the gloves, the boots. He looks like he's ready for a match. She's ready for a fight. Oba Femmy comes out. Of course, Adam Pierce doesn't want these two going at it because then they're going to blow the WrestleMania match. Oba doesn't care.

He's tossing security guys around. He shoved Adam Pierce aside. Circling the ring like a shark tasting blood. We've seen Brock Lesnar do this. How many times? Stalking his prey, right? Circling the ring gets up on the apron, gets into the ring. You hear the crowd.

Holy shit, right? These people are into it. way that they're not into anything on this show. Anything else, not to this extent. You can hear the excitement. You can see it. You can hear it. There's a lot of WWE crowds when it comes to some of these segments with other talents

that it's like they're sitting on their hands. So there's just something special about this. And Paul Levec slides into the, I don't even know where he came from, but he slides into the ring to get in between these two guys and he's yelling at them. You're not going to do it here. You'll do it at WrestleMania. He's getting up and brusselmany. He's getting up and brink.

Brock's face and Brock backs down. Yet again, same thing that happened last week. Brock backs down from Oba Femi and Oba is standing tall. That's three weeks in a row, which is great in terms of how they've positioned Obafemi, man. I mean, they've positioned him as strong as you possibly can. But then I also look at it and go, that's three weeks in a row. He's gotten one over on Brock. Brock's winning this match at WrestleMania.

I mean, that's 100% as I sit here today on the 31st of March. Okay, we're still, well, we're less than three weeks out now, two and a half weeks, whatever it is. And it absolutely feels to be like Brock Lesnar is going over at WrestleMania. Now, Brock was on the Barstool Sports Spit and Chicklets podcast last week. This is what he said about his current WWE run. He said, I went back to work so I could feed my kids. You guys should see my grocery bill. I'd left the company years ago, and I'm grateful that I'm back for a short time here.

And that little piece of the quote got a lot of people talking, got a lot of people thinking. It got me thinking about what John Cena said last year. And it might have been with Chris Van Vlead. I don't remember exactly who it was with. But he kind of just randomly, in the course of whatever answer he was giving, mentioned that Brock is going to be, I guess, exit. retiring, leaving, having his last match in Minneapolis. SummerSlam this year happens to be in Minneapolis.

So you put two and two together and it's like, oh, is Brock Lesnar having his last match this year at SummerSlam? It's possible. Him saying that he's back only for a short time would certainly, I guess, add some credibility to that. And you start thinking about the potential outcome of this match of WrestleMania. I would like to see Obafemi go in there. If you want to push this guy, if you want people to look at this guy as the real deal and something special, I have no complaints about what they've done with this man so far.

These last three weeks have been pitch perfect, but you still have to have the match. You can make him look as good and as strong and as dominant as you want to in the lead up to WrestleMania. But if he goes in there and gets suplex, let's say, ten times and then pinned, and I'm not saying that's going to happen. But it all comes down to what happens in the match. you sort of wash all the goodwill you've built up. You wash it away in five minutes. You don't want to do that. Now, if they go in there and have a competitive match, a smash mouth match, very much like the match that Brock had with Bill Goldberg back at WrestleMania in Orlando many years ago, that was a great match. That match was exactly what it needed to be. And it didn't overstay

its welcome. That was like a six-minute match. I don't think this has to go that much longer than that. If they have that kind of match and Brock survives Oba, More than he beats him, he survives him. It doesn't do that much harm to Obafemi, but he still loses. And I think if you really want to show people that you're all in on this guy, he should go in there and win. Every week that goes by, though, that we see him standing tall and dominant over Brock, it does not make that very likely. But if the idea is that we're going to get two matches out of this, people are excited. So let's get two matches out of it instead of one.

Let's have them have this kick-ass five, six, seven-minute match of WrestleMania. Brock wins. Run it back at SummerSlam. If that really is, Brock Lesnar's last match, he does the honors, he puts over Obafemi on the way out. Same thing he did for Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam a couple of years ago before he disappeared.

And we didn't see Brock again for two years. You know what? I'd be okay with that. But if the idea is that he's going to beat Oba, and then wrestle somebody else, let's say, it's SummerSlam, and you're not going to run this back again, I very much don't like that idea. That is something I do not want to see.

Now, someone had floated to me the idea of, and I'm going to talk about Gunther here in a second, but the idea of Gunther agreeing to take care of Seth Rollins or WrestleMania in exchange for Paul Heyman promising him a match with Brock Lesner, which is an interesting theory, and I could see that. And they wouldn't even need to reveal that right away. You know, it could be an IOU for later on,

because we just saw Gunther back on TV last night attacking Rollins of all people, and we don't yet have the explanation as to why. Maybe it's a situation like that where there was some, you know, negotiations going on behind the scenes between the two of them. And we don't get the big reveal on what it was that was promised to Gunther until we get a little closer to SummerSlam. And then we get the reveal that it was for a SummerSlam match with the idea that Gunther would retire Brock Lesner in Minneapolis.

And not that Paul Heyman would like the idea of Brock retiring, but just, I want that match. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine. You do this for me, I'll do this for you, that sort of thing. I'm not saying I don't want to see Gunther and Brock Lesnar wrestle at some point, but I'm just saying if Brock was to go in, there and win in Las Vegas, then the only match I really care to see is Oba and Brock. You've got to run that back and give Oba a big win at some point.

If you wins at WrestleMania, then this is all moot. You could do whatever you want at SummerSlam. But I just think it's so important to give him that big win. Like you can do everything in the world on TV. But if you want to build someone's credibility, like in wrestling, the best thing you could do is just have them go out there and win. It sounds so easy. and so many times they just, they get it wrong.

We've seen people, you know, who are in this situation where they lose the big match and people just look at them differently or they lose too often. And then it just feels like, well, they're just another guy on the show. Obafemi should not be treated as just another guy. And that's how you really build credibility.

Ultimately, in the end, you've got to go out there and be able to win. If you're going to talk shit, you've got to be able to go out there and back it up. We have new world tag team champions. As of last night, The Vision. Logan Paul and Austin Theory, they got a win in a New York City street fight over the Uso's.

I mentioned I Show Speed before. He was there at ringside in the front row next to Logan's mom. And when Logan went over to take some brass knucks from his mom, who was feeding them to him, show, you know, I Show Speed was not really into this idea. He's trying to tell him, bro, don't do it, don't do it. L.A. Knight comes over. He was doing commentary.

He's going after Logan. Logan has his arms wrapped around Speed, who gets dragged over the barricades and now I show speed is at ringside. He ends up picking up the brass knucks. They were on the ground. puts him on his hand. L.A. Knight comes up from behind, not to attack him, but he has no idea, you know, speed does that L.A. Knight is behind him.

Turns around and he blasts L.A. Knight in the head with the brass knucks. One thing leads to another. Logan ends up using the nux to knock out Jimmy. Uso and the Vision win the tag team titles. Now, let me talk about L.A. Knight here because L.A. Knight, we talk about Gunther, not being around and what's he going to be doing at WrestleMania. You can say the same thing about L.A. Knight. L.A. Knight has not wrestled a match since the elimination chamber a month ago.

And I mentioned last week that he had this giant, like, tennis ball on his left elbow. Like there was something going on there. And during the week, he was asked about it. And on X, L.A. Knight said, being on the back end, end of a Bursa flare up won't keep me from the road to WrestleMania. So I knew I wasn't seeing, you know, imagining things there. I know what I was seeing and that did not look good. But evidently, it's not going to stop him from having a match of WrestleMania, but what

is that match going to be? Now, last week, when Knight came out to attack Logan, because we had the first match between the Uso's and the vision, it ended via disqualification. But during the course of that match, L.A. Knight's music hit, Logan's looking around with Where is he? Where is he? And LA Knight came running through the crowd and he jumped over the barricade. Now, this was not shown on television. Thank God for him. Because when I saw this clip on X, I died laughing. Knight is running. He leaps over the barricade, but in such a way he slips. And he just goes flying. And you can't even see the moment of impact because it's on the other

side of the barricade, but dude, like, if you have not seen this video and you want a good laugh for the day, go find this clip. Like, the way he went flying, it was, it was like something out of a cartoon. Someone has to put, like, a cartoon noise to it. So then last night, he comes out for his entrance. He's going to do commentary for the tag team title match. He gets up on the ropes, and he almost fell off the top rope. Even Jay Uso in the ring, Jay Uso of all people. is pointing at him and laughing at him for botching. Man almost fell off the top rope and fell to the floor. This guy can't catch a break right now.

He's tripping, he's falling, he's flying, he's got Bursa in his elbow, he's got no WrestleMania match. I mean, it has not been a good year for L.A. Knight. But then you see what they did last night, and I'm like, are we really looking at a singles match between L.A. night and I show speed at WrestleMania. And then I thought about it some more. We don't really know where the vision of the Uso's are going to be slotted in.

It seems like it might be more likely we get a six-man tag. Where L.A. Knight teams with the Uso's. He's been hanging around them a lot. All of a sudden, like they're best friends. I think we're probably looking at a six-man tag. Usos in L.A. Night against the vision and I show speed. Seems to be the direction coming out of that show last night. Now, I mentioned Gunther.

Boy, you talk about somebody who's been MIA for weeks. He had that kick-ass match at the beginning of the month on Raw with Dragon Lee, which caused some controversy in and of itself when he tried to pull the mask off, and they showed Dragon Lee's face for like a split second. It turned into this whole big controversy. We have not seen Gunther since. The word on the street has been that the planned match for WrestleMania

was going to be Gunther and Ray Mysterio, which kind of would have been. made sense. Ray Mysterio's good friends with Dragon Lee. Maybe he would have, you know, stood up for Dragon Lee, and it would have led to a match. I honestly can't say that's a match that excited me very much. But Ray Mysterio was suffering from a couple of fractured ribs, which evidently he has not fully recovered from. And we now have a completely different direction for Gunther, because last night, Paul Heyman was in the ring. Seth Rollins came out to attack Paul Heyman yet again. This has become a weekly occurrence. And before he could stop,

his big fat head into the mat, Gunther shows up. He drags Rollins out of the ring, puts him in a sleeper hold, and puts him to sleep, and then points up at the WrestleMania sign. In case you didn't know where this was headed, and then they made it official later on in the show

where Adam Pierce announced it will be Seth Rollins one-on-one with Gunther at WrestleMania because Seth Rollins has been medically cleared. Not only has he been medically cleared, Adam Pierce also told Paul Heyman last night that Seth Rollins was released, by the Boston Police Department after what happened on the show the week before. But he has also been medically cleared.

Seth Rollins has his opponent. Gunther has his opponent for WrestleMania. And there's a lot to digest here about all of this. And there's going to be a lot of debate about the merits of this match. I will just say this. John Sina, okay, the man who Gunther retired three months ago, was announced for WrestleMania before. Gunther was.

And the idea of waiting even one more week without either seeing the man knowing he exists, hearing from him, would have been completely absurd. He had to be on that show last night. They had to establish some sort of direction for him or WrestleMania. This is not the direction that I was hoping for. This is not the direction I think that a lot of people were hoping for. This is not the direction that WWE wanted to go in. But they were in a situation where people got hurt.

Seth Rollins got hurt, Braun Breaker got hurt, Ray Mysterio got hurt, all of these things happened. And they had to adjust, and they had to come up with a plan B and a plan C. So this was not the intended WrestleMania match, but here we are. It is a match that we have never seen before. These two have not had a one-on-one match before. Seth Rollins is very good. Gunther may be the best in the world right now. Michael Cole literally just the other day called him, in his opinion, the best wrestler on the planet.

and if that's what you think I would not argue with you. It's a valid argument and you're going to put the two of them in the ring together at WrestleMania. The bad part about this is it's a cold match that's not going to have much of an explanation for it.

We'll hopefully get that explanation on TV next week. That's the only question that's really left to be answered. What is going to be Gunther's rationale for showing up now and going after Seth Rollins? What's the reason? You know, the reason that I wasn't really hot on the idea coming into this. And I, last week, I think I had talked about the possibility of a Gunther Seth Rollins match. And it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me because

Gunther is not Brock Lesnar. He's not a hired gun. He's not a mercenary who will take the payday and go do someone else's dirty work. It doesn't really fit his character. It doesn't mean they can't come up with some sort of rationale for why he would suddenly show up and go after Seth Rollins and it could be as simple as him being upset that we're heading into the biggest show of the year and he doesn't even have a match. But yet this guy is showing up on television every week and he's attacking people, he's

dressing up as one of the putty people from the fucking Power Rangers and Gunther just couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't stand to sit at home on his couch for another week and let another week go by and keep watching this. And so he decided to just show up and take matters into his own hands. Pretty thin rationale,

but it's a rationale. Or you can go with what I just talked about a few minutes ago, where maybe he was having conversations with Paul Heyman. And Paul Heyman was asking him and calling upon him to do him a solid, and Gunther said, okay, I'll do this. But I need something in return. And maybe later on, down the road,

we'll find out that what that was was a promise, a guarantee for an eventual match with Brock Lesnar. As far as this match goes with him and Seth, I mean, you can't really make this a career match. I know he's the career killer. It doesn't really work here. Nobody is going to buy into that. If you make this a career match,

nobody is going to buy into the possibility that Seth Rollins, who just got medically cleared, by the way, to come back, is going to lose the match and lose his career to Gunther. Nobody's going to believe that, which means, what, is Rollins going to win? You're going to have Rollins beat Gunther at WrestleMania? Because that would be pretty stupid. I mean, there's really no good outcome here.

This is Rollins' first match back. He has an argument to be made about going after the World Heavyweight Championship because he never technically lost the title. You really want to beat him in his first match back? I mean, maybe if it was Braun Breaker in there, I'd feel a little bit better about that because Braun could use the rub of a big mania win, but I don't know.

I don't know that that is necessarily the best idea. but Gunther certainly shouldn't be losing. I mean, you give me the decision to make. Gunther's going over 10 times out of 10 in that match. What this means is that Braun Breaker was obviously not medically cleared to WrestleMania. Now, there was video that some fan shot outside the garden last night. It was clearly Bronbreaker. He was being escorted into the building.

So he was there last night. Maybe he was there to be evaluated and they made the decision that you're not ready yet. Because if he was ready, that would be the WrestleMania match. So that tells me he's not cleared. It tells me Ray Mysterio is not cleared. And this is the match that we ended up with. Now, speaking of Madison Square Garden, Russell Votes,

should mention this here before I get to the rest of what happened last night, but Russell Votes was first to report that WWE was planning a Saturday night's main event special at the Garden on July 18th, which is the night of Fanatics Fest in New York City. This was confirmed on Raw last night. It's hard to believe, you know, as important a venue, as MSG has been to this company for so many decades. And Saturday Night's main event is a show that dates all the way back to 1985.

And back then they were having them, I don't know if it was monthly, but they had several per year for like a several year stretch. There have been a lot of Saturday nights main event shows. This is only going to be the second time that the show has taken place in Madison Square Garden. The only other time was 2007 during that short, in my opinion, terrible revival of the show. I think it lasted, what, two years? That was the only other time.

It's hard to believe. Penta defended his Intercontinental Championship last night successfully against Kofi Kingston. And then after the match was over, he was interviewed and he said, WrestleMania, let's hang the title up from the ceiling. Ladder match. We found out the field for the ladder match later on. Penta will be defending against Dragon Lee, Javon, Rusev, and J.D. McDonough. and they had Michael Cole on commentary claim that these men qualified for the match through wins on WWE main event,

which is about as real as Hulk Hogan almost becoming the basest for Metallica, in that this never ever happened. Like Rusev, for example, Rusev has not wrestled anywhere since losing to Obafemi three weeks ago on Monday night Before that, his last win came on main event against Joaquin Wilde of the LWO on Groundhog Day. J.D. McDonough has not, by my checking around here, has not even had a match since November. I don't know why they would say that. It's just such a weird lie. It's so demonstrably false.

Like, why even say it? Just put the graphic up and say that these are the men that are in the match. So the field, look, I mean, there's some impressive names in there, Dragon Lee, J.D. McDonough. You know, it's not really the most exciting field. And who's to say the field is complete? They could add one or two more. You know, the Americanos, they're unaccounted for. Penta hasn't really been able to get away from these guys for about a year now.

They may be added to the match as well. We'll see. Women's tag team titles were defended last night. Naya Jackson Lash Legend. still the champions they were defending against Bailey and Lyra Valkyria. We got another terrible finish in just a revolving door of them recently. So the fatal four-way has been made official. The fatal four-way that I'm sure we all saw coming from five miles away.

Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, Bailey and Lyra Valcuria, the Bella Twins, and Nia Jackson Lash Legend. That is going to be the match for WrestleMania for the women's tag team titles. Now let's flip over to the Smackdown side. Got a lot to say about Smackdown. Smackdown on Friday was among the worst shows that I have seen all year. Like you watch that show on Friday, and you would never know that WrestleMania was right around the corner. It is so dull.

It is so lifeless. It is so paint by numbers. Okay. Case in point, we had the show closing brawl between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. This is one of the WrestleMania main event. Vince. And it was a match that, and still is, but it's a match that I've been waiting a long time to see. Ever since Cody came back to the company four years ago, I'm like, man, you got to get the inevitable match with all the history, the rich history between Cody and Randy. And they waited and

waited and waited and finally four years later were getting the match. But Cody Rhodes had been bloodied up, left for dead a few weeks ago by Randy Orton. Friday was the return of Cody Rhodes. But before that, Randy Orton was attacked at the beginning of the show by Matt Cardona. Matt Cardona had his wrist broken by Randy Orton the week before. So he wanted revenge. And so did Orton for this guy coming out and attacking him. So he got a match made for later in the show with him and Cardona. And it was yet another week where no matter what Randy Orton says, no matter what Randy Orton does,

these fans do not want to boo this man. He can do no wrong. There's nothing he could do to get back. He could walk up to a grandmother in the front row and smack her across the face and the fans would chant one more time. Okay, there's just, there's nothing that he could do. So he's out there with Matt Cardona and he's just kicking this guy's ass. And the fans are, you know, cheering and chanting for Randy Orton. He pins Cardona.

Thanks for coming. And then Cody Rhodes arrives in his bus. and he comes out to the ring, we got the obligatory pull-apart brawl. I think Triple H dreams about these brawls in his sleep at night. We get so many of them. Now, even though they're overdone, there are good pull-apart brawls, and there are bad pull-apart brawes. Unfortunately, we get more bad than good. But in this case, this is the WrestleMania-made event that we're talking about.

This is Cody Rhodes. He's the face of the company. He's QB-1, right? W.W.E champion. And you got Randy Orton. right a legend in this company and they're out there and it just feels to me i'm watching this like they're just going through the motions they're just going through the motions and they're stretching for time this thing went on for so went on for like five business days this brawl i think they were

just trying to get to the top of the hour it felt like they went short maybe elsewhere on the show there's just a whole lot of nothing going on one guy breaks free jumps on the other okay now it's my turn, it's just such a, such a trope at this point. But then Jelly Roll comes out. Yes. We had Jelly Roll wrestling, by the way. Kit Wilson on SmackDown, he got a win over Kit Wilson. But Jelly Roll is, I mean, he's, he's in the ring. He's in these backstage segments. And he's very good. Look, when he's cutting a promo, he's very good. I'm not saying he's the shits or anything like that. But there is no reason for Jellyroll to be all over the television show like this, this close to WrestleMania.

But they've established that he and Randy Orton are friends. So he comes out in the middle of all of this, all of this brawling that's going on. And he's trying to get in between these two guys. And Randy Orton drops jelly roll with an RKO. And the fans chant, Randy, Randy, Randy, they love it. They love it. Because he's in that legends territory. It's like John Cena a year ago, man.

They don't want to boo this guy. They want him to go to WrestleMania and win championship number. 15. That is what they want. And I said this the other day. I think it's a matter of them just liking Randy more than they hate Cody. I know there are some people that absolutely hate Cody and think he's boring and don't understand why he's the champion. But there are people also who I think, and I'm kind of in this camp where they're just, they're tired. You know, they're fatigued of Cody. And so Randy is as weird as it is for me to sit here and say this, Randy is like, like the new thing, which again, I know that's a wild thing to say. But he kind of is because we haven't

seen this version of Randy Orton in many, many years. And Randy hasn't even held a championship at about six years, like a world championship. So it is fresh and new compared to just Cody Rhodes coming out and doing what Cody Rhodes does. So they're going to have this match of WrestleMania. It is going to be just, I mean, you want to put a percentage on it. 80-20, I would say, in favor of Randy Orton. Yeah, when it comes to crowd reaction to WrestleMania, I just find this whole thing to be hilarious. And the thing is, I know it's not, it's not supposed to be that way. It's not supposed to be entertaining in like a ha-ha kind of way, but I see these reactions. They're doing what they feel in their mind they need to be doing to get Randy Orton booed and it ain't going to work. And I'm

just sitting here and I'm just laughing, but this is one of the main events of WrestleMania. This is supposed to be a serious angle. This is not intended to be comedy. but I find it entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Now, Cody dropped by Busted Open Radio yesterday, and he opened up about the fan reaction to him. He said, I don't take it personally. I think maybe when I was younger I did. And certainly there's no absolute in that.

I'm sure some things kind of slipped through the armor a little bit and you feel it. But my thought in terms of fans today more than ever is that we are out there in whatever their emotional need is. If they need to cheer for you, if they need to cheer for him, I can't be angry at them. Whatever it is that they need. If they're cheering for Randy as he seeks number 15, even with the things he did, okay. I'm not there to try to tell you you're wrong or right.

There's no wrong way to be a fan. So right now it hasn't gotten to me. I'll be honest, sometimes maybe it will, but right now, no. I mean, I don't really understand how they wouldn't have seen this coming. I mean, this should not really come as a surprise to anybody. Cody has been, there's going to be Cody's, what is this now, his fourth? WrestleMania main event? Third or fourth, straight?

Randy Orton has kind of been on the back burner for a long time. Number 15 is off in the distance. I mean, what did you expect? Like, what did you expect? And if Cody goes in there, by the way, and wins at WrestleMania. Ooh, boy. Oh, boy, especially if they're not going to do a double turn, which I don't think they will. That ain't going to be pretty.

Cody was on Raw last night and Stephanie McMahon came out. Talk about random. Although Stephanie does have history with Randy Orton, so she was trying to explain to Cody, like you have no idea what you're up against here. If this version of Cody Rhodes goes into WrestleMania, you will lose. You will lose the WWE championship.

And she ended up smacking Cody because he made a... She had made a comment about you're not like your father. Cody came back at her and said, well, I could say the same about you. You're not like your father. And Stephanie does what Stephanie does, and she gave him a slap across the face. with the idea that she's trying to dole out some tough love.

I'm sitting here just wondering, is Stephanie McMahon the person that Randy Orton has been on the phone with over the last few weeks? I thought maybe it was Kevin Owens. I still kind of feel that way, but Stephanie being out there and pretending to be there to dole out some tough love for Cody Rhodes, I don't know.

I don't know. Is Stephanie going to be the one? God, I hope not. I am not interested in Authority 2.0. We already went through that over a decade ago. I don't have any interest in seeing that again. Drew McIntyre and Jacob fought too. Their match is official now for WrestleMania.

It will be an unsanctioned match. Basically a street bite. Basically the same kind of match that Drew McIntyre had last year against Damien Priest. But interesting point. During the verbal exchange between these two on Friday, McIntyre again denied that he was the one who knocked Jacob's teeth out.

in October. When Fatu took a break and he disappeared for a while, he actually did have dental surgery. But the belief on Jacob Fatu's part is that Drew McIntyre is the one behind it. That's why when he came back, he went right for Drew McIntyre. McIntyre, two or three different times now, has denied having anything to do with that. You know, and I know he's a heel and heels lie, but he's been denying it in a way that makes me, yeah, it's pretty clear to me anyway. Like, he didn't do it. And plus, it would just be so lame. Like, oh, it was Drew McIntyre all along. Like, yeah, okay, that's the low-hanging fruit. That's the easy choice. And I said, I've been throwing Randy Orton's name out there. And you see what Orton's been doing over the last few weeks.

I'm sticking to that. I'm sticking to my guns on that. I think coming out of WrestleMania, they're going to have a program between Randy Orton and Jacob fought to at some point, not long after Mania. I don't know if that's going to be the backlash match, but it will come out at some point. And I do believe that Randy Orton was the one who actually punt kicked him in the mouth, knocked his teeth out all those months ago, and we're going to end up with a Randy Orton Jacob Fatu program. Carmelo Hayes lost his United States championship on Friday to Sammy Zane, three weeks before WrestleMania.

This was after Nick Ald has told Sammy, I don't have a spot for you on the card. Unless something changes, you're not going to be at WrestleMania. So Sammy went out and he won himself the U.S. title. So now he's got a match at WrestleMania. He's going to be defending that championship against Trick Williams. The same Trick Williams, by the way, who interfered in that match and inadvertently blasted Carmelo Hayes in the face,

thus costing him the United States championship. So Trick was rewarded with a title match, and as of this moment, Carmelo Hayes has no match at WrestleMania. Even though the only fair thing to do would be to add him to the match between Sammy and Trick and turn it into a triple threat, and I sure hope that that happens on Smackdown this week. Because even if you just look at it from a storyline perspective, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for Trick to be rewarded with a title match

and for Carmelo Hayes to be left off the card. Which if he is, that is a disgrace. But I'm also wondering, are we going to get a double turn with Sammy and Trick? The other has been shattered. The WWE is interested in potentially a baby-faced Trick William. and I really don't want them to turn him into a baby face. I just, I want it to happen organically. Like, Trick's got a good thing going.

Don't fuck with it. Don't mess with it. But I still think there is a way that you could do a double turn without like overtly turning Trick Williams' baby face, having him behave like a baby face. But I could absolutely see a double turn here a hell of a lot more than I would see one between Cody and Randy. But just let it happen naturally. You know, the fans, I think the fans, I think the.

fans booing Sammy, not going to be hard. You're already seeing some of that on TV. The fans, they don't want to boo Trick Williams. Again, he's got the cool factor. He's got the cool entrance and the cool music and he comes out there and he just, he looks like a star. So just let it happen organically, but maybe they sort of light the fuse at WrestleMania. And then Ria Ripley and Jade Cargill, they're going to be wrestling at Mania for the women's championship. This is just, it's just been awful. I'm sorry. It's just, it's bad television. It's bad television. And I just hope that Ria Ripley can get out of Jade Cargill with nobody else has been able to one-on-one so far. I mean, Jade's had some decent matches, but decent at best. And since she won the championship at the beginning of November, she still has yet to have that one real cornerstone type of match, that one like hallmark match that you can look at and go, okay, this is what she can hang her hat on. This was the best Jade Cargill match that I've seen in this so far. She hasn't had that. Charlotte Flair could give that to her. Ria Ripley could give that to her.

But honestly, even if Charlotte Flair was in this spot and not Ria, this would not be any better. Like, it's just bad television that we've been getting on, you know, each week on the show with these two women. And a lot of the same stuff, a lot of the same comments over and over again, I really hope Bianca Bel Air can make it back soon. We had a report from bodyslam.net last week that Bianca started doing some light training as she looks to make her return from the finger and knuckle injury that's kept her out of the ring for a year. She's still insane to me. And Tiffany Stratton.

She lost to Julia in a non-title match on Friday after it was initially advertised as a United States championship match. Julia went out there and beat her anyway, so I'm just wondering why it was changed to non-title if that was going to be the end result. I don't really understand that. Russell Votes Radio is reporting that WWE is optimistic that Chelsea Green could be cleared sooner than later. I don't know if that means for WrestleMania, but I will say this. If she is cleared in time for mania, I think she gets added to the U.S. title mix.

And we end up with Tiffany, Chelsea, and Julia at WrestleMania. Unless Julia loses the championship before we even get to WrestleMania. At the rate that championships have been changing hands this month, it wouldn't shock me. if Julia was to lose the title before we even get to Las Vegas. So here's how the WrestleMania card is shaping up so far. We are now 12 matches deep, officially, between the two nights. We have at least two more matches that appear likely. They're not yet confirmed.

That's the Uso's L.A. Nighten Vision stuff and a possible women's U.S. title match. But here's the card. We have Siam Pung defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Roman Rains, Cody Rhodes defending the WWE title against Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar against Obafemi. That's three. Jade Cargill defending the women's championship against Ria Ripley. Stephanie Vakere defending her women's championship against Liv Morgan.

Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fatu, unsanctioned. A.J. Lee is going to defend her women's IC title against Becky Lynch. Sammy Zane puts the U.S. title on the line against Trick Williams. The women's tag team title, Fatal Fourway, was made official. we have a ladder match for the men's intercontinental title, Seth Rollins against Gunther, and Dominic Mysterio. This was also made official last night, one-on-one with Finn Baller. And that is the WrestleMania card as it stands.

On paper, it's a strong show. And I think Cody Rhodes was the one who made a comment a few weeks ago. Talking about how this could be a sleeper show, and he thinks this could end up being the greatest WrestleMania of all time, which, I mean, whatever. I mean, he's, of course, he's going to say that. I do think, though, with people having lower expectations for a lot of these matches and not being terribly enthusiastic about what they've seen on television in the buildup to it,

when expectations are lowered, I think that does tend to help the show in terms of how people perceive it, and they look at it and go, man, this was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. But if you really look at the card on paper, it should be a very strong show. So greatest WrestleMania ever, I don't know about that, but it could be one of the stronger mania shows they've done in years. It could very well end up that way. Also, last week, right here on the Uncrown Wrestling show, I told you guys about the Cody Rhodes tour bus package being offered by on location, WWE's hospitality partner for the low, low price of just $9,950 per person. Up to 12 people can enjoy an exclusive Cody Rhodes bus tour. With personal stories from Cody himself, he'll drive you to up to two Las Vegas landmarks,

and you'll get a commemorative gift, and you'll get the chance for a brief one-on-one interaction. I love how they said brief. We got to make it very clear to these people. You get a brief interaction. So maybe when Cody is coming out of the bathroom, on the tour bus, he's washing his hands. Maybe you'll pass by each other, say a few words. Well, anyway, all 12 of those spots sold out. We can make fun of it, but they see.

sold out all 12 spots. But fear not, because if you missed out on that, on location is now offering a Champion Plus package for Clash in Italy. That PLE is coming up at the end of May. And it includes one front row ticket to the show, access to a wine tasting with WWE superstar appearances, a backstage experience, and this is my favorite part, a private pasta making session with a WWE superstar. Now, they don't tell you which superstar it is. So it could be anybody. It could be Matt Cardona.

It could be Maxine Dupree. But all of that could be yours for the low price of just $11,500. I will point out to you, though, that is the starting price. It says starting at 11,500. So you better jump on that quick before the price goes up. So that was a lot on the WWE front. But let's get into some AEW stuff here real quick. We got some more clarity on Rhonda Rousey's appearance at Revolution from Rhonda herself.

In her latest YouTube vlog, Rousey gave a behind-the-scenes look at how her appearance came together, but also talked about her friend Marina Shafir, saying that Marina is my best friend in the whole wide world, and we grew up doing judo together as little kids. We both quit judo and started doing MMA, and we both quit MMA and started doing pro wrestling. She's absolutely crushing it, and I'm proud of her. I'm so happy that everybody is finally starting to take. notice of how incredibly special she is. And then she got into what went into her appearance and she thought it was going to be something that was very laid back and not like the way WWE does

things, but they put her in like a wheelchair and threw a tarp over her to, you know, protect the surprise and all of this stuff. But she admitted that in doing what she did and showing up that night, it was like a little bit of a fuck you to TKO group, which is kind of funny because WWE is on Netflix, but I kind of figured it would be easier to just ask for forgiveness instead of permission on this one. Like, I'm promoting your show. It's fine. She's talking about the fight that she has coming up on Netflix with Gina Carano on May 16th. So what Dave Meltzer said last week about it having more to do with her ongoing vendetta with TKO was pretty much bang on. So there is no deal in place. There is no contract. She's not

going to be wrestling for them, not anytime soon anyway. This sounds like a one and done type of thing, which it was going to be anyway, because Tony Storm is unavailable for the foreseeable future, and that was the match that they teased. So it was pretty clear that we're not going to be seeing Rh in the ring anytime soon. Someone else who won't be wrestling in AEW for a while is Josh Alexander. He suffered a knee injury during the collision taping recently. This was a couple of weeks ago, and it was a very fluky thing where you're not.

he was laying on the mat, speedball Mike Bailey was standing there, and he did a standing double knees. His knees collided with Alexander's knees on the way down, and Josh immediately grabbed at his knee. He rolled to the corner to tag out. He never did come back. So he gave an update on his situation, and it's not good. He said, I just found out minutes ago how serious this was. I know I've been limping and in pain for a week, but my surgeon told me that I'm going to need surgery this coming Wednesday. that my knee injury is pretty severe.

So I will not be cleared to compete, and there is no timetable set right now for when I will be back. Now, he didn't say what the injury is. Obviously, it is... If it's severe, then it's pretty serious, and we're not going to be seeing him for a while. There's another member of the Don Callis family

now down to injury. We had Jake Doyle tore his bicep back in January. They've got a shit ton of members, though, in this faction, so they can kind of do plug-in play. goes down, you plug another one in. The bigger story here, I think, is Kyle Fletcher, who was the TNT champion. And there is some question about his

health status because he teamed up with Mark Davis on collision against the rascals. And Kyle came down awkwardly where his left leg got trapped underneath him. So he finished the match, but he was spotted in a walking boot when the show was over. Now, Nikki Bella was in a walking boot

because she sprained her ankle last week, and apparently she's going to be okay, and she'll be back in action within the next seven to ten days. This looked like it might have been a little more serious, but with any luck, again, similar situation where maybe he can't wrestle for a couple of weeks, and then he's okay, and he comes back. Because if he went down, you know,

he's one of their big young stars, he's the TNT champion. They've literally had him on television openly talking about wanting to challenge MJF soon for the AEW World Championship, which tells me they had some plans for this guy, whether it was for the dynasty pay-per-view coming up on April 12th or double or nothing is coming up in New York City next month.

They had some plans for him. He's one of the bigger members of the Don Callis family. If he goes down with any significant knee injury or leg injury, that is going to be very bad news for Tony Kahn. So hopefully it's not that bad, but it didn't look good. Now on Dynamite last week, Kenny Omega wrestled swerved Strickland. this was a rematch from last month. It was a very good match.

I did not think it was as good as the first match, but it was still very good. And Kenny picked up the win, which means Kenny Omega is going to Vancouver. The Canadian is going to Canada to challenge for the AEW World Championship against MJF at Dynasty on April 12th. Do you have Kenny Omega win the title in Vancouver?

Do you have Kenny Omega go to Wembley Stadium in August to defend the AW World Championship and the main event against Will Osprey. If we assume that Will Osprey is going to be bound for a world title match on that show, which he should be,

what is the bigger match to do? Is it Kenny against Will? Or is it MJF against Will Osprey? Because Kenny Omega against Will Osprey is a big match. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's also a baby face against baby face, which, I mean, in the grand scheme, doesn't really matter.

I just think it would be the wrong move right now to take that belt off MJF, as good as he's doing, and Tony Kahn talks about this being up and that being up, attendance, ratings. Well, MJF is the focal point of your show right now. MJF is the world champion. Why then would you take the championship off of him in the middle of this run? He's only had the belt for a few months. Would seem like a mistake to me. I can see the appeal, though, wanting to give Kenny the big win in Vancouver, but I wouldn't do it. Now, outside of MJF against Omega and Dynasty, we know of Adam Copeland and Christian Cage against FTR for the AW tag team titles. Will Osprey is going to be wrestling John Moxley. No word on whether the continental title that Moxley has is going to be on the line there.

It should not be. It shouldn't be. Will Osprey, he doesn't have anything to do with the Continental title. He does not need the Continental title. There is one title this summer that that man should be challenging for. and it ain't the continental title. So that does not need to be a championship match. But that's all we know.

You know, we're less than two weeks out from this pay-per-view. That's all that's official so far. Now, the way things ended with Tecla and Mina Shirikawa on Dynamite, Tecla beat her, but it took a pair of brass knuckles to do it. I can see them running that match back for the championship. Rikishay wants a rematch for the national title with Jack Perry, Andrade, has become kind of a hired gun to go after Darby Allen. on behalf of MJF so I could see that match happening on that show.

Kazuchka Okada, he beat Kevin Knight on collision the other night by holding the robes, but he beat him in a really good match. The way they did that finish, you could run that back again for the international title. And it would be a rubber match because Kevin Knight beat him in the Continental Classic a few months ago. And then Okada beat him here. So they're one for once so far. Now Mercedes-Money, the CEO, She has lost yet another championship.

She dropped the primetime wrestling women's title on Saturday at their more Monet, more problem show in Poland, to Diana Strong. She had won the title from Diana at a show in July of last year. Mercedes is now down to just three belts. How many does she have at the peak? 12? She had 11 or 12 belts a few months ago at the peak of her run.

She is now down to three, technically. two because one of those belts is the kind of like an honorary belt that she was gifted when she won the Owen Hart tournament last year. So you don't really defend that. So really, she's down to two championships. But she is going to be defending the Winnipeg Pro Wrestling Women's Title, which she won a number of months ago. And she's going to be defending it at a sold-out show at the Manitoba Museum tonight. as I am recording this against Jody Threat. So by the time you listen to this, many of you,

she will have likely already lost that championship. And it just so happens that AEW is in Winnipeg tomorrow night for Dynamite. So we may well see her back on AEW television tomorrow night. We have not seen her on television at all this year so far. Last time would have been on New Year's Eve when she dropped the TBS title to Willow Nightingale. Dynamite tomorrow night has the following advertised. Kenny Omega MJF are going to have their contract signing for Dynasty. Kenny will also be part of a trio's match,

teaming with Brody King and Jack Perry against Rickache and the Gates of Agony. Will Osprey goes one-on-one with PAC. That's going to be great. And the brawling birds, Jamie Hader and Alex Windsor, will team up with Mina Shirakawa to take on the Triangle of Madness. So that is Dynamite Tomorrow.

Some other news and notes here from the wrestling world. In injury, not even two minutes into the main event, derailed the TNA sacrifice pay-per-view on Friday night. Steve Macklin was challenging Mike Santana for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. The same Mike Santana, who I believe is on NXT tonight. But Steve Macklin, you might be listening to this going, wait a minute, didn't Steve Macklin lose a... He lost a feast or fired... Well, I mean, he didn't lose the match, but he drew the briefcase and Feaster Fired many weeks ago. That was the fired briefcase.

So he was fired from TNA. And so why was he challenging for the world championship? Well, he was reinstated some weeks ago, and he was granted a TNA World Championship match. Don't ask. So Macklin came off the ropes. He got blasted with a super kick, and unfortunately, the super kick connected a little too well. And Macklin immediately went down. It was very scary.

I'm sure many of you saw the video on social media if you weren't actually watching the pay-per-view. And Macklin goes down and he, you look at his hands, and he immediately goes into what's called a fencing position. And his body got all stiff. And it was very clear he was hurt. And Santana, he was trying to pull Macklin up. Referee Alice Lane backed him away. I got to give her a shout out the way she handled this situation, exactly the way that you should handle a situation like this.

Separate the two of them. She threw up the X. She called for the doctor. The doctor came into the ring. So that stalled the match for several minutes. They sent Eddie Edwards out there because they had to come up with a plan B. So they sent him out to go and brawl with Santana for a while. And it was less of a match, more of an angle.

Edwards, Edwards, funny enough, is the one who chose the briefcase and Feaster Fired for a world championship match. And this is not going to count as his world title match because they had to, again, come up with a plan B. This was not anything that was planned in advance. So he'll get his title shot later on at some point. And Santana put him through a table outside the ring and he was announced as the winner. And none of this matters. Again, this was just something they had to get out of the situation as quickly and cleanly as possible.

This is what they came up with. The update for Macklin from Sports Illustrated is that after TNA evaluated him for a potential concussion, they sent him to the hospital for further testing, and Carlos Silva told the takedown on SI that Macklin was not ultimately diagnosed with a concussion. He cleared all of his tests, and he was released to go back to his hotel for the night. So that is good news. Again, shout out to the referee and everybody involved here who handled the situation in the way that they are supposed to. You know, you got to take something like that very seriously when you have visible signs of distress,

the match becomes the least important thing. Who gives a shit? No one cares about the match. You know, you just want to make sure that that person is well taken care of. Mike Santana, though, posted on Sunday, he said, needed some time to myself before speaking on this.

Every time I'm getting ready to head out for a match, I always find a corner and I take a moment to myself. I kneel and pray to God to protect me and my opponent to watch over us as we head out to give the fans and escape and something worth what they pay their hard-earned money for. But as we all know, freak accidents happen that are sometimes out of our control and in the moment.

That's the unfortunate reality of what we do. All we can do is learn from it and take preventative measures moving forward so that we can avoid making the same mistakes. I will say, I'm truly proud of how TNA handled the situation, even more proud of referee Alice Lane. Her elite professionalism and quick-thinking saved us. We were truly blessed to have had her out there with us. I'm glad that Steve is safe and

doing well. He's one of the toughest guys I know and someone I've considered a close friend for a long time. At the end of the day, our health and well-being come first, and we showed exactly that. Amen to that. Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, which is run by Scott DeMore, held its Global Wars event with Ring of Honor on Friday night. Their uprising event took place on Sunday, so it was a big weekend for them, but it was pretty big for another reason, because coming out of this weekend, they announced a new television deal with TSN in Canada for a new weekly series called Mayhem starting in July, which is a very big deal for Maple Leaf Pro. They also confirmed the first round of tapings for the new show. We'll be taking place on June 12th and 13th in Windsor, Ontario, Canada at St. Clair College. So this is not a show that's going to be airing live every week. I think they have more tapings set for August as well. So between their TV deal and their working relationship with AEW, and Ring of Honor. I mean, you look at what Maple Leaf has put together in a very short period of time.

They have ascended from nothing to being a force. Again, in short order here. So it's very impressive what Scott DeMore's been able to do. You know, firing DeMore was the dumbest thing that TNA could do. Like, as passionate and well-liked as that man was by the talent in that locker room, it was a very short-sighted move. This is a crazy story here and very scary. A stabbing may or may not have occurred over the weekend at a ruthless pro wrestling show in Illinois.

This right up here comes from John Pollock of Post Wrestling. He and Brandon Thurston, they do great work over there. RPW ran its Omega event at the Berwyn Eagles Club in Illinois on Saturday, with reports that wrestler Mads Kruger, atrocity cruel, I mean, he's gone by many names, was either stabbed or almost stabbed by a fan in attendance. The Altaholic had a story with comments from wrestler Lou Nixon, who shared video of the fan in question being attacked after going after Cruel. Nixon says the fan had words with Cruel before the show over the price of the wrestler's merchandise. During Cruel's match, the fan stood in front of him and,

Cruel obviously didn't break character and made him look silly. And then during the match, I think, the guy got knocked out of his seat. Nixon said the fan went up to Cruel after the show and challenged him to fight and tried tackling him. Which is a pretty stupid thing to do, by the way, seeing as how Cruel is like six foot eight. Nixon believes the fan stabbed Cruel during the brawl, but that cruel didn't realize he had been stabbed until later. Wrestler Mickey Knuckles also said that cruel was stabbed, telling Coltaholic that the fan tackled Cruel through the table, and while he had him on the ground, he stabbed him in the

lower right quadrant of his abdomen. At that point, the boys saw that he had a knife, so they started lighting him up. However, one anonymous source tells Caltaholic that they didn't believe Cruel was actually stabbed. I know that the fan was attacking Cruel. I think the other wrestlers saw this, and they used it as a reason to attack this fan. I don't believe that there was a knife in play. I never saw a knife. I never saw stabbing.

And I don't believe that any of the wrestlers saw a knife. I really genuinely think that they wanted to help their friend. Knuckles told the site that due to a prior incident where a flying object had struck a fan, police were already in the building when the post-show incident occurred. In a response about the incident, Kruel wrote that he was fine on Sunday afternoon. Post- Wrestling has contacted the Burwin Police Department for further details and a possible police report. But again, there's no evidence that there even was one, which is what makes the whole thing even stranger. I saw the video that was circulating on social media.

All we see is the fan, this was after the supposed stabbing happened, I guess, all we see in the video is the fan in question being attacked by all of these wrestlers. Like, they put a beating on him. Not enough of one to do any real damage, apparently. The guy was still standing. I mean, he's got half a dozen wrestlers beating on him and he's still standing. I would say they went easy on him. But if there really was no knife on the guy and nobody actually got stabbed,

that might explain why he was never arrested. I'm glad that cruel is okay. Don't be stupid. All right, people, don't be stupid. Especially with a guy that big who's got a lot. lot of other big friends around. I mean, that sounds like someone who's not in his right mind. He's very lucky he was able to walk out of there on his own two legs and didn't get them broken. And we'll end with this. I covered this on the Solomaster Sounds Off this weekend, but it is

too good not to share with you here. There was a story in the New York Post last week that made national headlines where the head of a New York City preschool was arrested on Wednesday for embezzling nearly $3 million in tuition and blowing thousands of dollars on tickets to WWE events as well as luxury travel. This is according to a federal indictment. Muriel Mizak, the director of Kinderhouse, Brooklyn on 6th Avenue and 9th Street in Park Slow.

Story says that she pulled a stone cold stunner when she allegedly spent at least $350,000 in swiped cash on tickets to exclusive WWE matches, some of which she bragged about on Instagram. Ms. A Swiss citizen is accused of funneling a total of $2.75 million in tuition fees to her own bank account for her own personal use and benefit between January of 2022 and October of 2025. She took frequent trips and vacations across the country, often every other weekend, enjoying plush resorts, VIP access to WWE events, and first class amenities, much of which she documents, on her public Instagram and other social media accounts, according to a lawsuit, filed against her by the school in December. Her WWE splurges include a VIP meet-and-greet passes to at least

one wrestling event where she and her three kids were able to hang out with star wrestlers, according to a law enforcement source. Ms. Hack allegedly blew $650,000 on travel and entertainment, $150,000 on food delivery services, and hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-end luxury goods. She covered up the theft by manipulating the school's internal accounting system to falsely show that the payments had been deposited into the school's bank account, then deleted emails that would have revealed the scheme. It wasn't immediately clear how Ms. Zach was eventually busted, but the school's principal learned about the scheme in October. She was hired by the preschool in 2013 and rose through the ranks to become director in 2020.

And then my favorite line here, it is unclear why she is so enthusiastic about professional wrestling. I mean, if I were to watch WWE of late, I would wonder the same thing. Why are any of us enthusiastic about pro wrestling? Because it's weird. And so are we. But I've also never embezzled $3 million for tickets to go see it. Although with the way these ticket prices are headed, soon enough,

fans are going to have no choice but to start embezzling money to go see it. And what the hell is that woman eating that she spent $150,000 on food delivery services? I mean, I like Grubhub as much as the next person, but that's just disgusting. Anyway, we'll get back to your questions next week. Keep them coming to Solibonster at gmail.com. You could tweet me on X at Solibonster. Just make sure to include the hashtag uncrowned. And I may include your question here on the show.

Don't forget, we have a brand new dedicated feed. specifically for the uncrowned wrestling show. If you're not listening on there, go find it, go sub. Leave a comment, drop a five-star rating. It's all very helpful. For all my other content, you can subscribe on YouTube. Just search for Solomon's Sounds Off. Next week, it is April.

That means WrestleMania is getting close, and it's going to be episode nine. We are almost at double digits with this. I'm Jason Solomon, and when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you guys. next week.