00:00the raw after wrestlemania for a long time had a reputation of being the must-see show of the year
00:07for monday night raw and the the it's the big kickoff big surprises happening all over the
00:13place and gosh is it so much fun that reputation fell into well can't wait to be disappointed on
00:19monday um and a lot of frustration with fans i think we got back to the exciting part on monday
00:25a very fun show from the wwe post-wrestlemania as world wrestling entertainment kicks off their new
00:32wrestling year with some style
00:41so monday night raw um right after wrestlemania i i thought it was a fun show you get a couple
00:49of
00:49debuts coming in from nxt and i think the one thing because nxt like obviously they are in a
00:55different spot now before it was really cool if um just talk about apollo cruz getting cut but
01:03apollo cruz debuting on smackdown uh coming out of nxt or um oh wow like here's here's samoa joe
01:09here's kevin owens here's sammy zane uh we never got the adam cole thing that we wanted but maybe
01:15adam cole will be here finn bauer all of that you know like those performers coming up are really
01:19exciting you kind of already took a lot of the dudes anyway who were going to be debuting from
01:24nxt and who were kind of main roster ready and not all of them come with the same kind of
01:28like
01:29hype um because of work that they did in the independence or anything like that like a lot of
01:34these are to the grander audience a little bit of unknowns and so with that you do and like the
01:41free
01:41agent market and the independent scene that still some great wrestlers but it doesn't have the same
01:45buzz as you would have when aj aj styles came in or someone like that right so you kind of
01:53have to
01:53create that a little bit and that was always kind of what the brand split was supposed to be for
01:57and this is where having the brand split can be a good thing because on monday you have jacob
02:04fought to come out on raw now he also popped up on smackdown and that's where i get frustrated by
02:08it
02:08but to have him like okay this is the big thing this is instead of the nxt call up it's
02:14a smackdown
02:14guy on raw street profits were smackdown and they were also hurt for a long time and not out there
02:20apparently a little busy um but they pop up and it's okay we got we got new uh performers coming
02:25in
02:26from smackdown over to raw to freshen things up a little bit that gives it that same kind of excitement
02:32that we used to have with the debuts and returns and all of those sorts of things
02:37for raw so i i really liked how they kind of set that up and then the main event of
02:43it roman reigns
02:44gets the bloodline back together with jimmy and jay and then fought to comes out to challenge him
02:49and like this is going to be a fantastic feud an excellent promo on monday setting up fought to's
02:56um kind of motivations behind all of it like i want the shoe deals i want everything that comes
03:02with being the world champion i don't want it i need it um i think that this is going to
03:07be a very
03:08very good feud and the only thing that bugs me about it is that there's no way roman's losing a
03:12backlash to jacob fought too and i think jacob fought too could be world champion in this company
03:18very very soon like he would be high on my list of guys that are gonna main event a wrestlemania
03:25at
03:25some point here he just has everything about him um really really great and so i i i like so
03:32much
03:33of this and i think they're off to a really good start the smackdown part where he's like yeah like
03:38i i came out i challenged the travel chief the usos come down and they're like look cody's right there
03:44why are you doing this and then jay said it doesn't matter you already did it you stepped in it
03:49you're screwed and so i do think having that um jimmy be a bit more of the compassionate one
03:55and having jay keeping like bordering on heel tendencies and a lot of these things
04:01provides a different dynamic to the bloodline this time around where i do think eventually like i don't
04:06think this is going to be another four-year run of the bloodline i would imagine sometime in the
04:11next 365 days this thing blows up and the different dynamic now is babyface roman reigns
04:18against heel jay uso and how does that kind of change everything there so i i do think there's
04:23a lot of interest in so many different areas of this and my one hope is that fatu who i
04:29don't think
04:29is going to win the title could but probably won't i hope that he doesn't just get forgotten and this
04:35isn't just damian priest or anything like that i hope that there is a really good follow for him
04:40because i think he should be on this level in the main event um i thought the ovafemi thing was
04:46brilliant like it's it's brief short to the point there's so much happening on this show
04:51let's let a couple things kind of simmer and just keep him as this big thing that everyone's excited
04:57about ethan page added to a really good mid card in wwe already is on raw specifically is fun i
05:04did
05:04want him on smackdown teaming with chelsea green um we'll see what they have kind of in mind for her
05:09now that um alva fire kaylee ray it has been released by wwe i that that group seems to be
05:18changing a little bit but those two worked so well in nxt they did some really good stuff in triple
05:22a
05:23i was kind of hoping for that again but you can just see it like this is a guy who
05:26if you just watch
05:28wwe you don't know a lot about this dude but to see like his it felt like he already belonged
05:37night one and we didn't even get to see the thing he's great at and that's the the promo work
05:41like
05:41his mic work is exceptional and he is going to be able to talk his way into the main event
05:46scene i
05:46think pretty convincingly or uh pretty convincingly here very quickly and so i'm i'm excited for that
05:53and also like the commitment that this guy has made into building his body up has been great and
05:59like for a long time you knew him as a very good promo dude and the wrestling's fine but he
06:04has
06:04obviously improved that side of his game he's got himself into tremendous shape this guy has star
06:09written all over him and you look at like that ladder match on um wrestlemania night two was so
06:14much fun and you see the talent that they have on the mid card in wwe on on raw right
06:19now adding him
06:21to that mix really elevates it just that much more and makes raw a really entertaining show to to
06:27follow so ruka on the other hand um i i almost would have taken the ethan like i i would
06:34have
06:34flipped the two i would have had ethan come out and cut a promo in front of the live audience
06:39and i
06:40would have had soul only say a couple of things and get an opportunity at something that the promo
06:45work isn't great from her it is not the strong suit now she erased all memories of calling the royal
06:51rumble the battle royal with a phenomenal match with live morgan and that's always going to be
06:56the strength of hers if she can get the promo thing down a little bit more then you have super
07:01duper star
07:02on your hands right like the look incredible the confidence fantastic the like the physical charisma
07:07she has is second to none it just needs to be matched by the verbal and then you have the
07:13entire
07:13package and a superstar on your hands you might anyway even without it but there's so much with her
07:20and i'm glad she got to show that off and i like that all of them whether it's jc jane
07:24on smackdown
07:25or uh soul or ethan page coming into it and getting thrown right into title mixes i love that right
07:31away bring them up have a plan and execute that so i'm very excited to see all of that and
07:36then uh
07:37street profits going over to raw it's a really nice boost to a tag team division that very very much
07:42needed it a tag team division that's basically non-existent especially if the usos are off with roman
07:47doing um a lot of that stuff there so i think that this is it's it now it sucks in
07:55hindsight because
07:55motor city machine guns getting uh cut from the smackdown tag team division but you look at how
07:59much talent was over on smackdown tag team wise and just nothing over on raw it does make some sense
08:04to
08:05kind of trade that one over and make that a little bit more of a focus here in 2026 but
08:09overall i thought
08:10it was a really really good show on monday to get us going here into the new wwe year and
08:17i'm excited
08:18to see where a lot of it goes what did you guys think of monday night raw let me know
08:23in the comments
08:24and we can keep that conversation going um also again if you want to bring couch potato diary with
08:30you wherever you go check it out in podcast form just search couch potato diary or living room lariat
08:35on spotify on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
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