Welcome to the ring, it's rich and adam.
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion.
Tag teams grappling belts are clashing.
Finishes and factions catching action.
Hi, I'm rich and hi, I'm Adam.
Welcome to this week's episode of
Finishes and Factions Raw Edition,
available on all your favourite podcast platforms as an audible.
Or here on YouTube where you get to see all the action as well as us.
So without further ado, let's crack it.
Right, so obviously this week Monday Night Raw was in San Jose, California.
We started off with a little recap of last week's Raw and what happened there.
And then the mouthpiece himself, Mr CM Punk, makes his appearance for a promo,
which starts with thanking all the brave firefighters currently fighting them all the wildfires in LA.
And can I just show you some self with a bit of a face move at this point?
Yeah, I mean, it's obviously absolutely horrific what's going on with the wildfires in California.
If anybody is watching that is in that area, I hope you're doing so from a safe standpoint.
And yeah, I want to echo the message that Punk made about everybody working together
to try and get those fires under control.
It's a completely different kind of firefighting to your chip pan fires or anything like that.
And it's a completely different beast.
Not something I'd be brave enough to do. I'm not going to lie.
No, no, I can't say I'd be. I'd be one of the ones running in the other direction.
So hats off to the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to try and keep that area habitable.
But yeah, what a pipe bump from Punk.
So he was definitely over in the SAP Center.
I sold out SAP Center.
A tenant of 13,000, I think they mentioned.
Yes, I think that was incredible.
Definitely somewhere around that figure.
Yeah, after the message from Phil, we had the entertainment section of Punk's promo, which was all about his sort of plans for the future.
And that how he was talking about the fact that he put all of, like, this Seth Rollins bullshit behind him.
Oh, did he know?
Only for probably the worst intro to have after he's just said about all of the California forest fires, we go to Burn Down.
Yeah, no.
And in fairness, that literally just tweaked with me how possibly inappropriate that might have been to do in San Jose.
It was the line for me where he just goes, you know, I'm going to enter the Royal Rumble, I'm going to win it, I'm going to go to the main event at WrestleMania.
And then you're going to hear my music, the cult personality play my music and then, yeah, Burn It Down, Seth Rollins.
And it was very much like fucking hell.
So I've seen a short of when Seth Rollins is making his entrance where they've actually sort of enhanced the audio that CM Punk was because he was facing away from the entrance where I'm talking more or less, talking to the crowd and Michael Cole.
Why couldn't it be real?
Why can't I never be interrupted by the likes of Rhea Ripley?
I mean, we all ask ourselves.
Right, and then we saw the same video on social media.
If you go to the comments section, they're all busy saying how much of a muppet he is and how he hasn't got any game.
And then someone points out that he's married to AJ Lee and at one point was inserting himself into Lita.
So it was two of the WWE's finest divas.
So I don't really think his game's too off, you know.
Well, as viewers get to know me a little bit more, they'll know that I've got like one of my wrestling idols, isn't a wrestler at all.
It's good old JR and his barbecue sauce.
And I mean, JR speaks really highly of CM Punk, but does say that especially in his earlier days, the guy was a hound dog.
I don't blame him.
100% ladies, man. And I mean, some of the women he's got to work with. Yeah, no.
Can't blame him.
No, definitely not. But yeah, back to this promo with Punk.
We had Seth Rollins come in basically reminding him, dude, I ain't finished with you yet.
Yeah, he's going to toss him over the top rope and go off to win the Royal Rumble himself.
And then he's going to crush Punk's dreams. I think Punk's retort to this was brilliant.
You couldn't pin me in the middle of the ring, so you're going to take the easy option and toss me over the top instead.
Like, fighting words, those are complete fighting words.
But that's fighting words from a man who is past the point now.
He really just isn't interested in Seth Rollins anymore. He's had his fun.
And yeah, I mean...
Can you blame the guy though?
Oh, 100%. I mean, he is so far under Seth Rollins' skin, but unfortunately, Seth Rollins is also so far under Punk's skin that they are...
It ain't done between the two of them, but this is where... I always love when WWE liked to throw us a bit of a curveball.
This is where we ended up with another curveball with another entrance, making us a three-way promo.
It is Drew McIntyre.
He's everywhere at the moment, because he was on SmackDown last week as well, running his mouth as well, wasn't he?
I think he did make a brief appearance.
Do I remember correctly that he said something along...
I was going to say, I think he might have been having a conversation about it, because they're talking about a trap.
There's a lot of talk about a transfer window between the brands.
And I thought Drew McIntyre was the one that had come to talk about a transfer over to Raw, but I actually think that may have been something said later on in the episode by Nia Jax.
It was, yes.
But yeah, we basically had, during this promo, not one person announced themselves for the Rumble, not two, but three.
Three different people announced themselves for the Rumble in CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre.
How does that really change the outlook for this match that we now, according to Michael Cole's count, know...
Was it six?
Is it six Superstars there that we know?
Yeah, I think so we've got John Cena, obviously Punk, Jey Uso and LA Knight that I don't remember seeing their announcements, but they've obviously been made somewhere.
We were having this conversation earlier.
You've got Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and then Drew McIntyre, which are all declared Royal Rumble Entrance.
And then obviously you've got Nia Jax for the ladies, which we'll get into a little bit further on in the episode.
Yeah, so seven Superstars in a 30-man Royal Rumble, although I have seen some rumours that they could potentially be looking at making it maybe a 40-man, but I feel like they've announced that by now.
Unless they're going to try and build a storyline somewhere in the next two weeks to try and mean they have to increase it, then I don't see them doing it just yet.
No, this is it.
But then you look at it normally, you get sort of like 10 off Raw, 5 off sort of Smackdown, between 5 and 10 off Smackdown.
And then again between 5 and 10 off NXT, and then the ones that you're missing from Smackdown and NXT, they normally give you a legend or a guest sort of an entrant, so to speak.
So we've worked out quite a few of who's coming from where so far, but we'll keep an eye out and see what else we can add to the list from social media and elsewhere ready for next week's episode.
Yeah, I mean, there's always a surprise entrance or two, but really that's what makes the Rumble for me.
Rumble is one of my favourite pay-per-views of the year, not just because it's normally in the same month as my birthday, normally around my birthday, but it's just one of those events that you really struggle to predict year on year.
And it's just so much fun, but this promo ended looking like there might have been a triple threat match between Punk Rollins and McIntyre, which may have been worked into something resembling a main event, but McIntyre back time.
McIntyre wasn't down for that. I think he knew he was getting it from both angles and that one, at that specific time anyway.
Yeah, and he wasn't getting out of that without sustaining an injury potentially.
And speaking of injuries, we actually got a first look at the state of Rollins' face of the last week's event.
Oh, that go to sleep. Yeah, it's a chunky black eye, isn't it? I've sported a few like that myself.
It wasn't even a black eye. I don't even think you can pass it as a black eye. The guy, I don't know if they'd done something with some makeup to make it look so much worse than it actually was, or if that is just the state of it.
You looked a bit rugged, didn't you?
It did. He's got a bit of character on his face.
Just reminds me of that clip where Lesnar's feigning bing engine got that guy in the crowd like rub some dirt on it, Brock. You ain't heard. Rub some dirt on it.
Oh, I love that. Love that. But yeah, then we went into a short BT teasing some matches from later on in the night, though, the match for the first women's intercontinental.
I was so excited for this. 100%. And then we had the main event, which was the Damian Priest versus Finn Balas Streetfight.
Again, we're so excited for as well. But before all of that, something we thought we all speculated we were going to get during that Netflix premiere episode of Raw.
Match one of the second Netflix Raw and we get Chad Gable versus WWE's worst kept secret of the month.
It was it Adam?
It was worst kept secret of the year, but this was Chad Gable versus Penta.
And oh my days. What a match.
What a pop. What a match. What a finish.
Before we even got to action in the ring, we were just talking about it. I am getting fucking ghost bumps on my arm.
That little Chad Gable promo, though. Is it me or have they turned him into if Kurt Angle was from Timu?
It's the same lines. It's the same gimmick. It's not I want to go muddle with a broken freaking neck, but it's like, oh, I'm an Olympic medalist.
I went to the Olympic.
If he starts chugging gallon after gallon of milk, we know which way this is going.
The guy's going to end up bald and bit.
There's going to be a match with Edge and someone's getting their head shaved.
One thing I did enjoy about it was the you suck chance coming in.
Absolutely adored that. I thought that was great.
But yeah, big story of this match was Penta's debut.
What a debut.
I mean, we're going to talk a lot about Penta.
He's going to get a push as well. So we're going to be talking about Penta for the next couple of months, I think.
But just on this match alone, I mean, we're going to give Penta all the props that he deserves because the guy is an absolute legend.
But the one bit of credit that I will give, so credit where credit is due, we don't see an awful lot of Chad Gable,
but this was an incredibly competitive match.
Generally speaking, with WWE's big debuts, they have a tendency to turn it into a slightly competitive squash match
where the new face will just come in and completely dominate the competition.
I genuinely spent the majority of this match thinking, is Penta actually going to win his debut, or are we going to end up with a loss on his record to start WWE?
Which isn't something they do very often.
It's not. I didn't think they'd give him the L.
But to see them actually let Chad Gable have an opportunity to put on a bit of a show, like you said, we don't see a lot of him.
When we do see him, they're not normally the greatest matches on the card.
I think personally this one has an opportunity to go for Match of the Week.
It's definitely a contender up there for Match of the Week for Raw.
I'll put it out there straight away. This was my favourite match of the card.
It was 100% my favourite match of the card, and I know you're not going to necessarily agree with me.
You've watched him at TNA, you've watched him before, but obviously this guy's been performing a professional wrestling for over a decade.
A lot of guys who watch outside of WWE will have seen him before.
For me it was the first time seeing him properly. I saw a few clips from when he was in AEW, but it looked like they'd handicapped him a little bit there.
They're not really giving him an opportunity.
I'm hoping we get to see a lot more of him, but for you to say it was your favourite match, that does say quite a bit.
Props to Chad Gabel as well for putting on what was definitely a technically gifted attempt at going against the Luchador.
It was a very good quality wrestling.
100% but I think by the end of this match, Penta and Gabel had got over in their own way with the crowd.
If you saw one match of both of these wrestlers, if that was the only match you've seen of them ever wrestling, then it was a fantastic resume match.
To say this is what they can do, this is what they can't do. They were both in a jeopardy situation, so you know that they can lose, they can win.
So back and forth as well. You didn't have time to sit and think they've got a bit of an advantage or whether Gabel had an advantage or Penta had an advantage.
It was reversal, reversal. Absolutely phenomenal technical wrestling.
100% and they both left it very much in the ring for me. I couldn't have asked for much more of them.
For that to be the first match of the night, set the bar so incredibly high.
It does. There's WWE have got a habit of putting a really good match on at the start and the rest of the show doesn't live up to it.
Or the start of the show is incredibly boring but at the end of the match is just phenomenal.
And the people that don't sit there and watch it all kind of miss out on some really well crafted stories sometimes.
Yeah, definitely. We came out of that match to an in-ring interview with Penta on his win, which was an incredibly convincing win.
If we could gush about this match all the time.
That Penta driver is beautiful, isn't it? What a finisher.
Yeah, just fantastic. And I've noticed he likes to use the swing blade quite a lot as well.
It's a move you didn't see a lot, seems to be coming back to be more popular, which is quite nice.
When you get the move set rotations, you see some quite a bit, some that you don't see a lot these days.
And to see one coming back is definitely very nice.
Well, we saw it quite a lot in this episode because it appears in quite a few matches.
It does. So yeah, definitely something to keep an eye out for.
Very similar style of wrestler with the two people that did use it. They're both very high-paced.
The two people that did use the swing blade in this episode were both very high-paced, high-flying, quite high-octane wrestlers.
So it's quite nice to see it.
And two of my favourite wrestlers in current competition at the moment.
I mean, Penta, yeah, we've gushed about him enough, but the other one who used it was right the way at the other end of the episode was a Finn Balor.
Definitely. But we won't spoil that one. We'll come back to him and his match with Damian Priest in a little while.
So we, as I said, we went straight out of this match into an in-ring interview with Penta himself on his victory, who gave a moving promo on the journey it took him to get to at WWE.
And he gave it in two languages, which we sort of, I think you have to kind of come to expect out of Eluchador, really.
But the thing that I actually quite enjoyed about this was that Netflix didn't provide an English translation of what Penta said,
because I have a tendency to watch these things with subtitles on, so I don't miss anything.
And if you watch it live, it doesn't, but sometimes after they've re-edited it out, especially now with Netflix, and they've taken the adverts out, they do sometimes put subtitles in.
But they didn't for this one, because I didn't watch it live. I'll be honest, because one o'clock in the morning, I need my sleep.
Yeah, so I thought I had subtitles, and I watched it today, so...
Oh, right, so they may have edited it back, because you're watching it today, I watched it sort of Tuesday night, so Tuesday evening I sat and watched it,
and they hadn't put the English translation, so I actually went and found out what the English translation was for what you said.
We're recording this at 10 to 11 on a Wednesday evening, so yeah, it's taken us a bit of time to get there, but we're getting there.
Yeah, this is it. But something along the lines of, for all my people from Mexico and all of Latin America, I want to say thank you for being part of the process.
Thank you for accompanying me on the path to WWE, which, yeah, the guy spoke from the heart, and he got over with the crowd.
But he wrestled from the heart as well, so it kind of shows what we're going to get from Panther, and what Panther gives to the table.
Oh, 100%. But yeah, again, we're not going to sit here and gush about Panther all evening.
It's going to be... we'll move swiftly on to next item of business, which was a Judgment Day promo, if I remember correctly.
It was, with Liv Morgan and every wrestling fan's favourite dickhead, Dominic Mysterio.
As well as the other members of Judgment Day, Carlito in the background, JD McDonough, Finn Balor and Raquel Rodriguez.
And yeah, this was where we really started to see some cracks forming in Judgment Day, in the New Judgment Day.
Finn Balor having some really not very well-disguised jabs at Liv Morgan for losing her title the week before to Mummy.
I thought it was funny though.
And I mean, the big part of this for me was, was Dom becoming wobbling.
Wobbling.
Those flowers, man, to then just be told that she's not angry, but you know, if he really is sorry, he can go and get her bags from the car.
I mean, as two men of a certain age now...
I think we can both say without any doubt in our mind, if a woman says to you that she's not mad when you've done something and you've fucked up.
Yeah, as someone who can attest to that.
Yeah, when your significant other is silent with you, then when you've done something stupid, run.
Do not stick around. Get out of there.
Go to the pub.
I don't go to the pub that might make the situation worse, but yeah, go and get bits and start cooking dinner because that is the first step on your way to redemption.
Oh, 100%.
But Dom showing some lack of experience with the ladies there, just thinking, I'm good. I think I'm good.
No, mate, you're not. You are a dead man walking.
You showed some lack of experience with the ladies with that damn mustache. Just get rid of it.
Oh, my.
Him and Vince alike need to remove their facial hair.
Yeah, the other bit that came out of this was Baller and McDonough, JD McDonough talking about reclaiming their tag straps and McDonough going away to demand a chance to take them back from, I think it's war machine or something along those lines.
I think they used to be called the Viking Raider. It used to be the Viking Raiders, but I'm not 100% certain.
War Raiders are the tag champions at the moment.
Oh, is it? Oh, right. Okay.
War Raiders.
Yeah, so, oh, yeah, no. So I thought it was war machine or they used to be called Viking Raiders. I see what I've done there.
But yeah, so...
We've all made mistakes somewhere.
Oh, 100%.
Then we went into match two singles match, which was Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser.
Now, I haven't seen Ludwig Kaiser wrestle that much, but Sheamus, just another one of my all time favourites, held it for me.
We've seen a lot of the great white over the last 10 years at least.
100%. Some good, some bad, some...
My favourite moment will always be that brogue kick at WrestleMania.
Daniel Bryan ate that hard.
Oh, that was when he lost his title in less than 10 seconds.
Yeah, it was like three seconds or something. He was literally showing off with his wife in the corner, wasn't he?
And Sheamus just ran straight through the brogue kick in a dozen.
Well, we should point out he was showing off in the corner with what is now CM Punk's wife.
Um...
Yeah...
That's a good one. That was AJ Lee.
Yeah, back when AJ Lee was there.
I saw a post on social media that apparently AJ Lee was approached to be a guest appearance in the women's rumble, and she politely declined.
So, I don't think it will happen, but I think it's one of those that will never happen again.
It's going to be a constant, like a constant rumour that comes out around the rumble, is that we're going to be expected to see AJ Lee as a surprise entrant in the...
More chance to see the Bella Twins.
Well, I think we have had that in fairness, at least one of them.
In previous years, I'm just saying, we've had more chance this year of seeing one of the Bella Twins than the rest of us seeing AJ Lee in the Royal Rumble.
Yeah, but the match itself, I didn't hate it.
I mean, any Sheamus match where he's given pretty much free reign to do a Sheamus, to have a Sheamus kind of match,
he's never going to be a high flyer, he's never going to be an amazingly technical wrestler.
He's there to kick the living shit out of you.
And he does it well.
He does.
He's built a lengthy career on kicking the shit out of his opponent.
When you look at Ludwig Kayser's chest at the end of that match, it was almost as rare as Sheamus's hair colour.
I mean, I would not want to be slapped by that man that many times my chest turned that colour, I tell you.
No, I mean, one of Sheamus's stalwart part of his matches is having his opponent wrapped up in the ropes and banging his chest on his...
Just raining.
...like he's a King Kong, mate.
He's treating his opponent like an absolute drum.
And as a universe, we eat that up.
If you see a Sheamus match and he doesn't get the chance to do that, you are going home a disappointed fan.
And you know, even if you're sat in the cheap seats right at the top when Sheamus has got him and he does that,
you're going to hear that echo in the cheap seats, do you?
I feel like there's such things in a cheap seat in a WWE live event these days, but there are more of the less expensive variety.
Yeah.
Second life, I suppose.
One thing of note that we did see in this that WWE haven't used in a very long time is a Shalely.
Do you know I actually had to Google how to spell Shalely and it is not what I thought.
You know what, I didn't even... I think I've just written it down as Shalala.
You're probably not that far off the right spelling in fairness because it's not how it...
It's not spelled how it said, essentially.
You can see how the sounds get made, but yeah, I would never have spelt it this way if left away on devices.
I find it funny how they had an Austrian attack an Irishman with what is theoretically known as an Irish weapon.
Well, it's a leprechaun's weapon.
Exactly, but it was just like...
I mean, in trying to find out how to spell Shalely, I ended up doing some inadvertent research into Shalelys and yeah,
it's a traditional leprechaun's weapon.
I mean, more normal sized people might use them for beating stakes to get the air into the meat.
Yeah, tenderize the meat.
Tenderize your steak with a Shalely, which is pretty much what Ludwig Kaiser tried to do to Seamus at one point.
Yeah, but Seamus was not having any of that this night.
He took a pretty convincing victory against Ludwig Kaiser and we ended that section with a face-off with Brom Breaker.
Which...
That as a guest in the crowd.
He was, which wasn't announced at the time, but was mentioned a little bit later and I thought it was strange that they didn't announce it when they were facing off.
But actually on the next Saturday night main event, Seamus has an intercontinental opportunity against Brom Breaker.
So he has an opportunity to get the one title that he's never actually won.
So the guy with the Hall of Fame resume has never won an intercontinental title.
Which feels to me like Seamus could be coming up on retirement and he's asked if he could have a small run with that title before he drops out.
Just to say that I've stayed here my entire career, won everything. I'm good. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Yeah, so Saturday night main event being broadcast in the States on NBC and the Peacock Network.
It's available to view everywhere else on YouTube and that's on the 25th of January, starting at 1am UK time.
And we've already got two confirmed matches for that. That is Seamus versus Brom Breaker for the intercontinental.
And I'm not sure if I'm giving too much away by revealing the other one to be fair.
I'm just going to scroll up on my notes a second just to make sure it's there.
Yeah, so we end up...
What another match which will come to later on as it does come up as part of this episode?
It does, yes. So after the Seamus-Kaiser match we had a bit of a look at Seth Rollins promo.
Basically talking about his fight next week with Drew of which Sami Zayn comes to basically tell him,
look, I've got your back if you need it, which Seth Rollins tells him, well, you've been helping everyone else around here.
If you need to grow some balls and start helping yourself and not Roman.
And that kind of leads off from there.
Yeah, to be able to yeet that hard at that age, to be able to cause your watch to think you've had a heart attack is incredible.
I mean, Michael Cole's career has been... he started off as an interviewer, he was a backstage interviewer
because he got ripped some at chronic by pretty much every wrestler that came through the WWE that did a promo.
I mean, he was useful for some things I suppose.
Yeah, I mean he made his way to the commentator's desk and was colour commentator for years
and then went to play by play and in fairness, he's not my favourite commentator ever.
That spot will always belong to good old JR.
Yeah.
And but I can't knock him for what he's done.
And he does play a fantastic role in some of the stories that he's been a part of over the years.
And he's always willing to get down and do something stupid.
Like he's not afraid to get involved in the shenanigans as well, which I think makes him a good member of that team to have.
Definitely, definitely.
But yeah, I mean, third match, Jey Uso drew Mack entire.
What were your thoughts on it?
Yeah, I mean, it was a good technical match.
I wouldn't have said there was many overly big highlights to it.
It was probably one of the weaker matches on the card for the for the pay-per-view for the for the event.
I think Drew is probably unlucky to lose the match because for most of it he was generally ahead.
I had more near pinfalls and struggled to pull off his finisher a few times.
But obviously you've got to get in the right place to be able to hit a claim or.
But, you know, I think with the matches and I said it was the weakest one on the card and for me it was the weakest because of the ending.
Roll up finishes for me always kill a match no matter how good the matches and roll up finish always kills it either.
Pendum straight submit them or de-hew it and go again in a couple of weeks time.
I think a roll up is a bit of a cop out.
But you know, that's that's me personally.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, roll pins are no go for me.
If you get to an end of a and use a roll up pin, I think that's just lazy.
There are other ways.
You can use it better ways to tell the story, I think.
So it's worth pointing out at this point that neither me nor Rich are in any way shape or form professional wrestlers.
I mean, I'm pretty sure we'd kill each other not not from the moves we tried to perform if we wrestled one another, but more so for the health and safety.
We just do not have the stamina for it, quite frankly.
I'm a professional far faster.
Yeah, pretty much.
He really is.
But yeah, I do sort of see what you're saying about roll up roll up pins.
They can in my opinion, they don't kill a match as such if they used as if they use correctly, it can be really beneficial to a story.
I mean, I mean, you look at it on paper, Jey Uso versus Drew McIntyre for me, Drew McIntyre wins that in a straight fight all day long.
The guys are the guys are blue and I mean at the minute his storyline is he's a bit off the reservation with it. He's on a bit of a bloodline crusade and it's.
It's a path block.
Oh, 100%.
And I mean, Jey Uso throughout the entire match was doing what he could to try and keep Drew Drew off balance started the match with an over the top rope dive to again, keep him off balance.
Keep him off balance.
Because the minute that drew gets control is it's over.
Oh yeah, you know, high flying abilities to stay away from them or go out and from range.
But as I was saying about roll up victories, I mean the the this particular roll up victory will help feed into Drew McIntyre storyline a little bit more.
It's not there to make it's it it's Jey Uso putting drew over for his storyline in my opinion that's that's how that one works pretty much.
It's strange because you'd look at it more as Drew's the former champion.
He would be the biggest superstar putting over Jey but it's not quite gone that way.
Yeah.
I'd see where you go but yeah, I think there's I said right at the beginning about raw there was nothing that didn't need to be there.
And that for me made sense to be there from a storyline perspective.
But yeah, obviously Jey Uso picked up the victory overdrew but overdrew McIntyre.
I don't think we'll fully agree on whether that was the right way to go about it or not.
But is as it is.
We went from that into a well into a string of promos because we started off with the new day and Gabriel Inglisius promo.
I mean it was a mindless self promotion for Gabriel Inglisius is new Netflix special.
I mean I've sat and watched it thought it was I mean me and you were a big fluffy fan.
I have definitely enjoyed a lot of fluffy previous content I mean yet to watch this special but I have been told it is half decent so I'm going to watch it.
Oh 100% and I would recommend it but this one again it's still feeding into a storyline even if it is self promotion for fluffy.
I mean new day or on a heel turn at the minute and there was a big thing where a few people had a few people at home have noticed that.
Poffy Kingston is wearing a particular pendant around his neck and this might make more sense to me than you but it was very similar to the.
Margin curse from Dragon Ballsy.
Yeah, I can see from the look on your face. I've lost you just now.
I've gone. Yeah, if you're an anime fan, you'll get the reference. If you're not like
like my man Rich, it will go completely over your head. So yeah, I'm not gonna speak to you.
It's getting even faster.
No friction, mate. No friction.
Freshly loomed.
But again, Stringer promos, we went straight into a Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest promo where
yeah, we've got Rhea taking some jabs at Liv Morgan carrying on the storyline.
Damian Priest putting Teaser out. Yeah, he's got Finn Balor on 14th for that street fight.
Yeah, 100% street fight on with Finn Balor on next week's rule, which
are 100%. I've never been a huge Damian Priest fan. Again, I'm not sure why, but it's something
about him that's just I've never felt that he just I've never felt personally I've never felt
the push with him. He walks around like diesel. It's funny. Yeah, he's got that
but yeah, I'm a huge Finn Balor fan. Definitely wanting Finn Balor to win myself on that one.
Yeah, most definitely. And then the most controversial promo of the night.
Right. The most ruthless, selfless promo of the night as well.
We had the original brother himself Hulk Hogan coming out and trying to promote his real American beer.
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I saw a clip of Rey Mysterio drinking it and Rey's face was like,
yeah, this is all right. In his eyes, he was like, no, not feeling this.
Well, that's fine. I mean, he came out and was just consistently booed by every single man,
woman, child and animal in that arena. It was it just it it fell flat.
He deserves it to be fair. I mean, yes, the guy's given a lot of time to professional wrestling
over the years. You know, some great masters of WrestleMania. I mean, a long time, you know,
longer than I've been alive. But I think he's one of those that needs to leave professional wrestling
in his past and go and retire line of beach. He keeps coming back in. No one wants to know.
I don't think anymore. I think he's hit the point of irrelevancy now is that we all know him
him. Even new wrestling fans will know who who Hulk Hogan is. But it's a case of
Any of us are Hulkamaniacs anymore.
He's got to learn that or WWE have got to learn potentially a little bit of both that there
is to there is truth to the saying of flogging a dead horse. And I'm sorry, I think I think that
that Hulk Hogan is that dead horse. They eat is there's too much history, too much history.
I think he's said some stuff over the years that you can't really atone for these days.
No, it's kind of his very large foot and his very large mouth and now he's made that bed.
He's going to have to line it. Yeah, and not even the pythons are going to save him from that
realistically. But they're not even 24 inches anymore. He looks frail.
By comparison, how we look. Yes. He can tell he's an old man these days. I wouldn't say
ill but definitely old. You can you look at him and you can see old man. He really struggled to
rip that shirt off. No matter how hot. Yeah, I didn't think he was going to do it to start off with.
No, no. And I wouldn't wouldn't be surprised if that was a so back in his heyday, I can fully
believe that he was ripping like genuine like even real t shirts. He could have ripped this
fucking shirt off. He could have ripped the shirt off me back in his heyday. I'd have wondered what
the fuck he was doing if he was but yeah, it's a case that now I think that they make me breakfast
first. There's a default like a deep in and yeah, they've been adapted. So when he pulls them,
they pull across but even then he generally he looked like he was going to struggle with that.
Yeah, this is it. And then we get to the main event match.
You're missing one of the most important things that penalties against Chad Gable for Monday
Night Raw. Obviously they've been looking for a partner for Panther and a lot of rumors have been
saying that he was going to go with Rey Mysterio. But apparently there might be a singles push in
the run and he's got a match against Chad Gable on Monday Night Raw next week.
He was one notable absence from the Netflix premiere was Penta and we all thought I think
everybody thought he was making his appearance there and then on that night and he was both
me and you after watching it had said where the hell's Penta like he's not there. He wasn't there
when we thought he was going to be there. No, but then it could just be a case of, you know,
he hasn't sorted out some some paperwork or had some medical stuff done at that time to be there
for Raw. But then would they have had the time really to debut him properly?
Well, you know, it was quite a packed show. So to throw an extra segment in there with a debut of
another wrestler that's new to the business. And if he doesn't live up to the expectation as well,
like you debut this guy on Monday Night Raw's Netflix debut and he flops. That's a big ask.
It's a big question to ask. I'm not saying Penta would flop, but you know, it is one of those
what wrestlers doing other promotions doesn't always happen when they come to WWE and vice
versa. Yeah, I mean, you can't catch lightning in a bottle and sometimes it just doesn't translate
well over into other promotions and it's nobody's fault. It's just you get to that point of are they
just trying to just do what the other guys did before and and things like that.
Yeah, but no, that yeah, that main event.
Yeah, main event as CM Punk versus Seth Breakin Rollins.
Promos and the build up to this fight were absolute magical. Like 100%.
The build up to this this event was insane. I loved it. And the fact they've got real life
beef as well just made it even more believable. In fact, they do actually hate each other's guts.
So what does they hate each other's guts like they they work together obviously when CM Punk
was there originally before he he took his title and he threw it in the fridge and
you know, off that wonderful pay-per-view. But um,
yeah, I would argue that Seth Rollins hates CM Punk. That is he's gone on record number of times
and said I don't think CM Punk really gives a shit. I will be honest, it's just not.
It's just that is this arrogance in it. That's the CM Punk all over I suppose.
Yeah, I really don't think it's this war for ducks back. I suppose the amount of people that
hate the guy, I mean, he's a brilliant heel. Like he's a natural heel. He's also a very good face,
but he's a natural heel because people just love to hate the guy because he's got this smirk little
one liners and I mean, Christ, you go back through the last six months of television
shows before he left the first time round and just look at all the little quips and the little
one liners and the pipe bombs and that guy is good with his mouth. So he can definitely turn
a crowd one way or another even just, just yeah, it's brilliant. Pure natural. I mean,
it comes back to the fact he's a Paul Heyman guy. It's what we were saying earlier on. I was just
about to bring that up. He is a Heyman guy. You can't, there isn't a Paul Heyman, there isn't
somebody who's come out as a Paul Heyman guy that can't be that has failed at being a heel or has
not been able to cut a fricking promo and Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar, great heel, his ability to
cut a promo. I have seen Staffordshire Boulteria's do better abilities in the garden.
Verbally, he's not great on the mic. Credit given where credit's due is last running WWE. I mean,
I don't think he's currently under contract. I will be honest with you. He's his last run. He
was doing it without Heyman because Heyman was involved in the bloodline story. And he, he showed
some improvement on his ability to cut. He's not good. He's never going to be sort of Enzo Amore,
John Cena, or he's never going to be up there with that level of being able to cut a promo.
He's been doing this a long time. He should be able to cut a decent promo.
But he started in the Vince era where he was, he was a Vince McMahon. Brock Lesnar was Vince
McMahon's wet dream, essentially, as far as, as far as a wrestler goes. He wasn't there to,
he was there because Vince McMahon forgives, used to forgive a lot if you had the right physique,
if you look like an absolute beast. And I mean, Brock Lesnar is the beast.
Yeah, he isn't. Yeah. He built like one as well. Yeah. The biggest I ever saw him was when he was
in the UFC. And you looked at that guy down and were like, what, not pissing on his cornflakes in
the morning? No, no, definitely not. But yeah, Brock Lesnar aside, it's a, it's a,
we don't grasp. I mean, they 100% made the most of their minutes. They maximized the space they
worked in. I mean, action was spilling into the arena. They were fighting in the crowd.
Non-stop from start to finish. Yeah. I mean, I think there's definitely some injury time on the
way up for Rollins. He seemed to really struggle with his knee. I think he's due to be signed out
soon. And I mean, surgery and rehab and getting himself ready to go sort of summer slam sort of
time. Yeah, I think so. But one of the things that I picked up on afterwards, like, so CM Punk
wins the match, one point during the towards the end of that match, Rollins sustains a very
visible injury. And even CM Punk, you see in the way that he behaves, it was sort of pointed out
afterwards. I never really cottoned on to it. Is that CM Punk was genuinely concerned for Rollins'
well-being. You see him grab the ref after he's pinned him. And yeah, kind of like, just make
sure it's okay. Is, is, is he okay? You see him grabbing the ref's face, like up in here, like,
go and check on him. And you see the ref run straight to Seth, hands down the side of his,
like, you're good. But yeah, he was in the ring for a long time after that match. He did not get
up and move off like a lot of the other guys do. He was feeling that. No, so it was either a really
good sell or it was a genuine oh shit moment. So yeah, but not quite bad enough to throw X's up
at the end of the show, which is kind of like, we'll let the crowd dissipate.
We'll, we'll kind of see what happens. Send some superstars out and get some signatures out and
we'll get him back here and assess the damage. This is it. But absolutely phenomenal main event.
Can't fault it. Finished with a double go to sleep, which I have seen. He has used elsewhere as a
finisher. And ironically against one of Seth Rollins former teammates. Yeah. Yeah. Double GTS on
John Moxley in AEW when he was out there before he got in trouble. But yeah, so that was a fun one.
And it's nice to see people moving out of the ring and using the arena as well. Like you said,
these guys were everywhere. Rollins tried to pop pedigrees on announce tables. They were swapping
pedigrees, swapping all sorts of finisher moves at one point. So yeah, it was a good laugh. They
looked like they were having fun doing it as well. And you can see that they were enjoying the match
that they were having because of the quality of the match. Yeah, I mean, definitely. But
yeah, I mean, that that was the closing moments of Raw's first Netflix, first Netflix episode. And
I mean, lots of people were like, this is WrestleMania quality sort of matches. This is
what we would expect to see at the top four paperbies. Yeah. I mean, my only concern is can they keep
up the momentum? Is it like WrestleMania is two is now two nights a year. And there are some matches
even within WrestleMania that you think probably not. There's a lot of titles as well. So if
with things like WrestleMania, if you're defending all those titles, it can't be very long. So you
need to go out to make sure that the production on them is decent, but you can't blow your budget
too far. No, this is it. I mean, it's it's going to be interesting. I am genuinely looking forward
to next week's Raw just to see the match quality. That was what we're now going to get on a weekly
wait until WrestleMania 100% they've raised the bar. They've raised the bar. Well, that's it from me.
And from me too. Thank you all for watching. Remember, if you've enjoyed this episode and
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