Chapter 1: What were the initial reactions to WrestleMania 42 Night 2?
This is the Busted Open Podcast. And Bully, different tone as you just said from coming on after night one to coming on now here after night two.
You ever hear the age-old adage, what a difference a day makes? And I think that's what we got last night with night two of WrestleMania. Once again, when we give our feedback today, we were in the exact locations, myself, Tommy, and Mark, as we were the day before, taking this all in with fans. Me and Tommy were in a cabana. at the Palms Hotel watching WrestleMania.
Mark, you were in a separate cabana, a very posh, very elegant cabana, suitable for the world's strongest man watching it. And then the three of us got together for dinner last night and kindly talked about it a little bit. So our perspective comes from watching it on our own, watching it with fans live.
I know you watch it in a very lively setting, Dave, but man, oh man, it's as if there were two completely different sets of creative writing night one and night two.
And not only that, guys, but the feeling that we had and we talked about last year. coming out of WrestleMania 41, doing the show here in this studio where I was ranting and raving, and we just felt like there was just a dark cloud over everything that we saw in that main event to end WrestleMania 41. Mark, completely different. Now that we're coming out of WrestleMania 42.
Listen, it's beyond completely different than last year. Yeah. Even yesterday, which I thought was a good show and a good first night because they had a lot of things that surprised the hell out of you, as well as the matches were what we thought they would be. But the second night, Even though we expected things, we just didn't know. And as a fan, that's what you want. You want to be surprised.
You want to be on the edge of your seat like, is it going to be this way or that way? It was unpredictable. That's why one of the reasons, I think it's one of the main reasons why it was so good. My grandmother used to say, Bully said the old cliche of what a difference a day makes. My grandmother used to say, keep on living.
And living another day, we got to see one of the best wrestlers of all time. Top five. Which I will put Brock in my top five now. Wow. Retire and cry. And I said yesterday in a post, Like this is probably the most I've cried at a retirement of a wrestler because Brock has been very humble in the last few months. And I didn't see it coming. His retirement surprised me.
He never mentioned I'm going to retire. He said that I'm going to spend more time with my family. But that can mean a lot of things. He told me a few weeks ago, hey, man, I saw your daughter on the internet. That's crazy. And I said, yeah, she's doing pretty good. He said, man, she does a lot of the moves I do that I used to do. He said, are y'all going to come to the show in Houston?
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Chapter 2: How did Oba Femi's retirement of Brock Lesnar impact fans?
But I do know this. We have saw the best of Brock yesterday, emotionally especially. We've never been emotional about Brock. We've always been fearful. And I think that Brock would be, if he didn't retire, he would be the biggest babyface of all time.
Which... That's a great point. I want to bring something up before we get to Tommy, and this will actually lead to Tommy. Mark, you used the word retire about two or three times just now because you saw Brock Lesnar leave his boots and his gloves in the ring. One of the things I noticed is... They didn't use the word retire last night very often. Tommy, did you happen to pick up on that?
Yeah, I feel this is a salmon suit. Really? For other things. If you remember, and listen... if I could just give my critique about what we're talking about now, I agree with everything that you said, Mark, but Gunther and Paul have a favor. If you remember that from Seth Rollins, you owe me a favor.
And if you're planting the seeds, it could be like, Hey, I either want a title shot or I want Brock to come. Brock didn't say he's retiring. Brock wants to retire. He's going to do it against me. That's what I think. And then it sets up SummerSlam in Minnesota.
Don't you do this to me. No, Mark, listen, I'm with you. When I was watching that last night, and we might as well just dive right into it since we're talking about it.
You know, I think you're going to get the same thing from all three of us as far as last night being a great night, off the charts, so much better than night one, blah, blah, blah. So why don't we start diving?
Yeah, so when I thought for sure at some point, because he was taking his time, obviously, taking off the gloves, taking off the boots, I thought Gunther's music was going to hit.
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Chapter 3: What were the highlights of the Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk match?
And I was still waiting for it when he was walking up that aisle. And when I saw him disappear, and he kind of did that wave just before he disappeared, I was like, that's it. Then this morning, I was trying to re-watch WrestleMania on the ESPN app, which was extremely frustrating, but that's a story for another day. I then went to ESPN.com, and the headline was,
on ESPN.com was a picture of Brock Lesnar over the NHL playoffs, the NBA playoffs, everything that's going on. The lead on the top of ESPN.com was Brock Lesnar sitting in the middle of the ring with his boots off and his gloves off. And the headline said, looks like Brock Lesnar may have retired last night at WrestleMania 42. And I read that and I was like, may have retired?
may have that's what that means he retired last night but as soon as i saw may have then i started thinking was it the last time we saw brock lesnar because mark you just said it as brock lesnar was exiting that stadium last night he was the biggest baby baby face in ww so
If you're going to have one more match with Brock, and it's against Gunther, and it's in Minnesota, Brock Lesnar is going to be the biggest babyface at Summer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just going to throw that out there.
Dave, I'm not stupid. I'm a smart-ass dude. I just realized that it's in Minnesota. Yep.
Thanks for listening to what I just said to you.
Oh, my God. Mute me.
And Brock will be the biggest babyface that night. That's just my opinion of that. Listen, there's a lot of so many great moments on this, and it goes back also to Paul Heyman and the behind the scenes of Paul Heyman. These are such... If we talk about performance of Oba and Brock, it was exactly what it was supposed to be.
This could go down as one of the biggest matches in the history of professional wrestling because of its on ESPN. I cannot wait. Guys, I don't care about ratings. I care about this rating because I want to see what this thing does. Because, again, opposite of what it was against, all that stuff. Bubba and I, he had a great cabana, and we also had casual fans.
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Chapter 4: Why was the storytelling in the main event significant?
And I was like, ah, they're insinuating he's retiring. Is that what you do when you retire? And I was like, no, it's not like in the NFL you've got to file a piece of paper, all that stuff. But I go, it's become this thing where you leave everything out there, and once you take your boots off, it's over. And he was just like, can you come back from that?
And right then and there, I was like, absolutely you can. And that's where my brain just went, and I was just like, I don't see it. I do not see him leaving just because ā You want to make this guy who's been a draw since day one draw one more last house. And again, like Paul Heyman said, the unofficial WrestleMania main event, though the main event delivered and delivered in a big way.
But this, again, I think could go down as one of the most important matches in the history of wrestling just because of, listen, financially, ESPN has paid the most amount of money for something. And then how does this payoff continue? These are all the keys.
And if you have that number, once that metric comes in, then follow it up with a ladder match, you'll be like, whoa, this did amazing numbers for ESPN.
I sent out a tweet immediately after the Brock stuff, and I said, if this is it, thank you, Brock. If, if, if. I do not believe this is it. This is very Monday morning quarterback. I would have loved to have seen Brock Lesnar leave the ring and Gunther's music hit and Gunther would have taken Brock's boots.
What an F you to Brock Lesnar after his illustrious career for Gunther to come to the ring and take the boots and the boots become hostage for Because the boots now don't get to go into the WWE Museum or Hall of Fame or wherever they display things or will eventually display things. Now Gunther has stolen Brock's boots.
And now when Gunther and Paul Heyman come face to face, Gunther can tell Heyman, get me my match. The Beast doesn't retire until I retire him. And if I win, then he retires. If he wins, he can have his boots back.
I love it. And it goes back to what Mark just said is the unpredictability of whatever's going on. We really don't know. Maybe last night.
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Chapter 5: What emotions did Brock Lesnar's retirement evoke?
Was Brock's last match. Maybe Brock did really retire last night.
With TKO wanting to make every possible last nickel and dime they can, not having Brock on SummerSlam would be financially a poor decision.
And I also feel like because WrestleMania next year is going to be in Saudi, that puts more of an emphasis on SummerSlam, the Royal Rumble. Those shows are going to be much bigger than probably ever before because of WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia.
I also love how we all thought the same thing. I thought when Brock went down and started untying his shoe, he's in a perfect position for Gunther to sneak up from behind and just cinch him. And he chokes him out while he's distracted, while he wants it. And then Brock comes back with a vengeance.
There were so many great, again, moments that were possible things that you could do, but you can still do them. And again...
we were talking about it like this match and even after when we're all hanging out we're like man why didn't they do a stare down between Oba and Brock and then we're like oh wait they did it in the main event and that's like also like for the wrestlers or for like people who are looking at the card these are bigger moments at times right or who lays out who doesn't but like
oba winning should have been the moment and we all got that yay and then the emotional roller coaster of wait what and this is what i love about professional wrestling and this is what i love like again long-term storytelling the wwe and stuff like that because they took us on a ride and then we're speculating the next day because there is no off-season
And my entire thought process after WrestleMania night two, they corrected every mistake they made night one and gave us one of the better WrestleManias in a long time.
I totally agree. I thought last night was amazing. And I'm going to go back to something that Mark said earlier as well. You couldn't ask for a better first hour of WrestleMania to be on ESPN.
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Chapter 6: How did the panel compare Night 1 and Night 2 of WrestleMania 42?
It was better. And what made it better? Not convoluted, not anything sidetracked. They told a great wrestling story. Guys wanted to win. They left it all out there, and we have a new world champion in Roman Reigns.
Mark? Well, as I clear my throat. Let me clear my throat. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Eh-eh. After the match was over, I posted a minute video. And it said that this was the best match at WrestleMania that I've seen since Taker and Shawn. Wow. And I was just blown away because they did so much so effectively. It could have been two matches.
They put the amount of content in one match that they could have done two. And they never stopped moving. They went outside the ring and we criticized night one because guys would get outside and the count would get close and nobody would roll in the ring. What did Roman Reigns do? Roll in the ring. Roll back out. He went at Punk. Punk stopped him. He had Roman Reigns down.
He would roll in the ring. He would roll back out. They did everything so textbook.
Chapter 7: What were the implications of Roman Reigns winning the World Heavyweight Title?
And you didn't know who was going to win or lose. So we always have this thing about wrestling where... Well, it's more important that this guy takes the title and he goes on. That wasn't the case last night, was it? It was about dominance. It was about effectiveness. And it was about who had the most left in the tank. Roman kept saying, you're out of shape. You're always blown up. You look old.
I mean, he was lacing Punk. Punk came in looking like a million bucks, didn't he? Not at the end of the match, though. Hey, neither one of them. They both were tired. They put a lot of work in.
Yeah. But wait, wait, wait, Dave, were you saying that in a way where it looked like Punk had lost a step or by the end of the match, he was physically out of it?
I felt like the story went full circle for me because Roman Reigns, the one thing Roman Reigns said, think about all the stuff that Punk said leading into the match with Roman. You know, he talked about his father. He really went below the belt. The only thing Roman said was, you're old. It's the only thing Roman said. And everybody was like, that's it. No, he said he was out of shape.
He said that he looks old. No, he said, you're old. And that's what got Punk to punch him in the face. Yeah, and he said, you're old. And a lot of fans, we took the calls.
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Chapter 8: What are the future prospects for Brock Lesnar and the championship scene?
That's it. After everything that Roman said, the only thing you could come back with is you're old. but it played out to the end of the match last night because CM Punk ran out of gas before Roman Reigns did. Because CM Punk tried to put Roman up for that last GTS and could not do it. Roman had no problem hitting that spear on CM Punk.
And I think that's exactly what Roman is going to say if we hear from him tonight. I told you. And I thought it was a beautiful... That story started with their first promo. And it ended in that main event at WrestleMania.
Well, he also shined in that match too, Dave. He did give out. Even iron wears out. I've been saying that for years. But CM Punk proved to Roman Reigns that he was the genuine article. Everybody loses. You know who I think was probably the best fighter I ever seen? Jon Jones. But he's lost before. Everybody lose. You learn more from losing than you do winning. CM Punk proved to Roman.
If anything, Roman say, you know what? I gave you a lot of static, but you showed up and you showed out.
You just got beat by a better man. Well, we'll find out what Roman has to say on Monday Night Raw. Bully Roman and Punk from last night.
I went on Twitter as soon as the match was over, and I said, now that was a fucking WrestleMania main event. That was the exact tweet. Wow. That was a, from beginning to end, from the packages, the build, the entrances, I got major, major goosebumps when I saw the video walls for Roman's entrance with Afa and Sika and the family. The match, everything was phenomenal.
But I have to stay true to myself, fellas, and pick out something that was so effing glaring. And Mark, you brought up a point about how in night one, especially in Seth and Gunther, the ref was not protected. You're saying in Punk and Roman, Roman rolled back into the ring and Punk would roll back into the ring. And they did do that. And there was creative license when they were on the outside.
But CM Punk was in the tree of woe, and his body was hanging outside of the ring. And Roman Reigns took the steps and smashed him. And where was the referee? Was he on the floor? He was looking directly at him. He was right there. That's true. Creative liberty. Now, is that being the referee police, Tommy?
Well, what's the difference? I know the answer. What's the difference if I throw you into the steps? I'm still deliberately using steps as an object as opposed to if I just take the steps and throw it into you.
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