Shake Them Ropes. No Vision

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1:11Shake them ropes. I am Jeff Hawkins. He is the returning victorious Robert McCarran. Hi, Rob. Hi, Jeff. How are you doing this Monday night? Yeah, we're recording a little bit early because we both got conflicts on Thursday. After recording on Thursday last week, Solo, I am here to take my victory lap that yes, they have an eye on the ticket sales, and they are a little bit concerned, I think. And they've made different plans that one would think would be in there, although plans are probably going to change again on Friday, I think, too, or not change, but they're going to be clarified. They're going to see more of where things are going, but I mean, some of it's been forced on them. Like we can say, well, based on where WWE was going into WrestleMania, like obviously

2:13they changed gears. And Bronson Reed and Bronn Breaker were going to be an important part of WrestleMania, and they're getting hurt. The vision is changing. What's happening with Seth Rollins is changing. But Seth Rollins is back. We got him back. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, they have an eye on ticket sales, but God, I mean, it's hard to be upset with ticket sales when two months out where it's 70,000 tickets sold. No, but I thought Rio was a bit of a panic thing, possibly. It was, although I think there's a plan here. It was emailed to me, and I'm going to give you this theory in a moment when we talk about a bit. I like the fact that you make it sound like the plans were emailed to me. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. It's a theory, but the plans were emailed. No, it's a fantastic theory, though. And it's one of those things where I didn't even think about this. And they laid the seeds tonight. But yes, Thursday through Sunday was a vent full. I found the actual elimination chamber show kind of mid, to be honest with you.

3:18I thought it was fine. I thought it was good. It was fine. It was prominent. I thought it was one of the better PLEs and more important PLEs. Obviously, Roy Rumbles, an important one always just because of who's going to win. But I thought this blew away, Russell Paloza in the fact of importance. I thought this blew away, honestly, survivor series two. Yes. There were things of significance happen. Obviously, Rio goes under WrestleMania. The men's chamber winner, Randy Orton, is a big deal heading in Romania because that's your first telltale sign of the difference of what WrestleMania was probably going to look like versus what it's going to look like now. You had AJ Lee wrestling on the show, which is, you know, was still a big deal. And obviously, we're going to get more of her now for the next six weeks, at least. You had a CM Punk title defense. And then you had, you had the debut of, of Danhausen. So I mean, what more do you want at Danhausen? Did you return to Seth Rollins? It was asked. It was asked though. I mean, I can't believe you debut a guy and you don't tell us what's special about him.

4:20You just haven't come out ahead of guy teeth and you leave. And you kind of did the same thing tonight, although he's telling you he cursed somebody. But he should have been outside and he should have done. Yeah. What are you talking about? The biggest thing on this show, the most consequential moment of this show was Danhausen cursing Dominic Mysterio. The one single thing that was put over the most on this show is the Jeff Hawkins. The curse is real. And you do not want to be cursed. No, you do not want to be cursed. But it would have been nice if Danhausen was out there actually cursing him after cursing him the first time. But yes. All right. Well, hey, let's, let's go into order. It's a little subtle. It's a little like, here's how I hear. Are you a Mel Brooks fan? I want the theory. I want the theory. I am a Mel Brooks fan. I hope he's alive when Spaceball 2 comes out. Yes. Well, in his early days, he used to do high concept comedy, like silent movie. I just watched high anxiety. And I had never seen it before.

5:20But I find it, I didn't like it that much. But he does say, up top, this is an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. So you understand what's going on. Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup. Danhausen is a high concept comedy. And you kind of need to hit it hard. And the concept to people who've never seen him before. I don't know if he's high concept or other. He's just goofy. But the different, a different kind of goofy than what you're used to. Okay. Let me give you my two theories coming out of this raw then. For wrestling. And then I want to go through raw. Because a lot of big stuff happened on the show. Okay. CM Punk 7 is promo. Like this was the kickoff to the road to WrestleMania. I really feel that way because nothing was settled until elimination chamber was over. So you still didn't know who was going to be in half of the title matches. You didn't know when Seth Rollins was coming back. A lot of stuff happened on this, this weekend and this raw. This in Indianapolis, Indiana in my home state.

6:22They don't call me Rob from Indiana for nothing. I'm from here. This was the kickoff to WrestleMania. But let me, let me hear your theories that were emailed to you. So 20 years from now. No, no, what's mine? And okay, go ahead. Okay, but 20 years from now. When we go through the infamous TKO files. Jeff Hawkins name is going to be in these files, right? In the email, we're going to see these secret plans that were emailed to you. Hopefully no photos attached, sir, because they're going to come out if they are. A lot of stuff, a lot of stuff is going to be talked about in the media. And I want to hear these files. I'm getting the first look. As you drag me into this. I'm going to. Okay. Okay. I'm going to give you something to chew on and and and snark at me about while I'm saying. Is it a cough drop because I just finished my current one? I mean, the Epstein files, but it's my name. It's not me. It's another. It's another guy named Jeff Hawkins. No, no, no, no. It's the inventor of the Palm Pilot. And FC was trying to push for money from the guy and he blew him off. But it's just one of those things where I'm just like, oh my god.

7:23Well, first of all, you name, you name your device, the Palm Pilot. Yeah. Okay. Twisted my theory, not the one that somebody told me Paul Heyman's attack tonight is to write him out of the vision. Oh, yeah. Vision is done. And he's coming back probably with punk or Brock. Well, they're both. I you can bring him back. Here's the thing. I don't I don't think this is to write him out all the way to Mania because I think he's got to be on those shows with Brock. But it's very possible. Like so LA night captured Paul Heyman, right? I think I think this is your kickoff to LA night versus Brock Lesnar. And I think LA night delivers Paul Heyman in what is it three weeks or whenever it is the the next raw that Brock Lesnar is at. So I think that's your. Yeah, that's your development that Paul Heyman's going to be missing until Brock comes back.

8:23And yeah, I think you're right. And he's going to be with Brock. And he won't necessarily be with the vision because right now it's Logan Paul. And it's Austin theory. And you can easily just drop Austin theory. Yes. Please now this theory was great friend of the show Rick. The theory theory. Yes. I have a theory shut up. Okay, so so Rhea is facing Jade presumably at WrestleMania. Rhea Ripley Jade Cargill. This is the world's women's championship. This is anarchy rules 99 and a throwback to last year's WrestleMania where Rhea bullied her way into the title match to make it a three way. EO is going to do the same thing to enter this match. Make it a three way. Jade gets eliminated early and then you get your EO. Well, I don't know. I didn't quite get that, but yeah, I think you just do Rhea and Jade.

9:29It could be the show where, you know, if EO and Rhea are going to break up, like, you can do that at WrestleMania. But okay, it's just give them a one on one. I mean, too many times it's happened with the men's division last year. It's happened with the women's division. Too many times you have the bigger. Real main event is the singles match. And then the other side's going to get like a three way or four way. We might get this this year because the main event of night one might very well be a four way. For Drew McIntyre's title or more likely Cody Rhodes's title. So there could be a multi-million match there. So you would do that on the women's side too, where you have live Morgan and Stephanie is clear number one. And then Jade versus multi-million. And Stephanie is clear number one. And then Jade versus multiple challengers just because I don't, I don't know if I like that. I would like him to see just Jade versus Rhea. Do you think Jade could hang with Rhea? Let's find out.

10:29Let's do a cinematic match. And also we're getting Dan housing and Dom. No, I don't, oh, I don't think so. Okay. I don't think we're getting Dan housing. Okay, so those are your theories. What are any of the theories? No, no, no, let's go through it. Let's go in through this raw because we don't often do this where the show is right after raw. It's fresh in our mind where this is going to come out. People waking up on Tuesday morning are going to be listening to Rob and Jeff's thoughts on WWE raw. The first in the road to WrestleMania. So let's go through this. We talked about it. Paul Heyman was stolen by LA night. Seth Rollins took out Paul Heyman, which was surprising, right? Because Seth Rollins gives the curb stomp to Paul Heyman. You're like, oh, they're doing the doing that right now. They're not saving that for WrestleMania where Seth Rollins finally gets some kind of comeuppance. No, he got his comeuppance on the vision tonight. The vision is over. And now we might get Seth Rollins versus Logan Paul. Because Logan Paul, I mean, Seth, Seth took out all my buddies.

11:31The story to going into WrestleMania is going to be Seth Rollins took out all my buddies, even though he had nothing to do with taking out any of the buddies. I am sorry. Oh, I am fine with this because they had a banger of a match a few years ago. And there won't be any of this eye show speed crap. It's an actual, we want to have a banger type of a match where both of them kind of want to throw some shade. Possibly at the other company. I'm not saying they do, but possibly. So Seth Rollins takes out Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman gets driven away in an ambulance driven by LA night. So we talked about I missed that part originally. I apologize. So yes, you missed one part. I missed LA night driving away. I had to take a phone. LA night was the driver of the ambulance. Got Jimmy Usos shows up and Jimmy Usos takes out Austin theory. And then he goes to shake the hand of the ambulance driver, which is LA night. LA night takes out Paul Heyman. So that's why I think I think in three weeks, we may not see LA night again. Until until the night Brock Lesnar returns.

12:32Because LA night might come back in with the ambulance and Paul Heyman, we could be very wondering. Paul Heyman has just been stolen. Where is he? And he's hiding somewhere in the in the mountains of Indiana, which there are none, by the way. So he's just driving Paul Heyman's carcass all the way around the country until he finally gets to is it New York? I don't even know. I think it's New York or wherever the next Brock Lesnar show is. So even though if this becomes the gateway to LA night versus Brock Lesnar driving the ambulance and Paul Heyman. Is it still possible that the ambulance might play a part in Seth Rollins Logan Paul? Because I honestly think that we're going to get a return of a long standing stipulation that hasn't been around for a while. I could very well see Seth Rollins versus Logan Paul in an ambulance match. I think it might be Brock and LA night in the ambulance match. But that makes, but I know it makes no sense. Okay.

13:32The group with all the injuries. Right. Paul Heyman got taken out an ambulance. Yeah. And Paul, I see the ambulance stipulation taking more play because LA night versus Brock Brock Lesnar being in the ring is enough. Brock Lesnar is the stipulation in Brock Lesnar matches. Okay. I can very well see them bringing back the ambulance match for Seth Rollins and Logan Paul. And then, and that could be the way I know Logan Paul is a full timer. But maybe he steps away for a month or two. Maybe he's got other endeavors. Maybe he's got new Pokemon cards to go by. And he's taken out an ambulance. All right. Let me, let me counter that just real quick. You can do that if, if we've, if we've wiped out LA night and Brock like doing a brawl to the back and the ambulance is sitting there. And Logan Paul goes, Hey, I got an idea or Seth Rollins goes, Hey, I got an idea. But overall WWE tells you what they're going to do and LA night was behind the ambulance. So it would probably make more sense that LA night is in the ambulance match.

14:37Just a little bit. Yeah. Well, I just think, I think Paul Heyman getting taken out. All right. One way or another. An ambulance match at WrestleMania. I'm calling it right now. Yes. Following right now. Some, some how. But I can see that very well. Be just fitting in with the vision storyline as Seth Rollins. You know, I've taken out Braun. I've taken out. Branson, even though I didn't. Like they both fluke injuries. It would have been nice if, uh, if WWE retconned like when the mass guy took out Braun Breaker. That's when the injury happened. But no, they had to go and say on television that it was a free training accident. Like, come on. Uh, so anyway, Logan Paul, uh, Seth Rollins and then Logan Paul's gone for a bit. The vision has to be ended because God, they have no members after WrestleMania. If Logan loses. So there's no point in this vision. Uh, we had the first match on tonight show. Gunther versus Dragon Lee. Gunther wins with the choke, but he unmasks.

15:37Dragon Lee. And we see the face for a little bit. And this continues to be a thing with the, uh, the lucha doors on WWE TV every match seemingly. And we'll talk about it because the very next match had an unmasking angle too. But this is the thing with triple H's WWE. If there's a guy in a mask in the ring, this match is about unmasking him. Then there's a little bit of Vince in this. Uh, when it came to, hey, if you have six mask guys, you have no mask guys. So eventually there's going to be one and I think it's going to be Penta in on this show at least. Well, I've been, I mean, I, it's, it's telling on the shows. Yeah. I mean, for how many years has WWE been looking for a Hispanic superstar and they have one. And it's not a mask guy. It's Dominic Mysterio. But they have a few. They have, they have Penta. Um, I think Ray Phoenix could be that guy if he wasn't being the guy he is right now. Uh, there's a lot of dudes who have talent on this.

16:37But the fact that they're making every match about being unmasking because the very next match on the show. Was OG Americano Chad Gable versus Rio Americano. And the match was built around unmasking Ludwig Kizer's Americano. So two unmasking angles back to back. Yeah, and yeah, we can't have a Lucha match without Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero. Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero. So the love of God, please push Penta to the point where he is over these two so we can stop saying these things. But yes, I agree with the top. Everyone's forgotten about Hoventood Guerrero. Uh, I, before we leave Gunther to go to the next one. I, I had to go to the next one. I adore the, the bringing up a person at two. And that is one of my favorite things that heels do. And because we don't have squash matches anymore, we don't get that. I thought this was a bit long, but I enjoyed watching Gunther destroyed Dragonly. I don't know where Dragonly fits in a WWE.

17:37I really don't, but that's me. No, he had a hell of a showing though. I mean, this was a fun little match until, you know, the ending there is Gunther gets the choke on. He's Dragonly is trying too many flippy shit things to where Gunther's like, now I'm just going to grab you by the neck and throttle you and then take your mask off. So they sold it like the taking of the mask off is what made Dragonly panic and tap out right away. As if you could have fought this off, right? So the unmasking played a part in this. We'll see if it goes around for another go around or if Gunther is going to head somewhere else for WrestleMania. Question. Are we also going to make him a legend killer and a mask collector? I don't, I don't see the mask collector going on right now. No, legend killer. Yes, I don't know what legend he can kill at WrestleMania. Because gosh, we're, now we're getting closer, right? The road to WrestleMania starts. We have six weeks to WrestleMania. I don't see a direction for Gunther yet. Even though he should probably be playing a big part in the show having a singles match of some style.

18:38Is someone else coming in to save Dragonly is Dragonly going to get his comeback and they make this a WrestleMania match? I just don't know where I see Gunther going from here. El Grande Americana. Okay. He comes out and says you've, you've solied the legend of luchadors or settle in it. I don't know. It just feels great. He's lost. He's lost. He's lost right now. Oh, yeah, he's lost right now for sure. But I don't know if I see that direction going with El Grande because he's got his own unmasking to do. Yes. With the, with the imposter El Grande Americano. But I guess we'll find out because a challenge was laid out Ray DeRaeus a couple weeks. El Grande Americano versus OG El Grande Americano looks like it's going to happen and it's going to happen for AAA. So AAA is getting what I thought might have been a WrestleMania match. Okay. I was watching the international version. Did you get the backstage segment with them talking to each other? Yes. Oh, it was fantastic. I loved the, this is the best interaction any of them have had for a while.

19:42And I adore it because it's just the whole bit is ridiculous. And it's great. And I love everybody in this thing too. Correct me if I'm wrong. And maybe I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong out there listeners. But I think this was the first talking interaction between the two really right because everything else has been out in the ring. No, I think they've, I think they've been doing it during commercial breaks or something. Okay. We had during commercial breaks, but I don't know. Yeah. For international commercial break for international audiences. I agree. I'm still watching the American feeds for for raw. I don't put on the VPN for raw. But I do, you know, I had a whole issue with ESPN this weekend. So baseball seasons in tow. My, my subscription for MLB TV expired at the end of Saturday night. So I was, I was taking part in this ESPN offer sign up because now ESPN owns MLB TV. Okay. So you got to sign up through ESPN. But they offer a free month of ESPN unlimited.

20:42If you sign up for MLB TV through ESPN. So I'm like trying to go through this and, you know, I, I'll sign up for the free month. And I'll watch elimination chamber on the actual ESPN app this time instead of having to do the VPN with Netflix. Sometimes the VPN with Netflix, you know, every once in a while of a feed drops. And I have to turn it off and sign on again. And all this rig them a roll. So I'm trying this. And I'm on the, I end up, I start with the ESPN. I can't sign up. I can't, I'm not getting the free trial. I don't know what's happening. I was able to sign up for MLB TV. Thank God. Because that's what gets me through every summer. But I'm not getting the ESPN unlimited. What's going on here? So I open up a chat. Open up with a little chat with ESPN at like six o'clock on Saturday. You know, I'm giving me an hour before elimination chamber. Should be plenty of time to be able to get this figured out. I don't think I didn't get a resolution until 9.30 p.m. on Saturday. So obviously, I don't have ESPN unlimited.

21:42I'm watching through Netflix. I'm watching through a VPN because I also have YouTube TV. Eventually, I will get ESPN unlimited. I hope I think, but it's not happening yet. And there's some back and stuff, apparently, that I didn't qualify for the free month. So and long story short, three hours later. It's like, sorry, sir. You don't qualify because of this, this and this. I go, okay. I still got my MLB TV. I'm happy with that. I guess I'll have to watch WrestleMania on the VPN because I am not buying ESPN unlimited. When I should be getting it as part of my YouTube TV. It's just not going to happen. So I will watch WrestleMania. I will watch whatever future shows. I will not watch a WWE Saudi Arabia pay-per-view because I don't think there are going to be anymore. But that's a story for another time. So I go through this rig and we'll roll while WWE is going on. Watching elimination chamber, checking my text to see what ESPN comes back and says. So yeah, it will be a VPN WrestleMania. And I will just have to deal with the potential logging out of Netflix when it says there's an error.

22:45And then try again and hope I don't miss any big spots on that show. All's there just to watch the Dodgers win again. Just to watch the Dodgers win again. And to watch the watch the New York Mets figure out. Figure out why the blue Jason make that big of an offer for Bob. Stop, stop. Just so so many intriguing storylines this year to be honest. But this is not the MLB show. This is not the baseball podcast. We are talking about much more important things like Danhausen requesting a blimp. Yes. Hello, and he's doing this everybody ball this Steve Austin. We've seen that bit. Yeah, he requested so Danhausen's backstage with Adam Pierce. He requests the triple H pointing photo. He talks about how he can't he debuted to thunderous applause and cheers the night before. Like if anything, yeah, they're playing into the they're playing into some comedy aspects. They're playing into this guy as meta. This guy doesn't really know the real world that's going on. It's a little are truthy.

23:46It is. He's going to do the way he says some of the stuff. But he also requested his own Hall of Fame induction this year. And then of course the judgment day shows up Adam Pierce. Adam Pierce wants nothing to do really with Danhausen. So he shoves Danhausen on to the judgment day. Like the stereo says this is the closest year ever getting to any title in this company. And then Danhausen curses Dom, which would then play a part in the main event. They got that gimmick over and they kept it strong. It's going to come into play in a very serious way at some point. I'm waiting for it. Yeah. Okay. You've so many. I don't know if they've gotten over big. But maybe that's just the sound on my TV. Well, that I'm not very huge. I'm not saying they're gotten it over big. I'm saying they kept it strong because one day it will need to get over big and play a part. It could play a part. I'm going to say it. Breaking Gunther streak because Danhausen is going to curse Gunther. All right. I'm here for that. I'm kind of here for that. I got to be honest with you.

24:47Yeah. I just thought the debut was terrible. So it's one of those things where I say, okay. Yeah. That one raw. More people are going to watch it. They watched him do the curse. It's no. You've changed my mind. Congratulations. The debut felt a little Mike Bennett. It felt a little Mike can. Yes. It did. It's like it's coming right before the main event of the paper view. They've built it up for a little bit. It felt a lot like Mike can Ellis. They built that box up so big and that it's Danhausen, who nobody in WWE knows. Okay. I was just kind of like, yeah. At the same time, like, that's the point though, right? It's like, no. It's a box. Boxes are ridiculous. It's Danhausen. I thought it was fine. I think the crowd was hoping for a little bit more. But I really think Chris Jericho was coming out. No. No. What way do you hype up a surprise and then under deliver? That's terrible. They hyped up the surprise by the GMs of the shows playing hot potato with a box.

25:51I will let the point. I will let the point. I'm relenting the point. You're correct. This isn't the Jericho countdown. Okay. This isn't comebacks. This is like, we're hyping up. No one wants this box. I thought it was just going to open it up at the paper view. Yeah. It's a box. Yeah. It's a box here. It's the goblin gooker. It's a box, guys. Okay. So it was. It's our fault. I'm sorry, Rob. I'm sorry for trying to think that it was actually hyped well. And then you change. Oh, yeah. They're playing hot potato within doing dumb crap with it. Okay. You got me. You're correct. I forgot about that. I thought it was actually important in some way. It's not. No. Stop thinking things are important, Jeff. And just go with flow. It's not real. Damn it. Okay. AJ Lee is a open challenge. She said Becky Lynch was behind her. And I could see that being the case. I could see them not going back to Becky Lynch and AJ Lee right away. So we'll see what happens there. But AJ Lee issued an open challenge, which in theory will lead all

26:52the way to WrestleMania with AJ possibly having an icy title defense on the WrestleMania show itself. Russo called out Oba Femi. They got into a little kerfluffle. Hold on. Who do you think is eventually AJ Lee's opponent? I don't even care to think about it right now because I'm going to be Paige. I the way the way AJ was cutting that promo. And then it was the exact same way that Paige debuted originally on law. I thought I swear to God, I thought Paige was coming back. So I mean, it could be something like that. It could be a page AJ Lee reunion at WrestleMania. Well, I thought it was Bailey. I thought for a moment now, I think they're going to burn that pretty quick. Well, the fact that no one answered the challenge tonight for like a match next week is I think we're going to get some of that. I think we're going to get a Bailey. We very well could be getting a Kyrie saying, I think we'll get an AJ match or two before WrestleMania. Because I don't think this open challenge was for WrestleMania itself. It's just I'm going to be a fighting champion. So I think we get an AJ Lee match heading into the actual challenger

27:53at WrestleMania. Yeah, okay. So the Lyra Bailey thing was commercial time. And Bailey went to Adam Pierce to get a match. Okay. Yeah, Bailey and Lyra, I don't believe happened during the show. But maybe I could have missed no Bailey and Lyra were on the show. But I skipped that segment. At one point here, I was a little far behind. So in order to get here on time, I had to skip a couple of segments. And honestly, Bailey and Lyra segments have been skippable because they don't lead anywhere. So maybe this will lead somewhere. I could see that because I do see AJ Lee, AJ Lee wrestling on a raw before WrestleMania. And I hope that she gets a singles match because I could also see her not being on the show. WrestleMania, it could be, it could be six matches per night. Right. And you're going to have some people who don't get on the show. So we'll see what happens there. Rusev Obafemi is going to happen at some point here soon. Doesn't look like Obafemi is going to be the Brock challenger now with LA Knight stealing Paul Heyman. So what will Obafemi do? And could it be Joe Hendry?

28:55Joe Hendry just showing up at WrestleMania seems to be the gimmick. I hope he's never on the main roster. Yet he gets a WrestleMania match every single year. Joe should be the guy to show up for the open challenge. That's right there. Can I interest you in Obafemi and Gunther? Oh, yeah. I could see that. Okay. That would be a really good one. I, uh, I mean, Obafemi breeding Brock Lesnar and Obafemi beating Gunther who just put out John Cena, Goldberg, AJ Styles. Like, that's equally big to me. Okay. Usos in the vision happened tonight. I mean, really it was Jimmy Usos versus Austin Theory, but, uh, it was very interesting seeing this play out. So I'm like, is Seth Rollins actually going to wrestle Logan Paul? Like, I, the opening segment happens. And I'm like, well, of course, Seth Rollins is going to wrestle Logan Paul. But Logan Paul and, uh, and Austin Theory are doing this thing with the Usos. Seth Rollins just got his revenge.

29:55Cause really Seth Rollins' revenge wasn't on Logan. It was on Paul Heyman. It was on Braun Breaker. Like, I wonder if Seth Rollins is going to shift to a whole new direction after this segment. I went from thinking, okay, it's clear Logan versus Seth in the Nambulance match to is Seth even going to wrestle someone in the vision. Is it possible that Seth is good, but not ready to do a match? So that's why he's doing this. He could have done, yeah, he could have done this. Yeah, this just getting him on TV to put the end, the Kai Bosch on the vision. And then he has to take still another two months. Yeah, I guess it's supposedly possible. Taking, taking bumps in a 15 minute match is going to pull a lot more stress on that shoulder than just doing the stop once a night. So, yeah, like you could be on to something there. And, uh, I don't know if you saw this either then, but a short little CM Punk teaser shit aired. Yeah, I liked it. CM Punk referencing, you know, having a new age sitting down in his little Indian style. Uh, whatever the kids call it nowadays, uh, sitting down and referencing back to when he cut the pipe bomb promo showed intermixing clips of current to that moment.

31:00Uh, this is going to lead to a podcast with Steve Austin at WrestleMania weekend. So CM Punk is going to, uh, going to go and go face to face with Steve Austin in the return of the steam, uh, the Steve Austin uncensored to air possibly on Netflix repair air possibly or just be a local event for WrestleMania weekend. Yeah, CM Punk hasn't learned that him and podcast don't mix. He's doing one, but he's in a much better place now. He's in a much better place now. Uh, and then, of course, the main event match on the show, Penta winning the Intercontinental Championship because the curse. The curse happened. Dominic loses and we're going to head over to a Dominic versus Finn Balor, most likely at WrestleMania here. Obviously, it's not going to be for the Intercontinental Championship. Uh, but Dominic still has that triple A championship as of right now, even though that one could go away here in a couple of weeks as well. And maybe Finn Balor has a place apart in that. Uh, but yeah, Finn versus Dominic, likely at WrestleMania.

32:00I can see that or I can see a three way schmoss with JD. I think JD's going to be used to set it up. So it's fine. Uh, yeah, Finn, Finn continuing the baby face turned. So sure. Oh, the baby face turn is, I mean, him keeping his old music was like, well, yeah, Finn's going to baby face turn here sometime. Uh, this, this could very well be a, uh, Christian versus Chris Jericho situation. Remember WrestleMania 20 Christian versus Chris Jericho in the turn of Tristratus. Yeah. Um, are we going to keep this judgment there? Are we going to split them all up and get, get domed to be on his own to kind of be. Yeah, I think the, I think the judgment day ends here at, uh, at WrestleMania. It feels like WrestleMania is going to be one of those things where they blow up a lot of stuff. And then they rebuild things to see it's kind of a reboot type thing. It's like, yeah, it's like what WrestleMania used to be, sir. True. Back when I started watching the graphs. WrestleMania was the end of DX. Yeah. If you don't, if you don't recall, WrestleMania is the end of a lot of things.

33:02Uh, WrestleMania season technically the end of the shield, even though it happened the month before WrestleMania. Uh, but yeah, the, uh, the end of storylines to start your new year. As you head into what right now is WrestleMania 47 or 42. Sorry is 42 or 43, 43, wherever it is next year in 2027. Uh, the Saudi Arabia WrestleMania has of now, uh, to be determined. I mean, they can't, as of right now, they can't go back. No, you cannot, you want to, you want to see a prime target for misses going around about. Yes. It's a WWE event in Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Anywho. Uh, we have, uh, Penta, actually now that we've talked about, Penta is the Intercontinental Champion. Maybe a Penta Goonther match at a WrestleMania and we get that title back on Goonther. Boy, it feels like we've done that 800 times for some reason. Well, we, we did with Sami Zayn.

34:02Yeah. But it reversed. Sami Zayn got his big WrestleMania win by beating Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship. And that brings us up to Sami Zayn. Sami Zayn kind of still out of the picture of a match at WrestleMania. But we got Smackdown coming this Friday. We got Cody Rhodes versus Drew McIntyre in the main event. And, uh, I, I certainly believe that Cody Rhodes is winning the championship back this Friday at WrestleMania. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And then go on the Randy, uh, Randy Cody and nobody else are we doing? Well, that's, that's the situation, right? Because if you're going to do a multi-man match, you have to have Cody win. So if you're going the route of maybe a Cody versus Randy versus Drew versus Jacob Fattu, the only way it makes sense is for Cody Rhodes to win because he's got, if he loses, there's been too many chances for him in the main event picture. It makes no sense to put him in the main event against Drew. You could do Drew versus Fattu versus Randy, just fine. But Cody has to win tonight. And then you got Randy Orton who won the chamber, you got Drew who could get a rematch.

35:04And you, it's revealed that Cody Rhodes is the one who took out Jacob Fattu. All four of them together in the main event. What I would hope to see happen is just Randy versus Cody. But I don't think that match is big enough to main event one of the nights in Las Vegas because there's just not a lot of juice there. And we've seen that singles match within the last year and a half. All right. A two night storyline or a one night beginning and end storyline, kind of like that mania with Daniel Bryan and the, uh, and, uh, evolution crew doing like a three way to see who gets the right to fight the champion type thing. Is that a way to get around this? Still one night though. Yeah. And the three way happened that night. And then I know. But what was the push as a push? You can do match one on night one. And the next night, the winner of that faces Cody in the event. You do, you do like Cody versus Fattu and Randy versus Drew. Yeah. I mean, no, because Randy won the chamber.

36:04He's guaranteed the title. Yeah, Randy. Yeah. Okay. It has to be. You could do Jacob Fattu versus Cody Rhodes on night one and then have a three way on night two possibly. Okay. I think we're just getting, I think the main event of night one is going to be a four way. Or you do something stupid like, oh, you need to put your title shot on the line. And then you beat him. That would be dumb as hell. I mean, we have six weeks. Yeah. So a lot can happen. This is, this is what I've been preaching since Roa Rumble, right? Is there so many differences that could happen because we're so far away from the show? I mean, remember that it was about six weeks away that we still thought we were getting the rock versus Roman Reigns. I love that you've actually reignited by love for this because after this, Roa was kind of like, well, that main event segment with punk and Roman was good. But other than that. Yeah. But now you got convinced. This Roa had a lot of shit, man. This Roa had a lot of shit. There was some good wrestling. It seemed like there wasn't much of it. But there was some good stuff on this. This was recover from the chamber. Roa. That's what this one.

37:04What, what also was telling is that the crowd is so invested in Dominic Mysterio matches that you just, you kind of wish that could happen to more guys. But I'm telling you, if you put in Dominic Mysterio within with Rusev, it'd be the most cared about Rusev match in WWE history because the crowd just loves Dominic Mysterio so much. Okay. What did you think of this? Roman punk tentative. All right. So Roman, I mean, really it came down to the end. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of back and forth. It's heated. You know, things are making sense. Roman Reigns is given kind of like nods to behind the scene stuff, things in the past. They referenced in Indianapolis was the debut of the shield. You know, they referenced the other two members like you see him punk. You know, the initial story of this was see him punk. You never chose me. You never chose Roman Reigns. You, you brought in the shield, but you didn't choose me. I was the, I was the also ran. You didn't believe in me then. Look at me now. And see him punk is like, well, yeah, but because I didn't chose you, you've been chasing me for 10 years. And here I am the world champion.

38:04So there's some good stuff back and forth there. But where I thought it fell apart was at the very end because see him. Yes. Yeah, see him. Punks trying to be the hella babyface, which I want to talk about here in a second with you too. Okay. But see him. Punks trying to be the hella babyface, the real crowd hero in this. The closing line is a dead deadline. Thank you. Okay. We are simpatico on this. I could not believe. I'm going to bury you next to your father. And then that's the closing line. I'm going to bury you next to your father. The crowd goes, ooh, why would you say that? Yeah. And then you got to waste slapping hands with the crowd like he's some damn hero. The crowd is ready to cheer him on that on that dispassion. I'm going to bury you next to your father. Oh no. Can we also stop having a WrestleMania main events lately with dead dad storylines? This has been the last three years of Cody Rhodes. Yeah. It's been the last three years of Cody Rhodes. And now we got another dead dad storyline. But yeah, so see him punk tried to go out the conquering hero. The crowd wasn't super behind it.

39:04I just thought the visual imaging of him walking away camera to his back slapping hands with the crowd. Like I'm a hero because I just talked about Roman red rains is dead dad. And this is the point I want to bring up to you. Okay. The crowd at times. This WWE audience, especially. I think they're more in favor of Roman Reigns than they are CM Punk. If they were to go face to face, I think we're going to get a Las Vegas crowd that wants Roman Reigns to win. I think you're correct. I think that's the whole reason they talked about his time in AEW in this thing. This is also why I said I thought they were writing off Heyman from the vision to possibly put him with punk in this wise man versus, you know, whatever he was called with punk type thing again. I know that's because I. To me, this is a one off situation where the crowd will be more into Roman Reigns. I don't think you turn CM Punk heal. So I'm not on board for turning CM Punk heal and having a CM Punk heal run.

40:07Because in any other scenario, he is the baby face the crowd wants in any other scenario. The guy you're going to turn at WrestleMania. If you're going to turn him, I don't know how you do it really in a four way. But it's Cody Rhodes. I think the time now is for Cody Rhodes to be the heal run. Yeah. He's going to be a baby face, but going up against Roman Reigns. This happened in the European tours to where the crowd was chanting OTC when CM Punk would do a big line, even if Roman Reigns wasn't in the ring. This WWE audience today is more pro. And part of it might be the fact that CM Punk walked out of him. Yeah, we're happy he's back and we like him in the ring. But at the same time, there's a little resentment there. Roman Reigns is the guy. Yeah, but you got to get there naturally with punk. This dead father thing kills me because it's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, you talked about his dead father. Of course, we're going to boo you. And then they're going to think, oh, these booze, we need to turn him heal. And you're like, no, I just don't think that's happening. I don't see a CM Punk heal run. I don't think he's quite like John Cena level, even though I know John Cena turned heal at the end there.

41:10But I don't think he's like John Cena level, where yeah, he's your guy who he sells merch. He welcomes the crowd and he is going to be there more regularly than some of the other guys. Because we have finally gotten to the point where CM Punk really is week to week now. There's a stretch there where it was like every three weeks he would be on raw. But he's like week to week. He's wrestling on raw at times. He's wrestling on pretty much every paper view. Roman, I just Roman Reigns is the guy that people want to see partially because he's not always there. So I really see we're going to have a dynamic here heading into Vegas where some of the crowd is kind of resenting WWE in general because of the ticket prices and going back to Vegas twice. Like they're still going to show up still to show up to Vegas. Like if they're own fault, they're there for the second time. But they're still going to resent a little bit and we're like, we're not going to cheer for who you want us to cheer for. We're going to cheer for Roman Reigns. Yeah, it's one of these things where I'm I'm thinking about this.

42:11I go, is there any reason you'd put punk over Reigns in any in any fashion without a heel turn or without. I mean, if they're going on the show. Yeah, I know. But the show for three months. But then why would you why would you do it this way? Why wouldn't you do CM Punk. Grizzled old guy came back home after trying to find himself type of thing and then Romans the guy who's who's been there the whole time and thinks he's old stuff or whatever. I mean, it feels like we're going back to bloodline with him for some reason. But that was another reference in this promo, right? Is you got no one with you right now? Could that be the spark where Roman Reigns? You know what? CM Punk said a little bit of what was right? I don't have anyone with me. Maybe it's time I assemble people to come with me. And maybe that's Roman Reigns next line. Because if he doesn't do anything bloodline related or he just loses to CM Punk, the the era of Roman Reigns feels like it might be coming over. It might be finishing up.

43:12Do they get the band back together at Mania with Heyman and do bloodline 6.5? Whatever I do with every single man in the seventh inning. This is like when I wanted to run an event with all Chad Collier matches. If you remember Chad Collier from on the ROH days, I wanted to call it all Collier Classic. Like my idea was just to pay Chad Collier 50 bucks and wrestle five times in a show. Like every match is going to have some type of Paul Heyman situation going on. At this point, like to the point where he walks out of the arena with Rio Ripley for God's sakes, because that's the only match he doesn't make sense in right now. No, not everything can be Paul Heyman related Jeff. No, I'm just trying to figure this out right now. Okay, fine. Yeah, so we got we got WrestleMania 42 and then backlash in Tampa. Clash in Italy, intern Italy and then Summerslam. There's no there's currently no match or no paper view announced for June or July. I got to figure there will be one, but currently not announced yet and then money in the bank.

44:16So it's it's possible we don't get another Roman Reigns match until August at Summerslam. I would assume he actually would show up at that Italy show. Maybe Tampa just because he's super close, but it probably only one of those shows in May. But you got a month and a half before then. So yeah, I mean, what's what's next for Roman Reigns that will certainly be a fallout from WrestleMania, whether he wins or loses. But I think you put over CM Punk. I think last year you had Seth Rollins walk out with Paul Heyman, someone that people probably didn't expect to win the match at WrestleMania. Here it is CM Punk Roman Reigns night to main event. Could we get some type of Paul Heyman? Could we get some other type of weird thing to put the show off? Could we see the rock possibly show up and cost cost Roman Reigns? I'm not I'm not going to lie. Like we could see another rock situation where maybe it's a reversal, not a reversal, but a calling back to the rock in John Cena. Where they literally announced the main event of the next year's WrestleMania on the raw after the previous WrestleMania and they had a year build to John Cena and the rock.

45:23Maybe the rock comes back plays a part in that main event, calls out Roman Reigns for next year's WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia. And we're going to year build to rock versus Roman. Okay, how about this? How about this for the dumbest thing possible? We have hangman retconning the I'll never fight for the title again in AEW. And we have rock about and finally get Cody to turn heel. I mean, I don't think you play. Let's retcon everything. I don't think you play you play into this at all with that Jeff Hawkins. Where is Royce Keys? Hey, everybody. My name is Jesse Collins and I am the host of the gentleman's wrestling podcast. A show right here on the voices of wrestling podcasting network on the gentleman's wrestling podcast. We take a deep look at individual issues and stories that are going on in the wrestling world. Each episode is about a different topic and we take a thorough and educated look at things ranging from current booking trends to break down on individual performers and angles to investigations into different fan cultures across the industry.

46:31In addition, we keep a close eye on the wrestling media. And as a professional journalist, I bring a unique perspective to how current issues in wrestling are being covered and discussed through the wrestling media. We have a revolving series of guests from a cross-wrestling punditry joining us on each episode. And we hope that you make the choice to give us a listen on wherever you get your podcast from.