WWE RAW Review: Cody's Victory Speech, Rock Warns He's Returning, #1 Contender's Match, More

This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the WWE podcast, the
show the one that everybody wants me. Godet sixteen said us, your ass
is mind, we can acknowledge me. All right, everybody, Welcome to
the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania review here on the WWE Podcast. It's April
ninth, twenty twenty four. WrestleMania has come and gone, and we're already
looking forward to WrestleMania forty one thinking about what can happen. The Rock is
going away for a while, as we all expected him to go, and
that's fine, but he has given us a target upon his return, and
that is Cody Rhodes that he'll be targeting upon his return. We don't know
what he handed, did Cody Roads At the beginning of Raw? That really
did that last? I mean I saw Hulu and it took up half the
show. It took up forty five minutes, so that means like it was
a full hour of television with commercials. Am I wrong? For those of
you that actually watched the commercial version of Raw Live, it had to have
been an hour. So maybe the longest single opening segment of Raw in its
history, but I didn't hate it. I thought it was well done,
you know. And I will say this but well, before we get going,
I want to welcome under your patrons, Brad Stubblefield, Funky Guy ninety
seven. Thank you guys for joining us. I think Chris b I think
Chris I gave you a shout out earlier too, but thank you to Chris.
Thank you to a Funky Guy ninety seven and Brad Stubblefield for joining us
over at the Patreon side of things. And if you want to join the
Patreon side of things and not have to deal with any ads every five to
ten minutes, well that's a good place to go. Is Patreon dot com,
Slash WWE podcast or ww podcast dot com or Apple podcast, which all
of them offer ad free everything. So we're gonna get into raw, but
first and foremost, I want to just say upfront's been a lot of reaction
to my review of especially WrestleMania Night two, and to our current state of
WWE that I did yesterday with Anthony DeMarco, in which we were not excited
about Cody Rhodes, the Babyface character. But if you've listened to this show,
you know that that's not something we like. And you know I know
that. Admittedly sometimes I can go a little bit too repetitive on the negative
side. But here's what I will also say. It's my show, and
if you don't like what I have to say, hey, there are other
podcasts unsubscribe, right. And I don't mean that in a screw you kind
of way. It's it's just logic. If you don't like the show,
don't listen. I really don't care, I don't. I mean, the
show's going to survive whether you listen or not. Right, to those of
you that are crapping on the show and don't like what we have to say,
then move on, move on. But if you want to actually engage
in civil debate, I'm all yours, let's go, right, I mean,
that's sound lost art today. You know, it's all about calling people
names. Oh you're a hater. Oh relax and enjoy the product. Those
are all nothing more than deodorizers for the source of the problem, which is
your lack of ability to have a civil debate. And that's all it is.
So those of you that don't like what I have to say, or
don't or are tired of me, complaining about Cody. Hey, I don't
know what to tell you. There are other shows I know, other podcast
hosts will be like, no, I'm sorry and cower and change their opinion
and apologize and be cowards. Yeah, like, that's not this show.
Yeah, that's not this show. We love having listeners, we love the
supporters, and hey, I'm all for people disagreeing with me. I don't
want everyone to just be an echo chamber. I like opinions, but apparently
those some of you, some of you can't handle a dissenting opinion because it
makes your tummy hurt. Well, I don't know what to tell you.
That's just too bad? Is I Like? I don't give I don't give
it, you know, I mean, I don't care, so, but
I do care if you are interested in having debate, cool like human beings,
like adults, and you don't want to act like we're fourteen years old
freshman in high school and name calling. How old are you? So?
I mean you as the audience that has had a very visceral reaction to my
complaints about Cody. But if you listened to the whole show, because apparently
some people didn't, all they heard was me complaining about Cody Rhods, but
I also agreed that that's the same decision I would have made. The Cody
Roads decision. While I don't like his character, has nothing to do with
what's right for the company. And what's right for the company is Cody Roads
to be champion like. Apparently that that concept of being able to have a
mature outlook on something, of disagreeing with a character but also being able to
understand that the company's needs come before my petty dislikes for Cody. Of course,
see that's called the mature outlook. Can it's a mature opinion? I'm
certainly not. I mean, let's be serious. I have a lot of
immaturity things that about me that I hide. I mean, I think we
all do to some degree. It's a matter of who can hide it better.
Right. Being an adult is really not changing who you are. It's
just suppressing who you are for the outside world in a way, because who
you are at your core doesn't really change throughout your life. It's a matter
of just suppressing the childhood inside of you while outwardly expressing a more mature version
of you. But that inner child never goes away, right, So I'm
not pretending to be this all Saints type of you know, grandfather wise man,
no pun intended, I'm not. But my point about all this is,
if you are interested in having civil debate, like let's go, it's
fun, but it's so easily today descents into name calling, and the moment
that you name call or call somebody a hater but have nothing of substance to
say. You just name call and call people haters and labels and like whatever,
You've already lost the debate because it's clear that you do not have the
intelligence to debate. That's it. So bottom line on that. Because I
wanted to respond on a podcast and not on X, which is sometimes more
difficult to do in so many characters. If you don't like the show,
hit the road, and I mean that, like, there are don tons
of other shows. Like seriously, I appreciate everybody who listens, I really
do. We're here for you, guys, We're here for my own therapy.
Yes, this is therapy for me, But hit the bricks. I
don't care if you listen. I don't. Oh, there's other shows.
Good go bye, see you, you know, So all right. I
wanted to just say that, but everyone else who has presented a very civil,
normal adult debate and would like to provide constructive criticism to the show.
Hey, I'm all for it. Man like you if you genuinely feel like
hey, you just it. Just I like you. But it sounds like
you complain too much. Cool, there's a professional way of presenting that opinion.
I want to hear that stuff. That's fine, because sometimes I do
go off the rails. I do. Admittedly, I think I complained about
Cody Roads for the first thirty minutes of the review show last night. I
did. Yeah, I did. And Hey, if you like Cody Rhodes,
it's you're tired of hearing about it, you know it? Just but
I'm not. Here's the thing, I'm also not sorry. I am not
apologizing for a damn thing that I've said about Cody either. So if you
think I'm gonna sit here and apologize and cow tow to the people that have
their tummies hurt on my what I have to say, Yeah, ain't gonna
happen. Okay, that's out of the way. We had Cody Rhods well
Triple H opened the show, and he was really out there to do what
he always does. Which is just thank us and that's cool. It's always
nice to see Triple H, Paul Leveck as he's now being known, you
know, Paul Triple H Levec, which is really what they did to The
Rock when he left and had a Hollywood career and had a career outside of
wrestling. They started to call him in said of the Rock, it's Dwayne
the Rock Johnson. Now it's Paul Lovec or Paul Triple H Leveck. Kind
of the same thing where he's both guys when need be and one guy when
he isn't. Like, it's fine, it makes sense. So Triple H
comes out and he thanks everybody, and you know, we talked about the
records that the that WWE set over the last several days, and it is
pretty impressive. Now they're they're they're stad about the one hundred and forty five
thousand and change people right that have that went to WrestleMania. Okay, yeah,
that's the number of tickets they so absolutely that's true, But I would
say that the number of unique people is more important, right, meaning I
could have bought a ticket and most people did, I would imagine for two
nights. So sure, that was the number of ticket sales because there were
two nights, but I would venture to guess that the actual number of people
that attended unique people were probably around seventy five to probably eighty thousand. I'm
sure there were people that bought just one night, but most people, if
you're going, are going to make it a two night event. So that's
also an important differentiator that they didn't want to discuss is the same people probably
attended both nights, which is kind of not lying through statistics. It's just
digging below the surface. And still it's impressive because that doubles the revenue.
Now they still have to pay rent for two nights, you know, there's
still expenses that come with providing a second night to WW, but overall,
it's more lucrative for them to stay two nights, and it's more palatable for
a two four hour shows instead of one eight hour show, no doubt about
it. So I think this format is beautiful. It is something that should
stay. It is something that has really revolutionized WrestleMania into a week long event,
and now the main event is two nights. Because after one night's over,
you're like, oh man, you kind of come down from it and
you're like, wait, we still have another night. It's like Christmas for
two days. So I love that format. I don't think it's going anywhere.
But let's get into the nitty gritty of Monday. Nett Ra. As
I said, Triple H comes out and he does what he does. Thanks
everybody for being there, Thanks Philadelphia. He was chanted a lot by the
fans. Thank you. Hunter was very prominent, and he's talking about how
it's the greatest WrestleMania of all time. Now they say that every year,
you know, every year is the greatest WrestleMania of all time. In some
ways, this one could be presented as that. Now, to be fair,
this is truly the begin marking of a new era and making whatever the
greatest is to you is not what's greatest to me. Greatest is the most
subjective, the most subjective word in the dictionary, because again what's great to
me may suck to you and vice versa. So greatest is always something that
it's like, well, according to who, and how do you measure greatness?
What to you? Make something great? And it means something different to
everybody. So but I guess collectively they're saying it's the greatest WrestleMania of all
time. Fine, Fine, Okay, it was a very good WrestleMania.
I will give you that. Despite all my complaining about Cody Roads that made
so many of your bellies hurt, I agreed with the decision. It was
the right company decision. It was a great way to usher in truly a
new era. Cody Roads will be the face of that new era, which
is why I don't believe he's going to lose the belt for at least a
year or maybe longer. He's not going to go out a Roman Reigns run,
but I don't think he'll be truly jeopardized until later in the year.
And if the thing is, if he gets to fall is champion, He's
going to WrestleMania's champion. You know, it's kind of like the event horizon
of a black hole, right once you get to Survivor Series. It's kind
of the event horizon of whoever's champion typically stays champion from Survivor Series to Mania.
But that said, you know, it really is the beginning of a
new era, the Paula Vek era. Fine, let's label it. That
sounds good. And he said that he welcomed us to Raw and Cody Rhods
comes out, shook hands, Cody kissed the title belt, raised it in
the air, and then Triple H were raised Cody's arm and do you deserve
it? Chat broke out and Triple H said he wanted to say congratulations,
and Cody said he absolutely deserves it and congratulated him for being for bringing an
end to one of the most incredible title reigns of all time. And we
talked again about a new Gate record for Raw with over twenty thousand people and
also the seventeenth consecutive televised live event sellout, which is it is impressive,
especially where WW was just five years ago. Impressive, impressive, and I
have no issue with them flexing their muscle a bit on that stat He also
said that he got a couple hours after WrestleMania ended. He said a call.
Rather, he said the call came from a couple guys in the studio
who said he made something special for Cody and then asked Paul Levek if he'd
share it with him, and levec wanted to share it with all of us,
and a Cody Rhoades video played to Andre Day's rise Up. Okay,
yeah now the inner complainer in me, the inner cry baby in myself,
wants to say a lot about this stuff because it is exactly what I hate
about the Cody Rhodes character embodied in a video. I won't talk too much
about it. I mean, you see Cody Roads on a split split screen
tearing up as we expected, mister you know, white smile, manicured hair,
bleach blonde hair or manicured nails, bleach bond hair and white smile,
and mister Tucks you know, or a mister suit nut Tucks is on this
one screen crying and the other one is, oh my god, you know
this is just weird. Okay, beyond me complaining, just look at this
objectively right, It is feel good. And I know I'm not going to
talk any of you into liking Cody Rhoads and just like you're not going to
talk me out of hating his baby face character while at the same time respecting
the hell out of him. When is the last time we got a tributary
video to a guy that is still in the company and is actively still champion.
This is like a retirement video. This is what you show at a
Hall of Fame. This isn't some heartwarming thing that you show while he's still
champion, and then show your champion crying in the ring. Like, I
don't understand why this appeals to people. I know it's all about pulling at
the heartstrings, and WWE has done a very good job of pulling at the
heart strings for Cody Rhodes. And he's a relatable guy, and he's trying
to be the everyman, and he's doing people's weddings and being best mans and
doing things that other champions have never done before. It's unprecedented how how much
he is the common man. I get all that garbage, but like,
can't anyone see through this? I'm sure Cody's genuinely a good guy. He
seems like it. If he was a total ahole, I would be very
impressed with him being able to cover it up this well, because typically on
camera you can see when somebody's not really being themselves and you can see genuinely
who they are through there through the facade. I genuinely think Cody's a very
good guy. I'm sure he is. He seems like a very dedicated husband
and dad, and that's wonderful. But like, we don't need this,
Why are we doing this while he's still champion. It's why we want Okay,
name the last champion that has won at WrestleMania. Did Roman Reigns cry
now? I oh? He cried with Paul Hayman off camera when it wasn't
part of the show, after his Tuttle reign was over, not when he
won and during his run, did Roman Reigns cry? Okay? And also,
could you imagine Stone Cold or The Rock after they won the title at
WrestleMania coming out and doing a tributary video and then they're crying watching it.
Just again, I know I'm not in the majority here because you hear the
crowd reaction even in Philly that typically is heal heavy and Boo's goodie two shoes
Babyfaces is part of this psychosis that has run wild over the Cody World's Babyface
character. I mean, it is. It feels like a mass psychosis is
going on, and I'm the only one that hasn't caught the disease, along
with others a couple of other co hosts, and so I'm going to do
my best to not be a part of that psychosis. But honestly, the
more he doubles down on this soft version of himself. The more that I,
you know, am immune to this whole Cody Rhods babyface character of loving
him and supporting him and crying with him, seeing his dog and seeing his
daughter and seeing his wife. I don't know, this is this is this
is not my thing. I'll leave it at that. But so mister cry
baby continues, and you know, again he shows his daughter, which you
know, finished the story, daddy, and then yeah, okay, like
you know, I'm just gonna I'm gonna say the same thing. So I'm
gonna move on. So he talks about Roman reigns is run in the thirteen
hundred and sixteen days and said we don't have to like him, but I
certainly acknowledge what he's done, and thank you Roman has started that chant actually
started organically, and he said he was the man, Cody was the man
to Dustined defeat roland Reins. And Cody said, a big thing people when
you enter the business, ask is why Cody said he wanted to show fans
of one of his main wives. And of course this is where his daughter
is saying, Papa finished this. Look, I have a daughter too,
And you guys know what I'm going to say about it. I don't need
to see it. He's a soft, little, just feminine guy that I
love my daughter too. But I don't cry on national television as WWE champion,
all right, Nothing wrong with people having feelings. I know. We're
all about validating everyone's feelings today, because apparently if you don't validate someone's feelings,
you're don't validate their existence or some garbage, right, I know what
today's society says, and I don't give a crap. I don't care.
This is still and you guys, especially the men out there listening to me,
no, a feminine man crying all the time and smiling all the time.
And look at my family, look at my wife and my kids.
I'm just such a cuddly guy. If that appeals to you, I mean,
we clearly don't have a lot in common. I'll just say that,
all right, not as you know, there's times and places for that.
There are times and places to love your family and show love for your your
your daughters and your sons and your wives. There are times for it,
absolutely, but not a national television when you just defeated the longest reigning champion
in the modern era, and you're supposed to be our champion moving forward.
And he's this soft, feminine man. Sorry, doesn't appeal to me,
but let's keep going. So he said that he's used to standing in line,
but now the line is for him, meaning champion. He's gonna he
is fighting as a champion, you know, all that fighting I'm a fighting
champion crap. But the Rock comes out and he has the People's Championship belt
over his shoulder, and we all were reminded that it's Lani Ali gifted the
Rock the belt during the Hall of Fame ceremony and behalf of Muhammad Ali,
so it's It was actually addressed that the Rock said, you know, this
belt ain't fake, you know that, which which was a nice way to
address, like, hey, he's not just carrying this belt because he's trying
to be cool. It actually has meaning and it does. It does,
And the crowd wouldn't originally let him talk, and they finally did and a
Rocky Sucks chant broke out. The Rock said that he's a lot of things,
but sucks isn't one of them. There were a whole chants that were
bleeped off of Hulu. We didn't even hear them on Hulu. The what
bit was played again, Like the Rock even cut his promo in a way
that encouraged the what chance, So that's that was interesting that he actually encouraged
it. But the Rocks at Philadelphia broke another record for the largest collection of
trailer park trash that the crowd chanted and cheered for themselves over that. Michael
Cole clearly muted his mic and was laughing his ass off over that, which
was fun to watch, and they were booing him but laughing at the same
time, kind of an interesting reaction, and he told the fans to chant
it now and then appear to tell them to shut the f up while he
was muted. So, boy, the Rock has really been doing a lot
of R rated cussing over the last three months. And I know that wrestlers
don't like it because they feel that he has privileges that they don't. And
the answer is, yeah, you're absolutely right, he does. He's earned
it, deal with it, and I think it's effective. It's also,
at the same time is a bit you become a bit trepidacious though if you
have a family, younger kids especially, and this language is now commonly being
used at shows. They can't mute it off the live mic only for the
people at home, So bringing your kids to see that and hear that language
may be a bit of a deterrent for you as a parent to bring your
kids, especially now that the blood has kind of come back and cussing has
kind of come back. It's still PG somehow. I'd love to see what
the definition of PG is now, like what things you can and can't do,
because clearly this is like, this is TV fourteen stuff, or at
least it was, but now TVPG has been expanded to include the stuff that
TV fourteen used to be exclusive to. I don't know how it all works.
Somehow they're getting away with it. Maybe they just don't care because they're
going to Netflix soon, but I don't know. So Cody said or Rock
said he wanted to give Cody his flowers and that he did it. He
completed his story. He spoke about the things that he did to Cody and
said that Cody still got it done. And Rock recalled the belt he made
with Mama Road's name on it, and he said that you know, rogue.
It's no secret that Dusty was one of the Rocks heroes and that he
would Cody's daddy in heaven would be proud, and he meant it genuinely.
It didn't seem like he was being kind of tongue in cheek about it.
And let's see what else he said that he didn't care. I didn't if
he wasn't worried that his dad wasn't proud of the things he's done. He
goes, I don't care, which is great. Rock said. Cody finished
the story and now has a brand new belt, and The Rock said he
wanted to hold Cody's title for a moment, and Cody said, sure,
as long as I get to hold yours. That was interesting. I kind
of knew if you were at home too, maybe we're thinking the same thing.
That he wasn't going to attack Cody, but rather it was a kind
of a launching point for The Rock eventually targeting the championship and maybe challenging Cody
for that belt, which I think he eventually will, But I don't believe
that The Rock is in any position to win the championship. I think at
some point when The Rock does return, maybe towards SummerSlam, that we have
Cody versus The Rock at SummerSlam, and we don't see Roman rains until that
point, and Roman reigns maybe attacks the Rock and Rock loses the match,
but then we also get a setup for Roman Rock heading towards WrestleMania forty one
at that point. Maybe it's a little early in the year, but that's
how I'm thinking about it lining up so far. And so they hold each
other's championships. Rock said it just s feels right, and the Rock said
that it's no secret he's gonna go away for a little while. The Rocks
sang, the crowd sang no No, the goodbye song, which, by
the way, if anyone knows where that started, I believe it started with
Stonecold, Steve Austin and Vince McMahon back in like nineteen ninety nine after the
fully Loaded pay per view where it was Undertaker and Stone Cold in a first
Blood match, and if Austin won, Vince McMahon was gone, And I
think that's where it all started. Anyone's curious, because I know you were
very curious. So The Rock told Cody to remember that when he comes back,
whether Cody's champion or he's not champion, he's coming back for him Cody
said he's looking forward to it, and he and the world were looking forward
to it. And Rock said, Cody beat Rains right in the middle of
the ring. And Rock said less than twenty four hours before that he'd beat
Cody in the middle of the ring one two three, and said that Cody
beat Rains and that his story with the Rains is over. But Rock said,
our story has just begun, and then he hands something to Cody,
saying, don't you ever break my heart again if you smell what the Final
Boss is cooking. So I don't know what he handed Cody. I don't
know what it was. You know, we'll find out in time. I'm
sure what he handed Cody Rose maybe some of you who have already figured out
the code or what it is. And I don't know exactly, but I
don't know what he meant by I don't break my heart again. I guess
because the story was that Cody went back on his word. After the whole
debacle of the Rock taking Cody's place at WrestleMania happened, and the story came
out that Cody and Rock originally agreed to do this, and Cody went back
on his word and that's where the Rock got pissed at Cody again all in
storyline, so that's probably what he meant by that, But it was a
nice little easter egg and made you wonder what the hell did he hand him.
I love that stuff. That stuff is it makes you go wait,
no, no, I need to know why aren't they showing us nice hook?
All right? Draft will start April twenty sixth, and then the addition
of SmackDown and conclude on the April twenty ninth edition of Raw. So the
Draft is coming, folks, It's coming, and we don't have to wait
till September. Big Moves La Night guaranteed go to Raw. You would imagine
Cody Rhoads to smack down, Randy Orton to smack down. I mean,
we could go through some of the big names and predictions already, and I'm
sure some of you will email me with your predictions, but I'm curious.
I don't need a you know, all sixty moves. Give me some of
your like, your top five moves in the draft. What would you do?
Okay? So then we then get the first match here about an hour
and a half in the NXT Champion Draggon Off versus Shinskannakamer in a non title
match. Draggon Off went for a top rope move and Nakamura avoided it.
McAfee said that dragging Off might be the NXT champion, but you can't take
your sweet ass time like that. Eventually, dragging Off hit Nakamura with the
h Bomb, hit him at the Torpedo Moscow and scored the victory. So
dragging Off beat Nakamura in four minutes. I thought this was good for dragging
Off. Hey, this is the time to not just showcase your previous talent
and attitude era talent, which is always fun on the addition of Monday Night
Audition after Mania, but also to showcase, Hey, this is a time
for new talent to come up and give the talent of tomorrow a chance to
get on a big show with big ratings and give them a chance to shine
and give them exposure when fans go, I don't really know who you are,
this is the time to do it. At some point they got to
be brought in, right, So a good showing for dragging Off, even
if it was a bit of a short match. All Right, we then
get again. We're an hour two already, we got a bunch of recap
videos, tons of recap videos. We get the World Heavyweight Champion priests being
introduced by Judgment Day, and you deserve a champ broke out and he said,
you're damn right I do, which was a perfect example or a perfect
response by Priest to the fans. And let's see here, we get Priest
and Ripley holding up their belts. Our Truth sneaks into the ring and joins
them, raising up the raw tag team title belt. Priest said hell no,
and he said truth. Truth said he brought the tag titles back to
the Judgment Day and Mis made his entrance to almost no reaction, which was
not good. I mean, Mis has really fallen flat. It's not that
he can't be repaired, but MS hasn't done a whole lot lately. With
a couple of promos. Miss is talented enough to get himself back on track,
but it feels like the Mis has been really just kind of flatlined for
the time being. But again, I'm not too concerned about the Miz and
uh, he's so talented, I'm not worried about it. Now, let's
get into the match here as we get our Truth and the Mis versus Finnballot,
Dominic, Masterio and j D McDonough and the match started as a handicap
mat and it was alluded to that somebody who you couldn't see was going to
be their tag team partner to make it three on three. I think we
all knew, given it tore after Mania and that John Cena was there last
night, that it's reasonable to believe that he's also there tonight. And he
finally did come out and took a tag from the miz Seena hit McDonough with
a two shoulder blocks and slammed him to the mat. By the way,
if nobody went for the punch after the two shoulder blocks, would see it
even would his next move be? But Sina watch while Truth in the Mis
slammed the other two and they did, all three of them did the you
can't see me bit and all hit five knuckle shuffles, which Cole called the
fifteen knuckle shuffle, and then all three hit kind of simultaneous AA's and got
the victory. This match lasted about nine minutes nine and a half minutes or
so, and it gave John Cena a match in twenty twenty four, so
he continues his streak from twenty or rather twenty two to twenty twenty four,
he's had a match every single year. It was fun, you know,
seeing Sena at this point despite his bald spot, which is again just again
speaking as that I am the spokesperson of the bald community. I just I
don't get it, bro like, fix it unless he doesn't care or he's
just aging gracefully, which hey, more power to you. It just feels
like you could easily fix that with I don't know, hairclub for men or
something. Again, being bald, I speak very intelligently on this subject.
Okay, so again Sena. His appearance was fun, but it didn't lead
also to anything larger. For the moment, I know that Sena said he's
not done. I still believe I'll have a one on one match sometime this
year. I don't know who it's going to be against or what it's for.
Nothing on the line does. But Sena has alluded to the fact that
this year maybe yet, he wants to go on a bit of an extended
run to wrap up his career. So this could be the last year that
we see John Cena having a match, although you know, unless it's Bill
as an official retirement match. How many times do we see people leave get
the edge to come back, you know, and then they're having a match
ten years later. I mean, hell, look at stone Cold see Boston
nineteen years later he has a match. I mean you you just never know.
So okay, we're going to get Cody, Rhodes and Bailey this Friday
on SmackDown. Now. I fully expect in the draft that's coming up in
a month for Cody to be drafted to SmackDown and for Damion Priests to stay
on Raw. It seems like SmackDown is a much better fit for for Cody
Rhoads. But we'll see. We can think about the draft a little bit
more in detail as the week's move on, but it's something to look forward
to for sure. Now. Backstage, Dom told Rhea that he didn't think
Sena would actually come out and scene is not their problem, but it's on
Drade who betrayed Dom. And then Live was, or rather Ripley was suddenly
struck by a chair thrown by Live, which I actually looked brutal the way
it hit Rhea Ripley. It looked almost like the corner of the chair hit
Rihea. I haven't heard anything in terms of her being busted open or anything,
but it did look a little rough. Now the next piece here is
that Live Morgan is finally living up to her revenge tour that she labeled when
she returned at the Royal Rumble, because for a while it was just her.
She's on a revenge tour for Rhea, but then she's ignoring Ria and
attacking everybody else, which was weird. Now she finally gets to her revenge
tour. Now this is a version of Live. I can get behind,
I can get behind the Live the Live, this version of her that is
just attacking Live, ruthless, not trying to be cute, just badass,
trying to hurt Rihea Ripley and sure Ria Ripley's going to destroy Live at the
end of this program. But that's not really what this is about to me.
This is about establishing Live's character a little bit further, a little bit
deeper beyond what we've seen thus far. And that's really what I'm looking forward
to here. Is if they're going to give them in the proper program,
Live will be a bump in Rhea's road. Then there's zero chance she's going
to win the belt, but I want to see what Live can bring to
the table, all right. The NXT Women's champion Rox San Perez versus Indy
Hartwell. Again, another spot in the show here that showcases newer talent,
and that's what you want. You need that mix. We all love our
stars of yesteryear, you know, we all love the huge names, and
we've gotten a lot of those over the last few days and we love it.
But without the building of new stars, you're not going to be able
to replenish the stars leaving. So it's the growing pains of getting newer stars.
And you know, a lot of us obviously know who Rock samp Perez,
Andy Hartwell are, but they're nowhere near, of course, the star
power that we've seen over the last several days. But we just as fans,
sometimes we have to understand that not everyone's going to be a big star,
not everybody is going to be somebody that we have an emotional connection with.
Sometimes it takes time to build that, and so I like the fact
that there was at least a few segments to showcase the newer talent, all
right, particularly Rox sanm Perez, the x T Women's champion, and this
match sure wasn't exactly the longest, but with the Rock segment going an hour,
it was essentially just SmackDown. I mean, we got a SmackDown version
of Raw because one segment took up an hour a third of the show.
So an XT Women's Champion Rock Sam Perez did beat Indy Hartwell in just under
three minutes. It ended with the Pop Rocks finish, which was the Canadian
and not the Canadian Destroyer, but also code Read, which is essentially another
finish that is used by Zelenavego overro On SmackDown. So again, cool finish
and if you're small like Rox San Perez is and like as Lenavega is,
you gotta have some kind of badass looking finish and that's one that I think
is workable by everybody, and I like it so solid match. Really,
they maximize their seconds here, not even really minutes. It was barely multiple
minutes. But you got to give them at least a little credit here,
So let's continue on. Samy's name was shown backstage wearing his belt and Jay
Us showed up congratulated Zane, who was proud of Jay and did he watch
the match? Yeah? I mean, I'm reading a review that says,
did he watch that match? It's true? I mean, because hey,
the match between Jimmy and Jay was it was terrible. I still stand by
that. It was terrible by the standards of Jimmy and Jay as tag team
wrestlers and how well they work together and the crazy matches that they put on,
and then you split them apart and put them against one another and they
produce hot garbage and it's disappointing. I mean, it just is. That's
all, so, you know. But so Sammy and j did their own
handshake for old time's sake, and it was a feel good moment. So
Roxan Perez was backstage and she encountered Natalia, who said she would see her
on NXT and Perez said, no, I'll see you tomorrow night on my
show. So okay. In Italian, Roxanperez, we all know where this
is going, as Natalia is the proverbial gatekeeper for all new talent to walk
over. Sorry in Italian, that's kind of where you've landed in your role.
You might get a victory in the series, but ultimately you are losing,
and there's no shame in that. Natalia is a accomplished female wrestler.
It's just a fact that she has for the better part of her career never
been the focal point and looked at as a veteran or respected veteran, but
also a veteran that is really a usual first opponent for a lot of new
talent, and Dick can learn a lot from Natalia. Working with her obviously
will be it'll be an education, right, You're sitting under the learning tree
for a lot of new talent. But that's kind of been Natalia's role.
She does it well, all right. Samy Zane comes out. The crowd
continued to sing Zane's entrance, So you deserve it, Chance, a lot
of you deserve it. Chance broke out and he said, you don't understand
that much that means to him, and said he's been so lucky to do
some historic things that WrestleMania talked about beating six the six hundred and sixty six
day Rain from Gunther and he said, I beat him. The fans sang
the Oley song, and then Zane got a lot of help from the fans,
and he said he had times where he didn't believe in himself, but
the fans did Zaye said seeing his wife and son before the match helped,
just as seeing Kevin Owens helped. And there's another guy that helped him out,
and Zaane was interrupted. Imperium comes out with Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci,
and Kaiser spoke about how Gunther put hard work and dedication into making the
IC title the most prestigious in w w E and it breaks his hard to
see someone like Zane holding the title now, and Kaiser and Zane look like
all the peasants in Philadelphia. Okay, so Kaiser said he and Vince you
were there to make things right, and they climbed onto the apron. Gable
runs out joined Zayne, causing Kaiser and Vinci to drop to the floor,
and then Gable. Gable gave a shoosh and thank you bid heading into the
break and then we get IC Champion now, Sammy Zayin and Chad Gable versus
Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci. And that was twelve minutes. He had twelve
minutes and twenty five seconds to be exact, and it ended with as you
would hope and expect, Gable and Zane winning against Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci in
again twelve minutes, and it ended with Zayan tagging in Gable. Vinci was
hit with a halluva kick. Gable performed the chaos theory on Vinci and then
pinned him. So good match. I don't think that there's any mystery and
who's gonna win this, but more of when is Gable turning on Zayne?
I mean, like that's what we're looking forward to, because not that I
really want necessarily a heal Gable, because I think I do like the organic
babyface connection that he has with the fans. At the same time, if
that's what it takes to get to a sammy' z A and Chad Gable match,
do whatever you gotta do. You know, I think that they're going
to if they foresee Sammy maintaining the babyface character. I mean, you don't
want to go from heel to heel, from a champion to a champion,
but Gables serving as the heel in there. His eventual turn is going to
be just fine, and you know they're going to put on Perhaps again,
this is maybe jumping the gun a bit, but if Gable and Zane are
given time, I'm talking twenty twenty five minutes in a match. I don't
care what the stipulation is or whatever puts on. Whatever the stipulation is,
I don't care if it's a cage match. I don't care if it's a
false cut anywhere. I don't care if it's an ODQ or a straight up
wrestling match. These two are May May May put on Match of the Year
candidate. I'm already calling it now. Okay, So we got Andrade shaking
hands with Jim Ro manager, Adam Pierce, and nxt gm ABA before exiting
the room, and all this said, Pierce did a great job of recruiting
on Driday to Raw, and all this said, it's a shame that Pierce
put all the work and just so we could snag him in the draft.
So all right, so it's nice that they're already talking about the draft.
That's good. Chelsea Green entered and complained that she wasn't included on the biggest
WrestleMania of all time. And Green said she would be contacting top Brass.
Pierce said her they saw her emails, text and DMS. Pierce said that's
why they have a special match for her and go to the ring because they
have one for her, and that's when well we got Jade carr Gill versus
Chelsea Green. This match, Hey, I feel split on this. Now.
This is Jade's first one on one match, okay, and you have
to have limited expectations. It ended in thirty three seconds, okay, and
he really this is where and I'll give you the description of the match.
It's a few sentences. Green was barking at the referee and then the fans.
Green turned around, Jade Cargill hit her with a pump kick and hit
Jaded and got the victory. That's it, thirty three seconds. I don't
like how Chelsea Green continually gets squashed though, and the fact that she wasn't
on WrestleMania is it's kind of it's frustrating because I think she's one of the
unsung heroes of the women's division in a very unique way over the last six
months. And Jade Cargil, we know, is the focal point moving forward.
We know physically what she brings to the table. Okay. Now,
Jade Cargill did tweet out something to the effect of, oh, you know,
I put on short matches, but you know I'm here to win matches.
And now I'm going, you know, I'm gonna go two and zero
or something like that, and you basically responding to the fans that were criticizing
her for never having long matches the very few limited ones she's had, and
it is frustrating, you know, Like, at the same time, I
do understand what Jade is saying and that you're here to win, So I,
at one one hand, actually agree with that because it creates a more
stimulated sports environment where not every match has to You shouldn't when you look in
a match, you shouldn't this will never happen. But you shouldn't look at
a match and go, okay, well, yeah they're locking up. Well
you know, here comes to suplex, here comes an elbow. You kind
of have a feeling of where the match is at in terms of finish.
Well, if it was a real competitive sport, one punch wouldn't you know,
one wrong or one right punch could possibly in the match. What if
they just get them in a right pinning combination within a minute, instead of
looking at a match and going, oh man, yeah, you know it's
gonna go fifteen minutes, right, So sometimes it takes away from pro wrestling
a little bit where you know that there's always the beginning moves, the middle
moves, the false finishes, and then you get to the real finish that
formula has and continues to work. It's just just like you know, it's
one of those things that you just have to accept as a pro wrestling fan
and one of those things that your brain has to turn off if you really
want to enjoy the product. But as far as Jade again, does she
eventually and will she eventually have to have longer form matches, Yes, but
there's something clearly that they'd see in her in ring that they don't quite trust
yet to have a longer match, And it's evident in the fact that she
was in the Rumble. She did a nice showing, you know, she
showed her strength, big Pop at WrestleMania, she had limited interactions, she
got the hot tag as expected, got the victory over was it Takota Kai?
And then now we have a thirty three second match in her first one
on one there Again, if they felt that confident and they knew that she
was going to be kick ass right off the bat and there's not a whole
lot of training she needs, they would have just let her loose. But
right now, that's not her stick, and I could see the fans getting
irritated with her and starting to boo her if this continues. So you need
to be careful. If the idea is to keep her baby face, you
don't want her, by the way responding to fans on social media the way
she does sometimes, the arrogance in which she comes across with you know,
her talking constantly, relying on her one card to play, which is really
her look, which is a plus plus. Absolutely, she looks like a
superstar, a megastar. To take a pun from La night she does,
she looks like a megastar, and that's that's something she's able to lean on.
But you can't lean on that forever, and you can't lean on thirty
second matches forever. Eventually, fans are going to get grow very tired of
that. So they need to really strategically do this in a way that if
you're not trying to get her booed, to move her forward, I mean
even promos, So all right, squash win, okay. Zane walked backstage
where Gable was celebrating with Otis and a Karazzaua and Maxine Dupree and Zane ask
if he could have a minute with Gable. Zaye said he figured they were
even after he handed him to win, and Gables started to explain that he
was looking for but what he was looking for, but Zane stopped him.
He said he knew he held up the IC title and told him it would
be an honor to defend the title against him next week in Zane's hometown of
Montreal. I can't wait, Gable said, and Zane agreed and they shook
hands. So we get the match. But I don't think this is the
match that I'm alluding to where they could have a five star classic. It
depends if this is if this is the main event of Raw, there's a
little bit more of a cachet to it, right, But I don't think
it's going to be the main I don't think it will be, but we'll
see. If it's in Montreal, you know, Gable's gonna get booed,
Zane's gonna be the hometown hero, and they're gonna still probably have a bust
ass match. But to me, the time they have is what's going to
be key to being able to tell the story that they couldn't properly tell I
don't think Also, this is the final, This may be just the beginning
of their program, all right. Macatire comes out. He's angry. He's
angry. He said he might not like Seth Brollins, but he respects him.
McIntire said he and Rollins shared a moment only warriors know about. And
he called McIntyre, or rather he called Priest the bondage undertaker, which was
kind of funny. I think it even made was a coal pop one of
them. Mctire said. He said the money the bank briefcase is a joke
that has now cost him the championship twice. And McIntyre said he's coming for
Priests and labeled him nothing more than a transitional champion. Ouch but possibly true,
possibly true. Mcatyre said Priest have had may have had the contract,
but he didn't because of what happened. McIntyre blamed that jerk seampunk. Can't
say the other word. I don't know if it's PG. Mctyre recalled saying
he would win the title, have a moment with his family and then rub
it in Punk's face. He said that he was going to going He's going
to attack Punk on site. The next time he sees him, and he's
gonna go after his weakest part, which is just his whole body, and
jay Us interrupts, and then we get a Drew mccattyre versus Jay versus Bronson
Rea versus Ricochet for a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship in the main event
of running at Raw. Now, before that, Cole did tell us about
a few matches for next week. Now, I told you about Sammy's a
and Chad Gable for the IC Championship, and we've got Andrade versus Dominic Mysterio
as well, So we've got two matches already lined up for next week.
Again, this is another staple of the Triple H paulovec Era, because this
is something that rarely would happen with Vince McMahon. Under the Vince McMahon regime,
things change, literally the last second. Scripts are torn up, things
are changed, and Vince didn't like to commit a week before because then it
would force his hand and if he wanted to change his mind, he couldn't.
All right, that's a compliment to Triple H by the way. It
gives you something to look forward to and think about, and it also shows
the fans that you have some kind of plan. You know, it may
not be a three, six, twelve month plan, but you have some
idea of where the hell you're going, at least in the near future.
So it's not only good for fans to think about for next week, but
it also again, even subliminally, fans are getting the message that the company
is paying attention to what they're doing and the storylines that they want to continue
to push forward, even if it is only a week in advance. You
know, it just sends a good message. All right, So we get
that match here. It lasted. What's the time here? I think it
was like ten minutes. No, it wasn't It was seventeen minutes. Sorry,
and we got again Mcatyre read Ricochet and Jay Usso in seventeen minutes and
forty seconds and a good match, really good match here. As you would
imagine four fifty. The ricks performance of the four to fifty splash that put
Read through the table was crazy. This is awesome, Champ broke out.
This is the part where I would tell Ricochet, hey, if you're listening,
you got the pop, but you don't have the connection. People look
at you as a fireworks show. Nobody has an emotional connection of fireworks.
They look at fireworks and say, cool, let me see the next one.
Cool, let me see the next one. Cool, let me see
the next one. Right. But nobody sits there and cries over fireworks.
Right. They don't have a They don't get angry at fireworks, they don't
laugh with fireworks. That's what you are, yet a very talented one.
You're a very talented fireworks display. And until you find that connection with the
crowd, you're going to remain a fourth of July fireworks display that people ooh
and on react to, but they don't go home thinking about Does anybody here
think about Ricochet? No? Does anyone have an actual emotional connection to his
character? No, you would imagine that somebody at that level, with that
insane talent he brings to the ring, some of that talent would have actually
been transfused somehow into his brain to create the understanding that there is something else
that's needed. So I'll leave it at that. Or maybe he's just you
know, if I was him, I know he wouldn't admit it, but
he's probably frustrated the fact that his girlfriend is more over than he is and
she's never had a match in her life. Oh man, By the way,
the only reason I'm throwing shade. All of it's true and I take
zero of it back. I mean, there's more I could say, but
I'll leave it there is him. We got a little spat on Twitter or
x and it's fine. The more he responds to me, the more promotion
I get. So thanks for the promotion, bro. All right. By
the way, again, I take none of it back. And it's not
just amateur insults. Those are all true. One. I believe everything I
just said. I didn't just no, you're a jerk. No, no,
no, no, no substance my friends. Okay, so this was
really good. Obviously the match is really good, and I give Rickoshek credit.
He is an insane athlete. He had that spot there was really good.
Reid had some good moments. Reid has been positioned in a way that
you know that he's never gonna win the match, kind of like Ricochet.
They're just there to be bodies to be thrown around, but you know that
they're there because they can make matches better. Bronson Reid brings a you know,
the big man feel. It also gets fans used to seeing him in
main events, even though you know he's not gonna win that. If you
see him in main events more and more, it's obviously an opportunity for Reid
to show what he can do in main events and put his best put forward
to maximize his minutes and all that, but it's also an opportunity for fans
to get used to seeing him there. So when he challenges somebody that's actually
Madine event worthy in a match that you think maybe he can actually win,
then that's the goal here. So all right, but the ending was great.
McIntyre was about to hit the clay more on Jay and who shows up
underneath the ring to grab the foot of McIntyre again, but seem Punk and
Punk costs him the match. Jay Uso wins and we get more heat between
Punk and punkin and Drew love this. I mean, it was just love
this, love this, love this. It was a lot of fun because
you're just wondering how much angrier can Drew get at Punk, and it's I
give them credit where Punk can't wrestle, but yet they're still finding loophole way
to get him involve physically. It's risky, but they're clearly being safe about
it, and I have no issue with it. It was a surprise I
did not expect to see Punk. I thought that he was kind of gone
in the wind for a while, and maybe we'll continue to see him here
and there until his inevitable return in a couple of months. We'll see.
But overall, a really good show again compared to last year in the year
before, this was a night and day situation. Was it the best mondayete
rafter WrestleMania I've ever seen? No, but it was a vast improvement from
last year. Obviously, the star power was there between the Rock and John
Cena, see him Punk all there, and you know, I think they
just did a very nice job. This was a very solid mondaynete rafter WrestleMania,
one that I would give a BB plus and say that they mission accomplished.
Despite the you know, all the crying that Cody Rose does and we'll
can continue to do and the video package will continue to see. That's just
it's just too much. It's too much. And some people have said,
well, that's what they did with Roman Reigns, that's how they built him.
No, it's not. In what way did they build Roman Reigns the
same way they built Cody. Here's the difference fans. Actually, when Roman
Reigns was a babyface, the fans rejected him generally as the big dog babyface
for six years when Vince said no, no, no, you're gonna like
this. You're going to eat it and like it, and the fan said,
no, we're not, and eventually the fans won that battle. The
difference is when Cody came back two years ago, the fans immediately embraced him
and have not stopped once. The fans are the ones that willed Cody rose
to the main event of WrestleMania forty and willed the determination to have Roman drop
his belt at forty You think the Rock was gonna win the belt at WrestleMania
forty unlikely. By the way, I'd encourage everybody tomorrow on YouTube to go
watch the WWE's Inside WrestleMania or Behind the Curtain WrestleMania, where they explain everything
here about what they were gonna do and how this came to be in the
fans' influence. So, I mean, very gonna be very intriguing. So
the question and the debate between fans of did w W mean to do this?
Was it on purpose? Was it? No? None of it was
the fans literally willed this, unless, of course, you believe that this
is the documentaries of work, and then you're getting five levels deep. But
so yeah, I mean, the argument that Roman Reigns was built this way
is just I mean, it couldn't be further from the truth between the way
the fans organically connected to Roman versus connected to Roads. I mean, the
fans wanted nothing to do generally with the big Dog, and then you get
Cody Rhodes who instantly became a main event or the moment he came back,
which was it's still a case study to be done. I mean, how
did Cody Roads coming back immediately be accepted by the fans as a main event
guy? I don't underst Then he left as Stardust, a character that's laughable,
and a lot of people didn't even watch him in aaw but even there
he wasn't a main event guy. And he comes back here and all of
a sudden he's a main eventor I mean, it's impressive, but it's also
confusing. Maybe it's because also you don't see a whole lot of guys that
are big name guys going from aw back to WWA. Yeah, so all
right, that'll do it for me. On the Monday Night Raw Review,
I was very candid in this episode. If I didn't already lose you,
well thank you for sticking around. Yeah. If I if I angered you
in any way, then I guess you know, Hey, it's it's a
podcast. It's my opinion. That's all, just my opinion. You don't
have to like it, you know, it's just like your opinion. I'm
sure if you those of you that disagree with me laid out your opinion,
I'd sit there and if I was listening, I would be like, this
dude is a dumb ass. Right, Hey, it's life. It's a
podcast. You know. You want to voice your own opinion, to get
your own podcast. And I mean that in a serious way, not in
a condescending way. I encourage people who need an outlet, who need an
outlet to vent, who need an outlet to maybe speak with other people.
Start your own show, man or woman. Seriously, I'm not doing that
to be a jerk. I'm being serious. I would have really encouraged you
to do it. It's been it's therapeutic. And you'll run into people that
hate your show and all that it is whatever. Once you to stop caring
about that, you actually feed on that. It's weird. So anyway,
thank you everybody for sticking around with me. I hope you've enjoyed WrestleMania a
weekend, and now we got tomorrow with the Mailbag, and I will just
say, with the amount of emails I have, it's just impossible for me
to shove it in one show. It's gonna be have to be multiple shows.
Obviously, those of you who are patrons, I will get to you
first, even all the patrons emails I may not get to in the first
show, so it'll likely be split into two shows. There's just so many
emails guys that I just it's gonna be a tough one. I'll do my
best. But tomorrow's the Mailbag to wrap up the week, and then we'll
be back on Sunday for the week in review and we'll be off into POSTMANI
a season heading towards backlash. That's how quickly thinks pivot in this industry and
in podcasting world. So thank you so much everybody considering getting rid of all
the ads you heard throughout the show. At Patreon dot com, slash WWE
podcast on Apple Podcast, there's an ad free subscribe button and both of those
offer a week for free. By the way, if you want to just
try us for a week and then bail cool, or you can go to
ww podcast dot com and go vip. All right, that'll do it for
me, wrapping it up. Thanks everybody, I'll talk to you next time.
Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on your
favorite podcast app so you don't miss a show, or head to wwepodcast dot
com and for all of these shows add free head over to Patreon dot com
slash WWE podcast. Until then, We'll see you next time.