Latest / The ExtraCooler Show / 207 | Wrestlemania 42 Fallout and Beyond

Transcript

207 | Wrestlemania 42 Fallout and Beyond · The ExtraCooler Show

0:00
Welcome to the Western show. You continue to talk like you're
0:05
talking right now. You'll be history on this
0:06
program might. Be a.
0:08
Cooler show. Nobody eats beefaroni on a boat,
0:13
man. That's a problem.
0:17
Yoko Zona just blew my mind. What you did, Jack?
0:23
Tony And every time I see you, old lady.
0:29
I'm going to kick her on those points, so let's go.
0:37
I've got Under your skin. I'm ready for this episode now.
0:39
Yeah, welcome back to your favorite nostalgic wrestling
0:48
podcast. This is the extra cooler show.
0:50
My name is not Nick. I'm not otherwise known as extra
0:53
cooler. It is me.
0:54
It is me is the MA double T It is Matt here by myself solo Dolo
0:59
tonight to, you know, give you an extra credit episode for
1:03
those new listeners. And we've picked up a whole
1:05
bunch. So welcome, welcome back.
1:08
You know, it always happens around the the WrestleMania
1:11
time. But for those that are new to
1:13
the program, we have always called ourselves, you know, the,
1:17
the homework episodes where we go back in time, we have our
1:19
nostalgic stuff and we've got our extra credit episodes which
1:23
go through and really, you know, we're diving into present day
1:27
wrestling current events, if you will, And we're here to just do
1:31
that today. So I am going to run down my
1:34
feelings, my thoughts, my look forward after WrestleMania 42
1:39
here as I am your resident sicko as Tony Khan would call me here
1:44
I am to talk about WrestleMania 42.
1:48
You know, the last time we had a extra credit episode was
1:51
actually WrestleMania 41 episode 183 back in April of 2025.
1:56
And we have to go all the way back to June 5th, 2024 for my
2:01
last solo Dolo adventure where we talked about AJ Styles and
2:06
the fake retirement and his blue suit.
2:09
So I didn't go back and listen, but I looked at the headlines
2:12
and tried to figure out that. So it's always fun to kind of go
2:15
poke back in time and take a look at what was going on all
2:19
the way back then. But before we really dive in,
2:22
we've got a little bit of housekeeping.
2:23
But before we even get there, you know, as always, as Nick
2:27
does a great job at these opens. I'm not gonna lie to you.
2:30
This was my third take. Just getting started stumbling
2:33
over your words, trying to figure out what to do and what
2:35
to say. And that's the beauty of
2:37
recording this is I get to hit the restart button.
2:40
So, Nick, thanks for always being so professional here, even
2:42
though I may give you some shit from time to time as we open up
2:45
the show. But you can follow us on
2:48
Instagram. You follow Nick at Extra Cooler,
2:51
you can follow us the show itself at the extra cooler show.
2:55
And if you want to give me some love, you can find me at Matt's
2:59
in the cooler MATTS in the cooler.
3:02
So let's let's dive into some housekeeping.
3:06
Well, enough is enough, and it's time for.
3:09
Housekeeping. So thank you all again for
3:14
travelling back to 1998 with us, enjoying some Mike Tyson,
3:18
enjoying some WrestleMania 14. And you know, there were a
3:22
couple of questions that came out of here.
3:24
A lot of the pushing of the encore as we watched the Raw
3:28
after Mania and the encore, the replay of the pay per views back
3:33
in the day. And we were trying to figure
3:35
out, you know, what the buy rate was for just the encore itself.
3:39
And I unfortunately couldn't find very many stats that broke
3:42
out just the encore and by itself, actually, I couldn't
3:45
find any. I saw domestic buys at 809,000
3:49
buys for WrestleMania 14. This is a 2.3 buy rate
3:54
domestically, whatever the hell that means.
3:56
I mean, we're so far removed from this that it really doesn't
3:58
mean a thing. But pro Wrestling history.com is
4:01
where I found this Bryan Thurston, who is a, you know, a
4:04
great name in wrestling news. So you've got to believe some of
4:07
these numbers, but I have no idea what portion or what
4:10
percentage that the encore show really was.
4:15
So I guess the hunt will keep going on with the encore.
4:18
This this is, you know, old, old hat.
4:20
This is a old way of of operating now that we are in the
4:24
streaming days. But let's move on to the next
4:26
piece of housekeeping and you know, here, the rock telling
4:31
Farouk to go back to Haiti. And we were trying to figure out
4:34
what that was all about. And I went back and even to the
4:37
very beginning, Farouk Assad in his debut was being built from
4:41
the mean streets. And it wasn't Haiti in any way,
4:44
shape or form. I couldn't find this connection.
4:46
He's from Georgia. Ron Simmons, the man is from
4:49
Georgia and a famous Georgian from that point.
4:53
So I really couldn't find anything here.
4:54
Swinging for the fences and over 2 with the encore buys and now
4:59
sitting here with Haiti and the connection to Farouk and I just
5:03
don't have any. So you know, this is where I
5:05
would hope that somebody in the discord would pop back in and
5:09
give me some corrections on my housekeeping.
5:13
I know state is I know Acefield Retro has from time to time has
5:17
come in and given me some some tips, some some kind of, you
5:21
know, back in time and take a look at what this what pieces of
5:25
history we are missing here. And Ace, thank you for having me
5:28
on the Wrestling Tonight recap show for WrestleMania 42.
5:33
He and I popped on and right after the show on on Sunday
5:37
evening as it was, you know, ending pretty early.
5:40
We'll get there as we talk more. But Ace, thanks again for having
5:43
me on And yeah, looking forward to the next time we can do that.
5:47
But the last piece of housekeeping here is a job Squad
5:51
related. We saw Rd.
5:53
Dogg wearing a Job Squad T-shirt for the very first time and this
5:57
was on that Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania 14 and he
6:01
made reference to do in the JOB and he, you know, called out the
6:05
squad during that March 30th, 1998 episode.
6:09
But the first time that we actually see the Job Squad on
6:13
WWF television is November of 1998.
6:17
So we have to Fast forward later in the year when Al Snow, Bob
6:20
Holly and Too Cold Scorpio, you know, officially form the Job
6:25
Squad. And that was the November 8th
6:27
episode of Sunday Night Heat. Not even a Monday Night Raw.
6:31
So you got a debut of Sunday Night Heat for the Job Squad
6:34
here and I and one last special piece.
6:38
You know, we talked about the Discord a lot last week.
6:41
We talked about it again already this more in the beginning of
6:44
this podcast here. And we we shouted out Mike, our
6:48
friend here that is also a librarian here in the Northeast.
6:52
So we officially guilted Mike into joining the Discord
6:56
channel. So welcome.
6:57
I'm so happy that you are there. We've officially formed the LWO.
7:01
No, no, no, not that type of LWO.
7:05
We have the librarian world now with Mike, with Jim, and with
7:10
our new friend Mike, who has joined the Discord as well.
7:13
So Mike, I'm glad you're here. Shout out to Mike.
7:15
And yeah, man, let's dive right in.
7:24
So the way that we have broken down Wrestlemanias in the past
7:28
is we've broken down matches into tears.
7:31
And this was kind of our talking points as Nick and I would come
7:34
back on after WrestleMania. Whether it was WrestleMania 40
7:38
when myself was in the building for that on WrestleMania
7:42
Saturday back in Philadelphia, or last year where Nick and I
7:47
sat down after WrestleMania 41 and we broke things down into
7:50
tears. So the first tier we've talked
7:53
about of of course, you've got to name your match of the
7:55
weekend. You've got to name your show
7:58
stealer, you've got to name your mid card with that capital MID.
8:03
So kind of that, that mid little meh, little bit of a let down
8:07
situation. And then we also like to call
8:10
the our popcorn match. Really we we try to give this a
8:15
little bit of a different flair, an extra cooler show flair and
8:19
none other than Yantor. Oh, this is our popcorn or
8:23
mantor match. And then we do have a let down
8:27
to talk about, but I'm here by myself.
8:30
That conversation doesn't necessarily vibe, doesn't
8:32
necessarily run. Maybe I'll kind of drop them
8:34
where my things are as we continue to talk.
8:36
But just to keep that in your head, Like I'd love to hear kind
8:39
of what your parts were, what your match of the weekend, show
8:42
stealer, your mid card, your mantar.
8:45
And then your let down matches were from the from the entire
8:48
weekend, not just one night, not just two nights, but you know,
8:51
the entire weekend of kind of what was happening WrestleMania.
8:54
But before we even get there, I want to slow it down.
8:57
I want to bring it back even further to the pre WrestleMania
9:01
vibes. I'm going to talk a lot about
9:02
vibes today because I was really in my feelings throughout a lot
9:07
of the two nights. The weekends here brings you a
9:10
lot of feelings, brings you a lot of ups and downs.
9:12
The roller coaster felt like it was really high and really low
9:16
when we talk about WrestleMania here and WrestleMania 42.
9:19
The build pre Pat McAfee or Shat McAfee as he was called in the
9:24
discord during WrestleMania weekend.
9:26
So I think a Brozier was the one that dropped that gem.
9:30
But he's officially now shat McAfee in every wrestling
9:33
situation, maybe even in every radio situation.
9:36
We'll see how that goes. But pre McAfee build, I was like
9:40
feeling like things were a little flat.
9:42
Whether it was the Roman and CM Punk just coming out and talking
9:46
a whole lot, or it was the Cody and Randy situation or even just
9:51
how these matches were coming together last minute.
9:54
I felt like these the build left us wanting more.
9:59
It left us with low expectations is really how I felt it.
10:03
And you know, we've we've felt that in the past.
10:05
We've definitely had some manias that really, really delivered
10:09
because we had low expectations. And then there were others where
10:12
the build was just fantastic. And you come in with these
10:14
extremely sky high expectations and sometimes you can be let
10:17
down. But for me, there's like 2-2
10:21
builds here. There's one that was kind of
10:23
lackluster in the pre McAfee vibes and then post McAfee vibes
10:28
when McAfee is injected in here, the chat McAfee of it all things
10:33
just kind of flipped and turned upside down and everyone's
10:36
feelings were really jacked up. And you know, of course, I don't
10:40
need to go into the details of of, you know, everyone's
10:43
reaction to when McAfee showed up and what it did to this
10:46
twenty year storyline with Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton and
10:49
injecting, you know, the, the TKO of it all.
10:52
And having, you know, it feel like this is something that was
10:56
quote UN quote outside of Triple H's hands.
10:58
And I, I really have to wonder how much of this is Triple HS
11:04
ability to, or the Internet wrestling community, the IWC,
11:08
whatever the hell you want to call it.
11:10
It's just their way of defending Triple H.
11:12
But you know, if you pop into that extra cooler discord
11:15
channel and you head into the WWE section, you're going to see
11:20
a lot of Triple H gifts because he takes some heat in in that
11:23
chat, that's for damn sure. But it feels like that's an easy
11:26
way for Triple H to kind of hide behind this.
11:29
And something that I feel like we weren't talking about enough
11:32
in all of this is the unreal effect.
11:36
You know, the television show, the reality show.
11:39
And anytime that something comes about in a storyline or they
11:45
take a turn that I don't necessarily agree with or
11:48
wouldn't want to see, I always just assume that when they're
11:52
trying to build this kayfabe kind of middle ground or trying
11:57
to make things feel really real, it's all just for them to put it
12:02
on this damn unreal show. And I'm guilty as charged.
12:04
I list, I watch it. My wife sits down and watches it
12:07
with me. She loves the documentary style
12:10
things on wrestling. That's really where she engages
12:13
with the product the most. She'll sit down and watch, you
12:17
know, an event with me when I have it on.
12:19
But really she's most engaged when it comes to things like
12:22
Unreal or the Hulk Hogan documentary, which we are, you
12:26
know, watching at this point in time.
12:27
I'm through Episode 3. I'm definitely enjoying it, but
12:32
I don't want to go down that path.
12:34
I'm interested to see how they end it with, you know, episode 4
12:38
here. So maybe, maybe next time I can
12:39
come back, 'cause I don't, I don't expect to have any
12:41
housekeeping next week, but maybe that's my housekeeping is
12:44
to kind of tell you how I feel about that Hulk Hogan
12:47
documentary and how they finish it off.
12:49
But anyway, this unreal effect really looms over me heavily.
12:54
And when they inject things like Pat McAfee, it only makes it
12:59
feel like they're trying to do it for the show.
13:02
And when they try to do it for the show, maybe this is their
13:05
way of making Triple H look like he's a savior here because, you
13:10
know, TKO being the big bad overlord, so to speak of, of WWE
13:16
here and having to answer to them, it allows Triple H to
13:20
stand up for what he believes in.
13:21
And, you know, he's standing up for the fans and they are
13:23
rejecting this. And, you know, we've got to
13:25
pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. I just man it, it's frustrating.
13:29
And I can't help but think that it just all goes back to unreal.
13:33
And it's, it's it's very frustrating to me as now I'm
13:37
consuming the products week to week and try to think of what
13:41
kayfabe is and what isn't. And you know, as a 40 year
13:46
wrestling fan or 30 something year wrestling fan, like it,
13:50
it's tough to ignore kayfabe. It's tough to, you know, push it
13:54
to the side. And, and, and you know, it's the
13:57
best part of wrestling is when you can suspend your disbelief,
14:01
right? And you can just enjoy the show
14:03
for what it is. And I I wish I had aces drop of
14:06
Triple H. It's all part of the show.
14:08
It's all part of the show. Like I I I wish that was here
14:10
because it would have been a nice fit, but man, it's it's
14:14
tough. So here we are headed into night
14:18
one. I'm I've been talking about it
14:21
to this point in the discord of how you know, it's a it's a let
14:25
down, not feeling my highest vibes coming into WrestleMania
14:29
night one. But it's WrestleMania.
14:30
I'm sitting down, I'm going to watch it.
14:32
I'm excited to see it, excited to carve out this much time of
14:36
my weekend and dedicate it to wrestling.
14:38
And it's, you know, wrestling Christmas.
14:40
It's the wrestling Super Bowl, man.
14:42
I'm going to talk about wrestling Super Bowl in a little
14:44
while too, kind of with how the the crowd interacts.
14:47
But, you know, ticket prices being sky high, just the vibes
14:51
are off. And here we go.
14:53
It's now on ESPN 2. They have an hour pre show,
14:57
which I guess isn't necessarily how they were billing it.
14:59
The first hour of the show is going to be live on ESPN 2,
15:04
which is awesome, really for the product, for WWE as a whole, for
15:08
wrestling, just being validated for all of those years where you
15:12
have to like you're a wrestling fan.
15:15
Yeah, like Hulk Hogan. Yeah, you should actually give
15:18
it a shot, man. So here it is on mainstream
15:21
television, ESPN 2, and we are getting the Usos LA Night and
15:26
The Vision 1st and I show speed and really, you know, you're get
15:29
Logan Paul and I show speed. And it was really good to get
15:34
that attention. It felt like it made the most
15:36
sense. It's a good piece of business, I
15:38
guess you could say, when it comes down to, you know, how
15:41
you're promoting the product. And then you get, you know,
15:44
Jacob Fatou and and Drew McIntyre in this unsanctioned
15:48
match, which, you know, my wife was asking some questions about
15:51
what does it mean by a unsanctioned match?
15:53
And, you know, it was, it was a no disqualification match
15:58
essentially is how it was preceded.
16:00
And, you know, I liked the storytelling with the the
16:03
toolbox and maybe Drew sold it a little bit more than what I
16:07
would have expected. But understanding how bad he got
16:11
busted open in that Hell in a Cell match with CM Punk, it it
16:14
makes sense from a storytelling perspective.
16:16
But you know, we're here, we've made it through the first hour
16:19
and you know, vibes are, vibes are OK.
16:22
There's 7 minutes in the first match, there's 14 minutes in the
16:26
next match. We're cruising right along.
16:28
ESPN goes away and now you've got to go to ESPN Unlimited.
16:33
And trying to figure that all out is another part of the vibes
16:36
that just brought you down. And having to sit here and have
16:38
a subscription for $30.00 a month, it's frustrating, you
16:42
know, when we've been conditioned to 999 per month for
16:46
so damn long. And then moving to Peacock.
16:48
And I know we're so far removed from the network, but it was so
16:50
fantastic that you you yearn for that 999 a month T-shirt that
16:55
Stephanie McMahon was chilling all those years ago, but kicked
17:00
it off in this four way fatal four way tag team match for the
17:04
women's championship here. And we get a returning page man
17:09
again, it would have been something that was it was this
17:12
this was leaked out and this was essentially the big surprise for
17:15
WrestleMania weekend. And you know, it, it was cool to
17:19
see Paige. She's definitely important part
17:22
of kind of the women's the women's revolution.
17:24
And you know, talking about Paige and Emma and that match
17:28
and then you're seeing other things and her debut on the main
17:31
roster. And I was really expecting once
17:33
they said that Paige was re signing and you know, we I
17:37
personally expected her to show up in that Becky and AJ Lee
17:40
match, which was next. But you know, now we start
17:43
getting into those vibes again and we're seeing this negative
17:47
force come about because you've got an 8 minute four way tag
17:53
match, you've got an 8 minute Becky Lynch, AJ Lee, IC title
17:57
match and this feud that's gone on forever for better or for
18:00
worse. And then you have these 4 minute
18:03
commercial breaks in between which you can argue.
18:06
And for me, you know, I, I've got a nine year old son that
18:10
wanted to watch with me as well. He was very much interested in
18:15
in the evening and for trying to figure things out, but he had a
18:18
baseball game earlier in that day, so he needed to shower and
18:22
he left. He showered, came back
18:24
downstairs in the fastest shower that he's ever had.
18:27
Any missed 11 entrance. And that was it because of all
18:30
of these ads in between. So there's like this pull
18:33
between, is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing?
18:36
And I think that if there was 1 extended break, if there was one
18:42
section or every other match that went on, you had this
18:46
popcorn break, for lack of better words, this Mantar break.
18:50
You just had this popcorn break that you can get up, get another
18:53
drink, you can do what you need to do.
18:55
Like it felt like it would have been more digestible, but you
18:58
were getting these 8 minute matches.
18:59
And then 50% of that time that you just spent during this match
19:04
is just given to this ad. And you know, talk about, I'll
19:08
talk about my son even more throughout this 'cause he had
19:10
some kind of funny things along the way.
19:13
And really on night 2 is when most of them, because he was
19:16
really locked in on night 2. Most of them come in night 2.
19:19
But it was really tough to keep your vibes high because of all
19:25
of this investment in time in an 8 minute match and then spinning
19:28
it around and getting 4 minutes of commercials.
19:31
But then we get Gunther and Seth Rollins, which was a fantastic
19:35
match, 17, almost 18 minutes, 1752 here and they really
19:40
deliver. You get what you expect and you
19:42
have Braun Breakers return and all that.
19:46
And and the match was fantastic. And just with the minimal build
19:50
that was there, you know, you have the Paul Heyman injection
19:53
of this storyline and kind of where this is all going to go.
19:56
And you know, what is the favor that Gunther is going to want
19:58
from him? And there's more to talk about
20:00
with that too, as we, you know, look ahead.
20:03
But this was just a fantastic match.
20:06
These two are pros pros, and they delivered on every level.
20:10
And then you're coming out for a 6 minute and 51 minute match
20:13
with Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer, which if we're talking
20:16
about, you know, where that puts where this fits in on the the
20:19
tiers and what we've talked about before, I would have
20:22
written this down as the mid card with the high, high
20:27
emphasis on the word mid within that.
20:29
And it's really disappointing that you have Stephanie Vaquer,
20:33
who I feel like is the one that is let down the most here.
20:38
Stephanie has had this long title ring that seems like it's
20:42
been Hanford by injury. She has very minimal defenses
20:48
that you've seen her come through, which I imagine that
20:50
the two of them are related here.
20:52
And then her and Liv, which is a hot story at this point, and
20:57
what Liv is doing within the Judgement Day and you get less
20:59
than 7 minutes for them to go out there and you get a title
21:03
change in the world in the women's world title situation.
21:06
And it's really disappointing. And maybe I just have this tie
21:11
to Stephanie Vaquer. I was there at the AW Show in
21:15
New York or New Jersey when she had her one AEW match against
21:20
Mercedes Monet. And I fell in love with her in
21:24
ring at that point and I've been rooting for her ever since.
21:28
The NXT run that she had was extremely entertaining.
21:31
And then it carries on to the main roster and she's such an
21:35
engaging superstar wrestler, whatever you want to call her,
21:39
and so different and so refreshing.
21:41
And then this is how her title end.
21:44
Her title reign ends in 6 minutes and 51 seconds.
21:48
It was definitely my mid card. It was my let down.
21:52
Almost like I'm feeling like I'm let down again.
21:56
But really the let down comes next as we move into the the
22:02
main event from night one. We have Cody Rhodes and Randy
22:06
Orton coming out here and you know, this dark cloud of Pat
22:11
McAfee Jelly Roll are over the top here.
22:15
And it's it's it's funny because I feel like this was where the
22:20
pivot comes in, right? This is where the unreal effect
22:24
comes into play in my eyes. And the way that I'm looking at
22:27
this now is that in the very beginning, you have Jelly Roll
22:32
essentially come in and take out Pat McAfee in the very
22:37
beginning, shat McAfee. Pardon me?
22:38
Shat McAfee. You have him coming out in the
22:41
very beginning and taking him out and dropping a Jelly Roll
22:44
elbow through the table on the outside.
22:46
And what we learned was there was a Pedigree and a Stomp that
22:50
did not break the table in the Gunther and Seth Rollins match.
22:54
But here we are that a Jelly Roll elbow breaks the table and
22:58
that's I guess more powerful than a pedigree and a stop.
23:02
But I digress. I'm going down the wrong path of
23:05
putting reality into the wrestling and putting logic into
23:09
my wrestling when, you know, it was their way to cart out Pat
23:14
McAfee, Shaq McAfee and you know, kind of clear this road
23:18
for a wrestling match. And I know this may be kind of a
23:26
different angle or something that may not be a popular
23:29
opinion, but I wish they had the balls to follow through.
23:33
I feel like you tried to inject this Chet McAfee situation.
23:37
You tried to inject him into this story.
23:41
And I would have much rather them pay off whatever they were
23:45
going to do with this. And it felt like in the build
23:49
that it was all pointing towards Randy Orton.
23:51
You know, you get a stipulation that if if Orton doesn't win,
23:55
that Pat McAfee goes away forever.
23:56
Like all of these things just don't seem like it was pointing
24:00
to a retaining Cody Rhodes or or Cody Rhodes retaining here.
24:04
And that's exactly what happened in 22 minutes and 44 seconds.
24:07
And it felt like the crowd was dead.
24:11
Now, I kind of teased it earlier and calling this, you know,
24:15
Super Bowl weekend, this is definitely Wrestlemania's, you
24:18
know, turned into the Super Bowl.
24:20
It's a 2 day extravaganza. It's extremely high ticket
24:24
prices. It is essentially forcing your
24:27
diehards to make a decision. And Tom from Fig Guys was out
24:32
there second year in a row. He went out to Vegas and he made
24:36
that personal decision of I'm going to purchase 1 ticket and
24:40
I'm going to go one night and he decided to purchase that ticket
24:44
for Sunday night. And I feel like this Saturday
24:48
crowd really showed its face during this Cody Rhodes and
24:52
Randy Orton match. And again, we've been so
24:55
conditioned to to want this high paced, incredible athletic match
25:02
that you would see normally. And then when they slow it down
25:06
and they work a body part, I feel like this crowd that is a
25:12
little more of the, oh, well, I'm just, I'm in Vegas and
25:15
WrestleMania is going on. Let me just look up how much
25:17
tickets are. Oh sure, I won, you know, a
25:19
couple 100 bucks on the blackjack table last night.
25:22
And I thought, well, let's just go to let's go to WrestleMania.
25:24
Screw it, let's go have some fun.
25:25
And I felt like it's that Super Bowl level crowd that it's not
25:29
your true fan. It's not the people that are
25:31
there to, you know, because they're lifelong wrestling fans,
25:34
because they're likely not listening to this podcast or
25:37
another wrestling podcast because they were there and it
25:40
just was something to do. And it felt like that's what
25:43
this WrestleMania Saturday kind of felt like it was something to
25:48
do And it was oh, well, my company has tickets because, you
25:51
know, we fund TKOTKO and whatever poor ethical way that
25:58
they've that they do that. But regardless, that's a topic
26:01
for another day. But it really feels like this is
26:05
where the crowd took a turn and the crowd just didn't know how
26:09
to react to an actual wrestling match, for lack of better words.
26:13
Because you've got Randy Orton and Cody slowing down the match.
26:18
It's all focused on Randy's back.
26:20
And that's exactly how it kind of came about.
26:23
And then the crowd kind of picks up because, you know, at the end
26:26
you get spam finishers and you get all of this stuff.
26:28
And this was a conversation that, you know, Ace and I had
26:31
when I was on wrestling tonight. But we were trying to think back
26:35
to when all of this WWE style of spam finishers and this
26:39
excitement of, you know, 2.999 kick outs and how much you need
26:44
to do that and stealing each other's finishers.
26:46
And, you know, the tried and true kind of formula of a main
26:50
event in WWE. And we were talking about
26:52
bringing it all the way back to Brock Lesnar and whether it was
26:56
Brock and Xena or it was Brock, an Undertaker at WrestleMania
26:59
30, like it all revolves around Brock and even Brock and Wharton
27:04
when Brock busts him open with that elbow, you know, at at
27:08
summer slam as well. So I I don't know.
27:11
But after night one, talk about vibes, man.
27:15
Like it felt like everyone was just booking for a moment.
27:18
It was more about the I show speed jump off of the ring post.
27:24
It was more about the page return.
27:27
It was, you know, feeling like they got too cute for their own
27:30
good. You know, it was something that
27:32
they needed to just book these moments, pal, instead of trying
27:37
to book good matches and long longer matches.
27:41
I don't even think that I wanted anything long.
27:44
Like I don't need 20 minute matches for everything, but the
27:48
8 minutes followed by the four minutes of commercials is really
27:50
disheartening and really takes you out of the flow of the night
27:55
and the flow of the matches and a man pricing out the diehards.
27:59
It really felt like it took a toll on Saturday.
28:01
And I'm sitting here like really down and we're talking about in
28:05
the Discord channel and the conversation was all about,
28:08
well, that sucked. I don't know if I really want to
28:11
sit through night too. And the vibes are just such at
28:15
an all time low coming out of a WrestleMania night.
28:19
It it just feels feels awful, feels yucky.
28:22
I don't know. And then you have all of the the
28:25
TKO of it all in the background and it's really brought to the
28:28
foreground because of the Pat McAfee situation.
28:30
And just assuming that you know this, he's only here because TKO
28:34
got involved and you know, this isn't Triple H.
28:36
This isn't, you know, the the WWE wrestling booking that we
28:39
want to see and it, you know, kind of takes you all out of it.
28:44
So I don't know, vibes are super low.
28:47
But let's take a pause and then we'll come back and we'll talk
28:50
about Night 2. So here we are, more baseball in
28:58
our life as we have. I think there was a double
29:01
header, triple header that day. My son plays on two teams, so he
29:05
was running all over the all over the place with some extra
29:08
baseball on Sunday. And then we got back in time
29:11
just in time for us to get some food in and then sit down for
29:16
some good old WrestleMania. And here we are Night 2 now and
29:19
we're doing the same thing as we did in night one, except the
29:22
first hour is now on ESPN proper.
29:24
So ESPN 2, awesome. ESPN 1 ESPN main Holy crap, this
29:30
isn't this doesn't feel real. And you know, you grow up with,
29:34
you know, turning on ESPN as a kid in the 80s and the early 90s
29:37
and you may see some good old wrestling during the afternoon
29:42
you come home from school. But this isn't WWE.
29:44
This isn't that type of coverage.
29:46
And you're seeing it all over ESPN all week.
29:49
It's that Super Bowl feeling, that Super Bowl week vibe where
29:52
everything on on every channel is talking about, you know,
29:55
WrestleMania and ESPN is, you know, get Stephen A Smith
29:58
involved and all of that stuff. And you know, having people on
30:02
First Take and setting up on SportsCenter and all that.
30:06
And then here we are and we kick off Night 2 with Oba Femi
30:11
defeating Brock Lesnar in 4 minutes and 46 seconds.
30:15
But this is a good 4 minutes and 46 seconds.
30:17
So all of that shit that I was talking about it in night one.
30:20
This is the proper way in essentially A glorified squash.
30:24
And again, we're talking about my son again, he doesn't watch
30:29
week to week. He will pop in with if I have it
30:33
on on a evening every once in a while, he'll play with his
30:36
wrestling figures and have a Royal Rumble in the living room.
30:40
And just during the entrances alone, you get Brock, you get
30:44
Oba. And he turns to me and he goes,
30:46
Dad, I don't think Brock is the Beast anymore.
30:49
Oba is the new Beast now. And like for a nine year old kid
30:53
who doesn't watch on a weekly, to be able to have that
30:56
observation, they're obviously doing something right here.
30:59
And then they deliver with this transferral of the Undertaker
31:04
streak, which has been given to Brock Lesnar over the last, you
31:08
know, 12 years now. It's been that long, 12 years
31:11
since WrestleMania 30 and you see it form and in the form of
31:16
Brock Lesnar moving from Brock, from the Undertaker to Brock and
31:19
then Undertaker, I'm sorry. And then Brock gives it to Roman
31:23
a little bit. But there's still all of that
31:25
juice that's within Brock Lesnar, which is, you know, one
31:29
of your most believable beasts, right?
31:32
Whether it, and that's the whole shtick of Brock Lesnar, whether
31:35
he is at the UFC or he's at WWE or he's on a television
31:40
interview or whatever, it's Brock who is Brock, who is
31:43
Brock. And the story is that he just
31:45
wants to go live on his farm in Saskatchewan.
31:47
Jim, where are you? And that's it.
31:50
And kill animals and do whatever else he does and hunt and fish.
31:53
And you know, that's, that's the vibes that you get from Brock
31:57
Lesnar wherever he is. And then you see Oba squash him,
32:02
pretty much squash him in 4 minutes and 46 seconds.
32:05
And I just love the way Brock Lesnar sells any single time
32:10
that he is going in there and he's putting over his, his, you
32:13
know, opponent in the best way possible, it's because he sells
32:17
his friggin ass off. And I love it.
32:20
And then after the match, you get this insane moment, which I
32:23
don't believe any of us expected because the rumors were all
32:26
about, Oh yeah, if Brock retires, he'll he'll retire in
32:29
at SummerSlam in Minnesota, in his hometown and blah, blah,
32:33
blah, blah, blah. And then here we are and we've
32:35
got an emotional Brock Lesnar. And then I don't know about if
32:39
it's just me or not, but when the easiest way for me to bite
32:43
on the reality that's baked into wrestling is when you see the
32:48
performer getting emotional. And this is exactly what you see
32:52
as Brock Lesnar essentially retires in the middle of the
32:56
ring, takes off his gloves, takes off his boots.
32:58
The interaction with Paul Heyman, who is, you know,
33:01
emotional in and of itself. And that one's a little bit less
33:03
believable because you know what the actor Paul Heyman can do.
33:07
And this, this is just an awesome way to do this on ESPN,
33:13
no less. You get to see the retiring of
33:15
Brock Lesnar on ESPN proper. And it was really just a an
33:19
amazing way to bring up those vibes, man.
33:23
Like the vibes were so low after night one.
33:27
And then you're here at night 2 and those vibes get picked up
33:30
immediately because you get the strut of Oba destroying Brock
33:34
Lesnar and sending him off into retirement or what we expect to
33:37
be retirement. We'll see how this all goes.
33:39
But man, the vibes instantly jump up a level.
33:43
And then everyone is hyped. The Discord is popping off at
33:46
this point, everybody is ready to go.
33:48
And then they hit us again in the face with this six man
33:51
ladder match with Penta coming out on top and you get to see
33:53
all the craziness that was here. But again, before we get there,
33:58
we've got to see 545 minutes worth of commercials.
34:02
And at this point there were three men in the ring.
34:05
When they come back from commercial, it was JD McDonough,
34:09
Dragon, Lee and Rusev were all in the ring.
34:11
And my 9 year old again, he comes in and he goes, we missed
34:15
the entrances because of these stupid ads.
34:19
And the, the ferocity with the way that he said it was just so
34:23
incredibly funny to me. And of course you live in this,
34:26
this younger generation lives on YouTube and you get ads in
34:29
between if you don't pay for the the premium.
34:32
And he had this just vitriol come out about these stupid ads
34:36
made me miss these entrances. And he has no tie to either any
34:40
of those 3 competitors, Dragon lead, JD McDonough or Rusev.
34:44
Like none of that would have done anything for him.
34:46
But just the fact that he felt gypped, you know, kind of
34:49
carries over that vibe a little bit.
34:51
But now we're joking about it 'cause my son is making me
34:53
laugh. But I'm assuming that anybody
34:56
that had to sit through this again was like, what the hell,
34:59
here we go. We're going through it again.
35:01
I guess is this this is the new norm And it's it's disappointing
35:06
again and man, but the the vibes of this match bring you back up
35:11
and just the athleticism and it's really hard to mess up a
35:14
six pack ladder match, right? Whether it's money in the bank
35:16
or it's the showcase of the luchadors.
35:19
And I'll let Nick talk about how all three of the luchadors here
35:23
are all wearing red and how disappointing and distracting
35:27
that is. And I wonder what the casual fan
35:30
on ESPN watching thought of that.
35:32
And was it they all look like a team out there?
35:35
Did you expect them to, you know, team up and you know, work
35:38
that way? And it just didn't happen.
35:40
So again, a a fantastic match, fun to watch.
35:44
Javon Evans looks like 1,000,000 bucks here with all of his
35:48
bounciness. And then we move into, you know,
35:50
the main show. Now, the main show here is
35:53
starting out with the US Championship match, 7 minutes of
35:56
Trick Williams winning the title from Sami Zayn.
35:58
But the story here to me isn't either of those guys.
36:02
It's not the fact that Carmelo Hayes is not in this match.
36:05
It's actually Little Yachty man. This is another great use of a
36:11
celebrity and you know, celebrity.
36:12
Take it with a grain of salt. The Little Yachty isn't
36:14
necessarily somebody that, you know, clicks with me.
36:18
He's a mid 40s man, but him coming out, he played his role
36:23
perfectly as a heel manager man and putting Trick over and
36:27
making Trick look like he's even more than 1,000,000 bucks 'cause
36:31
he comes out looking like 1,000,000 bucks and Yadi brings
36:33
him up even further. So I was really stoked on this
36:36
one and really excited to talk about just little Yachty as a
36:41
whole. I I thought was really a nice
36:43
addition. And based on Smackdown this past
36:46
Friday, it seems like he's going to be sticking around a little
36:48
bit. So I love this pairing.
36:50
It's really interesting and I'm excited for him to take a bump
36:54
or two because it looks like that's what's going to happen
36:55
too. And the trick Williams US title
36:59
reign is is underway. We we'll skip over the the demon
37:05
Finn Balor. I guess it was, you know, good
37:07
to have demon Finn back. It was good to have him, you
37:11
know, win a match in a street fight, which I guess is what it
37:14
is 10 minutes 27 seconds. I'm glad they're protecting
37:18
Finn. I hope Finn is back and on the
37:20
the upswing. This is actually the match where
37:24
my my son ran off to go take his, his shower and came back
37:29
with those 4 minutes after the the match, took a shower, got
37:33
his stuff together, came down and just missed Dominic
37:36
Mysterio's entrance and, and that was it.
37:40
But we'll move into now a 10 minute match with Rhea Ripley
37:45
and Jade Cargill. I thought that these two ladies
37:47
came out swinging. I thought Rhea really got a lot
37:50
out of Jade. It was another short match if
37:52
you will. I would have loved to have seen
37:54
all of these matches get more time, but this one in
37:56
particular, and you know, Rhea makes Jade look like 1,000,000
38:00
bucks. And it was it, it did the job
38:03
done. They did what it needed to do.
38:05
And I'm excited to see kind of what they do with Jade next
38:08
because there's a lot of questions of what you do with
38:12
this specimen of a human being now that she doesn't have a
38:15
title on her shoulder. And we've made it through all
38:20
but one match from the from WrestleMania weekend.
38:24
And we haven't talked about Dan housing yet.
38:28
And I do have to admit, Tom from Fig Guys was over the moon when
38:33
Dan Hausen shows up. And I know him very briefly.
38:36
I'm not one that goes out and seeks out the extra, you know,
38:41
content that wrestlers put out and him putting out so much
38:44
content on YouTube and, you know, the lack of, you know,
38:47
usage on the AW run and all that.
38:50
I just look at Dan Hausen as all right, well, there's no more
38:54
need for our truth because now Dan Hausen is going to be our
38:58
our comedic relief. This one felt so much bigger and
39:02
better. And I'm fully in on Dan Hausen
39:05
now. And it didn't take us long.
39:07
I was lukewarm just because I didn't get it.
39:09
I was going to give it a shot. It was like I said, all right,
39:12
this is just going to be the new our truth.
39:14
This is going to be who ours are comedic relief in wrestling and
39:18
they're just doing such a great job.
39:19
And his interaction with John Cena was really, really fun to
39:24
watch. Just the the the comedic chops
39:27
that he has the The Simpsons vibes that he gives off is is
39:32
really a lot of fun. It feels like Dan Housen should
39:35
be on an episode of The Simpsons.
39:36
I feel like that's really where he fits in so, so well.
39:39
But again, this was essentially between the bell of the Rio
39:46
Ripley Jade Cargill match. You're looking at your clock and
39:49
it's like 815 on a Sunday night and you're sitting here like,
39:53
what the hell is going to go on? And then you Fast forward like
39:55
40 minutes later and then finally the bell rings for Roman
39:58
and Punk, which I don't think I need to, you know, put over
40:02
anymore. This was obviously my match of
40:04
the weekend without a doubt. This didn't feel like, I think I
40:09
even texted Ace in the moment. I may have put it in the discord
40:11
as well, but this didn't feel like a WrestleMania match.
40:14
This didn't feel like AWWE match.
40:17
These two went out there, they laid it all out on the line.
40:20
Dave Meltzer gives it five stars, which is a very limited,
40:25
limited list of five star WWE matches, but it truly had a main
40:32
event feel. This had the vibes, man.
40:35
Like I've, I've talked about the vibes so much throughout my
40:38
talking of just the card and reviewing the card here.
40:40
And the vibes went up immediately as Roman Reigns's
40:46
entrance comes out and you have the piano player and the tympani
40:50
drums and you know, everything that was brought about with
40:53
that. And it, it instantly brought you
40:56
to the place that you need to be.
40:58
And it felt like it was worthy of a WrestleMania main event.
41:01
And you know, we fought through all of the sludge, we fought
41:06
through all the commercials, we fought through all the chat.
41:08
McAfee, we've gotten here and now we're on the 6th match of
41:13
WrestleMania Sunday. And this crowd is right there
41:17
with you the entire time. And they've now brought the
41:20
energy and the energy maybe even at the highest point that it was
41:25
throughout the weekend. And it's on the last match of
41:27
the card. So I don't want to, you know,
41:31
I'm not going to go move for move.
41:32
There's no reason for doing that.
41:34
There's no reason for even talking about the finish.
41:36
But at the very end, us as WWE fans has been preconditioned for
41:43
Gaga for extracurricular activities after the, you know,
41:48
match is over. And what's going to happen next
41:50
and who's going to come down? Are we going to get the Rock?
41:52
Are we going to get fill in the blank?
41:55
And I love the fact that both nights went off the air with no
41:58
Gaga. Now, you can argue that Randy
42:01
and Cody could have used it. And maybe the punt is the Gaga,
42:07
if you will. And you know, like the swollen
42:09
eye of Cody, which is pretty gnarly when you look at it, that
42:13
dude between the torn pack and now this eye and.
42:16
And when he gets beat up, he gets beat up good huh?
42:18
But I digress and I'm off topic. But you know, just this Roman
42:22
victory, no help, no Usos, no Gaga.
42:27
After the match you just get these two put in their blood,
42:32
sweat and tears cause Punk was bleeding blood sweat and tears
42:35
into this match and you really get paid off.
42:38
And now the vibes are on a next level and it feels like Brock
42:42
Lesnar plus Roman Reigns and CM Punk saved WrestleMania and
42:47
saved TKO, saved WWE. Like the vibes are now on a
42:52
whole nother level because that's what's leaving your your
42:57
palate at the end of Sunday night WrestleMania.
43:01
And it's still light out. It's in Vegas.
43:03
It's about 6 something in the afternoon at this point.
43:06
And Tom is on television screen, We're seeing him.
43:10
I'm like showing my my son where Tom is because he's hung out
43:13
with Tom before. And it was, it was fun to watch
43:17
that little piece of it and gives Tom some love in our
43:20
household. And then you're getting out
43:23
there and you're getting to this post show where you normally
43:28
don't see Roman Reigns show up to these post shows and he shows
43:31
up to these post shows. And now it's it's 38 seconds of
43:35
a clip. And what would the extra cooler
43:37
show be without a clip? So we're going to listen to it
43:40
because it was really interesting.
43:41
He saying that he's going to be around through the summer, like
43:45
he's he's not going to be this part time guy.
43:48
And just listen to the crowd. And I'm sure it's not new to
43:51
anybody that's listening to this, especially, you know, 10
43:54
days removed or even more than that from WrestleMania Sunday.
43:58
But the crowd is making their presence felt.
44:01
As you know, Roman Reigns starts talking about WWE and TKO.
44:07
So let's take a listen. Graves was there.
44:10
We was with Cody's dad cutting promos on a Wednesday in a
44:14
warehouse. He was there too.
44:17
I said it. I'm a unsigned billion dollar
44:20
check and guess who cashed it, baby?
44:23
The WWETKO Endeavour. This is what it is, man.
44:27
This is the, this is, this is the one that brought us up.
44:35
A bipolar bunch out here, huh? Roman, congratulations.
44:48
It's hard not to get caught up in this, and Roman looks
44:52
genuinely confused when he starts hearing boos because the
44:56
crowd is eating up every single word that he's saying.
44:59
Until he dropped those 3 little letters of TKO and IT gets a
45:04
FTKO chant from the crowd. And Roman is genuinely surprised
45:11
and I was very, very surprised myself that not the crowd is
45:16
chanting, but they actually let it sit.
45:19
They like let it ride. They all laid out and they
45:22
listen to the crowd chant FTKO and it was such a weird part of
45:29
the post show, like a weird part of WWE.
45:32
And you know, it's not normal for them to highlight that.
45:37
And I'm sure it's a little bit tough to, you know, get away
45:40
from it. But Joe Test sits out and just
45:42
lays out and just lets it all happen.
45:44
And it was really an interesting part of the post show here.
45:48
So now we'll talk about the tears real quick.
45:51
I think my let down was Cody and Randy.
45:54
I think my popcorn slash mentor of the of the entire weekend.
46:00
Let's get it one more time. Had to have been all the
46:04
commercials, all of the long breaks.
46:07
Here's your mentor. There's the one thing that just
46:09
doesn't make a difference. It doesn't matter.
46:11
This is things that you just don't give a shit about.
46:14
But maybe I guess the the long breaks is something that pissed
46:17
me off. So maybe it doesn't fit there.
46:19
And the mid card, I said it before, the emphasis on mid was
46:23
that Stephanie Vecare and Liv Morgan match.
46:26
It was just a disappointment because I wanted more for
46:28
Stephanie, felt like it let her down.
46:30
It didn't do her justice to get that short of time.
46:33
And I know I'm hearing the rumors that both of them are
46:36
banged up. Obviously saw the, the Liv
46:38
Morgan, you know, war battle scars from the, from the, the
46:44
headbutt on on Monday night Raw. The show stealer to me was OPA
46:48
Febby and Brock Lesnar. And it could have been all
46:50
because of the Gaga, you know, not a 4 minute match, but just
46:52
the overall vibes of that and what it did for the overall card
46:57
was the show stealer and then the match of the weekend for me,
47:00
CM Punk and Roman Reigns. Like, how can you not feel that
47:04
way coming out of this? But then you Fast forward, you
47:07
get through Monday Night Raw, there's, you know, some good
47:10
pieces, there's some OK pieces. And you know, we get, we'll talk
47:13
about NXT debuts in a minute. And then we Fast forward to
47:17
Friday and Nick and I and our families are at the Savannah
47:20
Bananas game at Yankee Stadium on Friday evening.
47:23
I'm starting to get text messages from Tom at at Fig
47:26
Guys. And he's like, all right,
47:27
releases are coming. Here we are, Black Friday, and
47:29
we get some really interesting some, yeah, I guess you can say
47:33
some, some inconsequential names.
47:36
And then the top of this, much similar to any of these big
47:40
releases that come after WrestleMania every year, get
47:43
Kyrie Sane, Alistair Black, Zelena Vega, the Wyatt 6.
47:48
Those are kind of the big ones that jump off the page.
47:50
You're right, You can start talking about some other ones,
47:52
but really, those are the ones that jump off the page to me.
47:56
The Wyatt 6, I get it, it's a nostalgia act.
47:59
It's unfortunate, but it is the connection to Bray Wyatt, who is
48:03
an Alzheimer. He is an important piece of this
48:05
generation and seeing his brother get released and really
48:09
what his Uncle Howdy and Bo Dallas, his whole shtick was a
48:13
tribute to Bray. I'm glad that they kind of
48:16
wrapped it all back up together again at the end and they
48:20
allowed them to win and get the Lantern back from the MFTS.
48:25
And you know, it's kind of the end of what we see the Wyatt 6
48:28
be. The Kyrie Sane piece is the
48:31
opposite. And the Kyrie Sane piece is the
48:34
most interesting part of these releases to me.
48:36
And I know that there's rumors swirling around about how she
48:39
wanted to go back to Japan and all that's well and good.
48:41
But I would like to think that the communication of I would
48:46
like to go back to Japan and you're in the heart of this
48:51
story between EO and Oscar and you're getting abused by Oscar.
48:55
And it's such a important story point that it's really crazy to
49:01
me that they're just quote UN quote, allowing her to go back
49:05
to Japan instead of having a conversation and saying, let's
49:11
pay this off, Let's finish off this story and let's tie this
49:16
bow like you did with the Wyatt 6 and then you can go and then
49:20
we'll let you go. So it's all very strange to me.
49:22
The Kyrie one just doesn't make sense.
49:25
You you heard some we want Kyrie chance at Monday night raw last
49:30
night when Oscar was on. And I I don't believe it's going
49:34
to make a difference this time. It's not going to be the we want
49:36
truth situation, but it definitely felt weird.
49:41
And this is the part of the business that us as fans that
49:45
are older and understand and have some grey in our beard like
49:48
I do myself, it's part of the business that we get, you know,
49:54
numb to. And then there's some that just
49:55
kind of hit us the right way. And, you know, 23 talent, 23
49:59
different talents, you know, get released on Friday.
50:03
And then there's Alistair Black and Zelena and going back to the
50:08
Shat McAfee situation, the TKO situation, whatever you want to
50:12
call it when they interject themselves in this Cody and
50:17
Randy Orton's story. If you look and you know what
50:20
what WWE likes to do now, it's, you know, kind of give you some
50:24
Easter eggs in the background that Zelena and Alistair were in
50:28
the background a lot of these segments.
50:31
And the rumor was that Alistair and Selena were going to be the
50:35
people on the phone call for Randy Orton before Chad McAfee
50:39
came into play. And man, it's just unbelievable
50:44
to me that you have such a wild 180.
50:48
And I feel bad for, you know, the human beings, Alistair and
50:52
Selena. I apologize for not knowing
50:54
their actual names, but you know, I feel bad for them as
50:58
people because you're on, you're being talked about and being
51:02
injected into the main event storyline of WrestleMania on
51:06
night 1, and this is where you think you're headed.
51:09
And then Swoop TKO comes in. This is where the FTKO kind of
51:14
conversation comes about. And then next thing you know,
51:18
you're not a part of the story for Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll.
51:21
And then you get released and it's like man.
51:24
And IA part of me is certainly I enjoy Alistair Black.
51:28
I enjoy the NXT run most of all was just so much fun for me.
51:34
And you know, covering each one of them on the NXT takeovers
51:38
with ace field retro back on shot on nostalgia was so much
51:41
fun and just being able to relive it.
51:44
You know, you you appreciate what Selena did there with
51:49
Andrade, what Alistair Black did back in NXT days.
51:53
And you know, you think and you yearn and you want more of that.
51:56
And I think that, you know, NXT Black and Gold for me is such a
51:59
something that you want more of. So these two being released,
52:03
it's kind of a bummer. And I don't know where they end
52:06
up. It doesn't feel like a AEW
52:09
reunion is is kind of down the line here for them.
52:12
Maybe it's TNA, but then you get this weird crossover with TNA
52:16
and and WWE. And how does this all work?
52:18
And yeah, I'm interested to see what happens.
52:20
I'd love to see Alistair Black do some flood sport, do do some
52:24
indie runs and kind of see what happens there.
52:27
And, you know, allow Alistair to go do his thing.
52:30
But these releases, unfortunately, are part of the
52:32
business. But I think this signifies a
52:36
whole other layer of, you know, with WrestleMania 42 as a whole
52:41
and the weekend as a whole, including, you know, Smackdown
52:44
and Raw after Mania and Smackdown after Mania.
52:48
It feels like this is a major turning point for the roster.
52:52
It feels like it's a major turning point for the next
52:55
generation of of wrestlers of superstars that are coming into
53:00
play. And this starts with Oba Femi.
53:02
It starts with the Ruler has arrived and just drops the mic.
53:05
A very Roman Reigns type segment to kick off the Raw after Mania.
53:10
And then we get NXT debuts of Ethan Page, Sol Ruka, Joe Hendry
53:14
are all coming about. Ricky Saints is coming.
53:17
Royce Keyes who wins the Andre battle Royal is a part of this
53:21
too. And then on Smackdown, the
53:24
Smackdown after WrestleMania, my favorite piece of all of this
53:28
was not going. It was not expected, was Fatal
53:32
Influence being brought up. Jaycee, Jane Fallon, Henley,
53:34
Laney Reed. These three ladies come in and
53:37
they interrupt the tag team title match, Paige, Brie, Bella,
53:42
Charlotte Flair, and Alexa Bliss and they take all four of them
53:46
out. And the amount of booze that
53:50
they get when Jaycee comes out to answer Rhea's open challenge,
53:55
the crowd reaction was such another level.
53:57
And I didn't expect it to happen in any way, shape or form.
54:01
And for them to be able to go through and get that type of
54:04
heat was not anything that I expected.
54:07
And honestly, it makes these three girls right out the gate.
54:10
And Jaycee, I do have to give her some credit.
54:13
She seemed a little off right when these booze were raining
54:16
down on her. And then it just clicked.
54:18
Something clicked in and she was like, all right, we're here.
54:21
This is what we're doing. And she recovered.
54:23
And it was so slight, like you have to look for it to even see
54:26
her, like second guessing or trying to analyze and figure out
54:29
what the hell is going on and why this is going on.
54:32
And then she just clicked in and it was ready to roll.
54:35
And she did such a phenomenal job at embracing the heat.
54:38
And I loved every second of it. So for me, what's next?
54:45
It feels like we are going to get, you know, some really fun
54:49
things with this NXT talent coming up.
54:51
And that's in. I didn't even talk about Javon
54:53
Evans because he's a part of that group too.
54:55
And this next wave of NXT talent, even bringing Braun
54:59
Breaker into the situation with, you know, the Seth Rollins, you
55:02
know, story that's going on. And we'll go to Backlash and
55:05
we'll get Jacob Fatou and Roman Reigns at Backlash.
55:08
And it feels like this has an opportunity to really hit a hard
55:14
reset on what WWE is moving forward into 2026.
55:18
And it feels like that WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas was
55:25
kind of that icing on the cake of this generation of this run
55:28
of this out with the old, in with the new.
55:31
And man, it's, it's tough to battle through these vibes.
55:36
It's tough to battle through the negative light of business
55:41
practices for TKO, but it's not going anywhere.
55:45
So you have to make a decision on whether or not you want to
55:47
enjoy wrestling or if you want to take this kind of moral
55:51
stand. And it's shitty that that's
55:52
where you've got to do it. There was a lot of conversations
55:56
about that and it's only going to get worse as we have now.
56:01
I have AI think it's a night of champions that's booked for
56:04
Saudi Arabia later this year, WrestleMania 43 as of now and it
56:09
seems like Nick Khan is doubling down.
56:12
It's making it seem like this will happen.
56:15
WrestleMania 43 in Saudi and then today alone, he just, he
56:20
being Nick Kampao. He just stated that.
56:24
Wait until you see where we're going for WrestleMania 44 in
56:28
2028. So that little breadcrumb was
56:31
dropped and I, I don't know where to even begin with this,
56:34
but it feels like it's outside of America again.
56:37
It feels like it's outside of the US domestically.
56:40
And I wouldn't be surprised if it's London.
56:42
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a Mexico City or it's something
56:46
like that. So I man, WrestleMania 42 may
56:49
have been the last domestic WrestleMania for a while.
56:53
So we'll, we'll see what happens, but Dan, thanks for
56:56
coming along this journey with me. 56 minutes.
56:59
We're sitting here 57 minutes. Holy shit.
57:00
I talked for a long time, but I appreciate everyone that has
57:03
made it this far. I appreciate you all for
57:06
checking in, wanting to hear some extra credit from the Extra
57:09
cooler show. And you know, next week or next
57:13
couple of weeks, we'll come back.
57:14
I think we have something really fun planned for Mike's birthday,
57:16
which is right around the corner.
57:17
Mike, you work great. But yeah, I think we're gonna
57:21
have some fun episodes coming up and that'll bring us into the
57:23
summer and maybe we'll talk about a little bit of summer
57:26
slam. So if you have any
57:28
recommendations of a two-part summer slam that you'd love to
57:31
hear the Extra Cooler Show Boys review or relive, definitely go
57:36
on. Hit us up on the Discord.
57:38
You can find the link in the show notes of this show.
57:41
You can find us on social media. Hit me up at Matt's in the
57:45
Cooler. I'll send you a link directly.
57:47
But come hang out, have some fun, and then follow us all on
57:50
Instagram at the Extra Cooler Show, follow Nick at Extra
57:54
Cooler and again myself at Matt in the Cooler while you're at
57:58
it. We haven't talked about this in
57:59
a long time, but make sure you're subscribing, please, if
58:02
you have the ability to do so. If you want to take a couple of
58:05
minutes out, give us a rating, give us a review, write it on
58:08
Apple, give us those five stars on Spotify.
58:11
It does help out. I know you hear every single
58:14
podcast talk about how it helps out, but it's true.
58:16
And we've had a lot of increase in plays over the last, you
58:20
know, couple of weeks with reliving some Mike Tyson.
58:22
So appreciate anyone that's brand new to the podcast.
58:25
Come say hello, have some fun and we will see you very soon.
58:30
For some more extra cooler show, see you.
58:37
A bipolar bunch out here. Huh Roman, Congratulations.