Cena Forever: A Wrestling Icon Remembered

Few names in professional wrestling carry the weight and recognition of John Cena. As the Hebridean Hammerlock team gathered for the final OH!CAST recording of 2025, the focus was clear: a heartfelt tribute to the man who defined eras, inspired millions, and retires after more than two decades in the ring.

From Ruthless Aggression to Wrestling Legend

Cena’s journey began in 2002 when he answered Kurt Angle’s open challenge on SmackDown. His now‑legendary declaration of “Ruthless Aggression” and the slap that followed marked the start of a career that would reshape WWE. At first, Cena looked like a generic rookie, but his determination and charisma quickly set him apart.

Fans remember the transitional period from the Attitude Era to the Ruthless Aggression Era, when Cena risked being lost in the shuffle. His early gimmick, “The Prototype,” failed to connect. But fate intervened when Stephanie McMahon overheard him freestyling on a bus. That moment birthed the “Doctor of Thuganomics” persona, a rapper gimmick that showcased his personality, humor, and ability to engage crowds.

 

The Everyman Appeal

Part of Cena’s enduring appeal lies in his relatability. He looked like the everyman, yet carried himself with confidence and resilience. His freestyle battles with Kurt Angle, his feud with Chris Jericho, and his ability to stand toe‑to‑toe with giants like Big Show and Brock Lesnar proved he was more than a gimmick.

The FU (later renamed the Attitude Adjustment) was introduced as a direct counter to Lesnar’s F5, symbolizing Cena’s rise as a legitimate main‑event star. By the time he captured the United States Championship, fans were firmly behind him. His feats of strength — lifting Big Show, double‑stacking opponents — became iconic highlights of his early career.

SmackDown’s Perfect Platform

The early 2000s were a golden period for SmackDown. With Paul Heyman and Stephanie McMahon guiding creative, the show became a breeding ground for talent. Cena thrived alongside the “SmackDown Six” — Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, Edge, Mysterio, and Chavo — learning from veterans while building his own identity.

Meanwhile, Raw stagnated under Triple H’s “Reign of Terror.” SmackDown’s freshness allowed Cena to flourish, proving the right environment can elevate a star.

From Rap Battles to Hollywood

As WWE Studios emerged, Cena was quickly tapped for crossover appeal. His role in The Marine marked the beginning of his Hollywood journey. Storylines even wrote him out temporarily — famously via a staged nightclub stabbing by Carlito’s associate Jesús — to accommodate filming.

Though the movie received mixed reviews, it cemented Cena as more than a wrestler. He would later transition seamlessly into mainstream entertainment, appearing in films like Trainwreck, Blockers, and The Suicide Squad.

A Career Without Scandal

Unlike many wrestling legends, Cena’s reputation remains remarkably clean. While stars like Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior faced controversies, Cena built his legacy on professionalism and kindness. His record‑breaking Make‑A‑Wish Foundation contributions — granting over 650 wishes — highlight his commitment to fans, especially children.

Stories of Cena showing up unannounced to support families during the pandemic further reinforce his image as a genuine role model. In an industry often plagued by scandal, Cena stands out as a “jam‑up guy,” to borrow Bret Hart’s phrase.

The Royal Rumble and Beyond

One unforgettable moment came at the 2005 Royal Rumble, when Cena and Batista botched the finish, forcing Vince McMahon to storm the ring. In his fury, McMahon tore both quads, shouting instructions from the mat — a bizarre but legendary scene. Cena’s trajectory from that point was unstoppable. Championships, rivalries, and headline matches at WrestleMania solidified his place as one of WWE’s greatest.

Legacy of John Cena

As Cena retires, his legacy is undeniable. He bridged eras, carried WWE through transitional periods, and became a global ambassador for wrestling. From his ruthless aggression debut to his Hollywood success, Cena embodies resilience, adaptability, and authenticity.

For fans tuning into the Hebridean Hammerlock, this episode wasn’t just a recap of career highlights. It was a celebration of a man who gave everything to the sport, inspired generations, and left the ring with his reputation intact.

 

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Hebridean Hammerlock

06:14 Cena’s Early Career and Appeal

10:53 Cena’s Career Highlights and Feuds

17:06 Cena’s Transition to Face and Popularity

24:21 Cena in Film and WWE Studios

28:09 Bradshaw’s Transformation and Feuds

30:56 The Changing Fanbase and Cena’s Backlash

33:02 Dominic Mysterio: A Modern Parallel

34:31 Cena vs. CM Punk: A Rivalry for the Ages

37:38 The Five-Star Match and Cena’s Style

39:55 Cena’s Connection with Fans

41:24 Cena’s Morality in Storylines

42:45 The Spinner Belt and Its Legacy

44:28 Edge’s Cash-In and Cena’s Divisive Era

46:19 One Night Stand: Cena vs. RVD

47:31 Cena’s Adaptation to Crowd Reactions

49:10 Cena vs. Umaga: A Last Man Standing Match

50:16 WrestleMania Feud with Shawn Michaels

50:33 The Evolution of Shawn Michaels and John Cena

53:09 Injuries and Comebacks: The Resilience of John Cena

57:02 The Nexus: A Missed Opportunity in Booking

01:00:29 The Rock vs. John Cena: A WrestleMania Showdown

01:04:56 Cena’s Role in Elevating New Stars

01:09:00 The Impact of Cena’s Open Challenge

01:12:23 AJ Styles: A Clash of Wrestling Titans

01:13:43 The Evolution of John Cena’s Matches

01:15:01 Reality TV and Cena’s Public Persona

01:17:13 Cena’s Film Career and Its Reception

01:19:26 The Firefly Funhouse Match: A Character Study

01:21:49 The Rock’s Influence on Cena’s Career

01:30:02 Cena’s Legacy and the GOAT Debate

01:36:29 The Impact of Wrestling on Culture

01:38:34 The Evolution of Wrestling Heroes

01:41:41 Trivia and Fun Facts about John Cena

01:45:54 What If: Cena in WCW?

01:49:29 Future of Wrestling and Conventions

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Cal MacD (00:01.015)
All right, good evening everyone and welcome to actually the final Ocast of 2025 to be recorded. I’m your host tonight, Cal, and joining me again as always, Graham, what’s happening?

Graeme (00:14.127)
Looking forward to this, first of the Hebridean Hammerlock shows.

Cal MacD (00:16.183)
All right. Yes, I forgot to mention, I will get around to it. This is the Hebridean Hammerlock, which will now be our monthly segment devoted to the very interesting world of wrestling, the goings on, the scandals, anything else that will come to mind. Tonight, Kenny was due to join us, but sadly he has had to go to hospital. We hope you’re doing well, Kenny, and you’re recovering. But we’ve got a very able… Yeah.

Graeme (00:41.004)
a local medical facility.

Cal MacD (00:44.199)
We’ve got a very able replacement in James who I know from Alba and the Klingon groups online. And like said, I feel like I’ve known you for ages and this is actually our first time speaking to each other, but it’s a pleasure to finally have you along at last.

James Moorehead (00:54.036)
Yeah absolutely. Yeah. Yeah thank you very much for having me.

Cal MacD (01:01.311)
No problem and hopefully have you back in the future. So as we said tonight is Hebdian Hammerlock, your monthly wrestling guide from Stornoway to Sleep Like City. I am very proud of coming up with that. And with that, we are paying tribute to probably one of the great, one of the big names or if it’s possible the greatest name to be discussed and debated, John Cena, who retires tomorrow night, isn’t it? The last fight. So that’s why we’ve decided to do this and

James Moorehead (01:24.62)
That is correct.

Cal MacD (01:28.373)
With that, I will hand over to someone who actually knows stuff about wrestling. Graham, it’s all over to you now.

Graeme (01:34.414)
Thanks, Cal. So 22 and a half years ago, which in a lot of ways seems like yesterday, a young man debuted as part of a Kurt Angle Open challenge on SmackDown and was asked the question of what have you got that these other guys don’t have that means you can go toe to toe with the best in the business. And his response was ruthless aggression.

And then there was the slap that was heard all around the world of sports entertainment and the legend of John Cena began really for in earnest. I suppose my first question really James would be what are your earliest memories of Cena? you? Yeah.

James Moorehead (02:19.63)
that. Exactly that. I’m a lifelong wrestling fan. So I’ve been, I was born 1987. So I started getting into it because of my mum in the late eighties, early nineties. My earliest memories are like, you know, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart. I was just a little bit past to the golden era ending. So I was new generation through latitude era.

Graeme (02:25.891)
Yeah.

Graeme (02:29.602)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (02:47.918)
So I would have been, you know, 15, 16, 17 by the time Cena came into it. And I remember that moment so clearly. I remember Kurt Angle doing his open challenge. I remember Cena coming down the ring. Didn’t have a clue who he was. He looked so generic back then. And because it was around that time they were transitioning eras. The Attitude Era was dying out. They were bringing in this thing called the Ruthless Aggression Era. And I remember him doing that slap. And I remember the match just being…

Graeme (03:04.736)
at wrestler too.

James Moorehead (03:18.562)
being good and obviously Sina was never going to win that but I remember it being good and I remember back then thinking this guy looks good this seems like a guy you want to follow as time goes on

Graeme (03:19.982)
and

Graeme (03:31.116)
Yeah, I’m a few years older than you. was 1981. I grew up, I actually remember bits of world of sport on UK TV. I remember family holidays to seaside towns, going to see the wrestling and the local show, getting my picture taken with the one and only Big Daddy when I was a kid. And one moment where…

James Moorehead (03:40.238)
Mmm

James Moorehead (03:54.35)
you

Graeme (03:58.254)
think my dad thought that he was going to get a doing off one of the heels because my little brother kicked the bad guy up the arse. And I think it was Scarborough Town Hall or something, somewhere like that anyway. But from the start I was hooked. Then we were on holiday in, I want to say it was Menorca or somewhere around about 1991, 1990. And it was the last day and as would always happen, we…

James Moorehead (04:10.466)
Mmm.

Graeme (04:27.886)
Myself, my brother and my dad were kicked out because we just got on the road while my mum was trying to pack. So we went down to some pub or cafe or something and WWF was on TV. And I remember vividly it was Hulk Hogan versus Tugboat, not even Typhoon, Tugboat. And it was atrocious. But Hulk did his thing and, you know, despite not being even remotely American, I was hooked. I was absolutely hooked.

James Moorehead (04:33.549)
You

James Moorehead (04:38.615)
Hmm.

James Moorehead (04:47.503)
yeah.

Graeme (04:57.134)
WCW was on at various times on a Thursday night so you’d have the lottery of setting the video to record hoping that it caught some of it. And yeah, when we eventually got Sky, which was a good few years later, it was round about WrestleMania 13, I totally got right back into it, right through the end of the new generation, through the Attitude Era, ruthless aggression. When Kenny had…

James Moorehead (05:06.957)
Mm.

James Moorehead (05:22.039)
Hmm

Graeme (05:24.94)
Unfortunately, I had to tag out for tonight. I’d got in touch with someone that, I mean, we used to watch wrestling every Friday night, Saturday night when it was on. And unfortunately, this guy was working as well tonight, so he wasn’t able to join us. But I watched Cena’s debut at his house and like yourself, there was just something. He looked so generic, but there was just something.

James Moorehead (05:48.93)
Yeah.

Graeme (05:52.856)
that you knew this guy’s got something special going on. And it was even, even that, sorry, Cal.

James Moorehead (05:56.237)
Mmm.

Cal MacD (05:57.707)
Bye.

I’m just going to bump in with a question. Is that part of Cena’s appeal that he doesn’t stand out really? Like, you just look at his face, he’s a very generic, bland looking fellow, but is it just this whole force of personality that he’s had that’s been his trademark?

James Moorehead (06:18.359)
So it’s an interesting one because yeah, you are right. He does look kind of generic. is sort of like he looks like the everyman kind of person. think back then, obviously as a wrestler, he was very young. He’d only just came out of Ohio Valley Wrestling, which was their developmental back then. They were equivalent to what is NXT nowadays. So he had been under the prototype. I think it was.

back in OVW, which was just a very kind of like blandish gimmick. yeah, mean, yeah, yeah, it wasn’t really much of anything. So wrestling is a lot of personality, but I think it was just, he had that thing that people could latch on to. He sort of had that plucky upstart-ness. As his career went on, he would start to show a lot of personality. He went into the rapper gimmick.

Graeme (06:51.394)
basically the terminator.

James Moorehead (07:12.589)
I will probably cover, don’t know how much of a retrospect we’re going to do on his career, but one of the anchors is he was at risk of being fired. They didn’t have anything for him and that blandness wasn’t developing into anything at that point. He was kind of stagnating. One of, I think it was Stephanie McMahon, heard him freestyling on a bus and because she heard that, she kind of brought that forward and it turned into a gimmick for him where we started to show more personality and get a bit more over…

Graeme (07:20.13)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (07:41.354)
with the crowd at the time but it allowed him to as a bad guy and I think in wrestling a lot of the you know the big wrestlers they sort of have to have a phase as the bad guy because it allows them to develop that personality and make connections and eventually they will turn good again and be completely elevated to the moon. One of the best examples is Stone Cold Steve Austin for that but yeah Cena kind of has that everyman appeal. He also was very good at making a connection with

Graeme (08:02.862)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (08:10.199)
kids as well, like bridging a gap between audiences.

Graeme (08:14.764)
think as well. Sorry my cat is…

Cal MacD (08:20.012)
Great nuts.

Graeme (08:21.23)
Yeah, just a bit. Yeah. But I think, like you say, Sina with kids, his make-a-wish stuff is another part and we’ll probably come back to that as well, but he’s an absolute machine. He’s clearly one of the nicest people, regardless of what David Atungus said today. He goes out of his way above and beyond for the fans.

Cal MacD (08:22.795)
Obviously upset that Sinus retired, isn’t he?

James Moorehead (08:25.066)
Yeah, we all are.

Graeme (08:50.955)
all the time.

God taken.

Cal MacD (08:54.327)
And also just, and also is he one of the few that’s refused to go to Saudi, isn’t it?

James Moorehead (09:00.211)
No he has been, he’s been a few times yeah. he there was something about him refusing at first but I think he did go over there. It’s a very awkward subject as a wrestling fan because I am, you know I’m kind of like very much would rather them not do that whole stuff because it is a bit you know it’s touchy subject I’m not going to get into that here because it’s not the avenue for it but I do kind of see

Cal MacD (09:01.655)
I think at first he was refusing.

Graeme (09:04.909)
Mm-hmm.

Cal MacD (09:11.915)
Yes.

Graeme (09:19.256)
Yep.

Cal MacD (09:24.609)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (09:28.941)
potential for them to invoke change or positivity when they go over there but it’s a very slight like 5 % compared to 95 % but yeah he I think he was reluctant at first.

Cal MacD (09:39.64)
Yeah. But overall, from what I’ve read, it’s like, one of the few wrestlers, he’s not had any scandal or controversy as such. Like nothing that would totally sell you the name. You know, not like a Hulk Hogan or Ultimate Warrior. I’m just going by him. He seems to be, for lack of, I know it seems weird to say it, but he seems to be what he is. You know, he seems to be a genuine man. Yeah.

James Moorehead (09:49.236)
No.

Graeme (09:50.102)
No.

James Moorehead (09:54.333)
No, definitely not. Yeah.

Graeme (09:55.373)
No.

James Moorehead (10:02.541)
Yeah, no, he’s, he’s, he’s done a hell of a lot of good. He, like say, he’s gone out of his way to do the make-a-wish, the charity stuff. There was that story, um, over the pandemic about, was it pandemic? It was a family who had to move or something and they, they had a disabled child and in order to help them, they said John Cena was going to be there. And obviously, you know, there’s no way they could have promised that. He heard about it.

Graeme (10:02.594)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

James Moorehead (10:32.349)
he was there. He done that and that’s just like you know Hulk Hogan wouldn’t have done that. You know.

Cal MacD (10:40.664)
Well, Hulk Hogan’s lied about doing Make-A-Wish for stuff I’ve heard.

James Moorehead (10:43.443)
Yeah, Hulk Hogan lied about doing like 400 days of wrestling in one year. yeah, he’s seen it just seems like a very stand up guy. Bret Hart would have called him a jam up guy back in the day.

Graeme (10:44.28)
Yeah.

Graeme (10:53.571)
Yeah.

Ha ha!

Graeme (11:00.526)
So in terms of Cena’s career, I’ve taken some very very brief notes ahead of this and I was looking, I his first month he lost to Angle but he looked awesome doing it. He then had quite a few back and forths with both Christian and Albert before he moved on to a feud with Jericho. Poor Albert.

James Moorehead (11:11.394)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (11:21.783)
Yeah, no chance, did he?

Graeme (11:28.306)
The man responsible for many of the favorites through NXT these days. So yeah, and then you get probably the biggest Robin in his first month he ended up teaming with Taker as well.

James Moorehead (11:32.309)
Yeah, no, absolutely.

James Moorehead (11:41.663)
Mmm.

Graeme (11:43.212)
But then the second month or third month from September onwards, there was quite a bit of a downturn. Like you said, it was was that very, very sudden change from being coming in really hot to bumped right down the card and on the verge of being fired. He was losing, well, trading wins with Kidman on velocity at one at one point. And I want to see guys like. Was he feuding Johnny Stamboli a wee bit as well? Johnny the Bull.

James Moorehead (11:59.182)
you

James Moorehead (12:03.488)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (12:11.053)
Probably. I can’t remember the names that well back then but yeah, he did kind of get relegated to being like Velocity Fodder, which for anyone unaware, Velocity was like a seashow, like highlight show basically.

Graeme (12:12.675)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Graeme (12:20.088)
Yep.

Graeme (12:26.094)
But then as you said, the Halloween episode happened. Stephen McMahon had heard him rapping on a bus and suggested that he do a Vanilla Ice cosplay, as the kids might call it these days, gimmick for Halloween. And he came on and he freestyled. And that was the moment that turned things around in his career entirely. People got behind him. He got himself his first… his valet, the right word?

Certainly got a friend in Bill Buchanan, who was promptly renamed B Squared. apart from having a good leaping kick and every time he was on screen, JR saying something along the lines of, his mama called him Barry, but his friends call him Bull. Nobody remembers anything about Bill Buchanan. Unless you do James, do you have any insights on?

James Moorehead (12:56.738)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (13:01.377)
Yes. Yes.

James Moorehead (13:16.461)
You

James Moorehead (13:23.213)
Bull Buchanan was definitely one of the wrestlers I’ve seen.

Graeme (13:27.884)
Yes, that’s it.

James Moorehead (13:30.893)
Was he in the… was he part of Right the Sensor at some point? He was part oh with um… oh… Valvinus and the Goodfather.

Graeme (13:33.902)
It was. It was.

Graeme (13:39.086)
Stevie Richards, Val, Venus and Ivory.

James Moorehead (13:43.309)
Is Sunrestles now? Full Buchanan? I’m pretty sure, yeah. Yeah.

Graeme (13:45.942)
He does, his son’s an NXT and I’ve totally forgotten his name but he’s actually pretty good.

James Moorehead (13:53.602)
Yeah, no, I, I, unfortunately, he was one of those ones, big guy, did what he had to, but there was very little to him. I liked many of them back then.

Graeme (14:03.106)
Yeah, I think he was good at leaping to the top rope from standing a bit like Ellie Knight does these days, but Balder. for me, one of the things round about that time that made Cena stand out a wee bit, and I always felt they were underrated round about that time, was the commentary team of Michael Cole and Taz on SmackDown.

James Moorehead (14:09.389)
Mmm. Yep.

James Moorehead (14:28.03)
Yes, they were.

Graeme (14:30.216)
I mean, I was a huge fan of them as a commentary team. I thought they did so many things. Amazing. Raw was just stale because you had JR who was on the downturn and the King making the same comments he’d made for the last 40 years about teenagers. Let’s not go there. He’s getting enough dirt about them. But everything about Smackdown at the time felt fresh for me.

James Moorehead (14:43.629)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (14:50.591)
Yep. Naw.

James Moorehead (14:58.509)
100 % Smackdown was kind of the entire roster on Smackdown was firing on all cylinders and it was it was the perfect place for a John Cena or someone to flourish because he had so many people he could learn from and bounce off of you think about some of those names you mentioned him wrestling and you know the joke about Albert aside Christian was there Kurt Angle was there Chris Jericho was there

Graeme (15:14.221)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (15:22.68)
Yeah.

Graeme (15:26.189)
Yep.

James Moorehead (15:27.245)
You had the Smackdown 6 at the time. It was a great place for someone like Acina to come in and flush. Whereas Raw was feeling very stagnant. I when are we going back? It’s like 2004, 2005-ish? This? Yeah. Oh, even 2002. Yeah, so we’re talking Triple H Reign of Terror era. Raw was not good.

Graeme (15:29.23)
it’s Mike Down 6 yep

Graeme (15:44.246)
Yeah, 2002-2003.

Yeah.

Graeme (15:56.792)
think the other thing Smackdown had in its favour at that time as well was the booking was shared between Stephanie and Paul Heyman, who everyone knows has had such a track record of developing talent. Just don’t give him the budget, just give him the book.

James Moorehead (16:05.782)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (16:15.701)
Yep. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was genuinely, you know, I think when I was younger around wrestling forums at the time, everyone was just talking about how much better Smackdown was and how much it should really have been the primary show. And like I say, it was a perfect place for a young star to flourish. I think that’s why Cena potentially took off quicker. Whereas some other people, like, you know, on Raw, you had Randy Orton coming through and he was pushed straight up there.

Graeme (16:43.725)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (16:45.655)
But Batista maybe took a little bit longer to mould because it just maybe wasn’t as good for him but flourished there as Smackdown was.

Graeme (16:52.396)
Yeah, I think as well with that, probably around about that time, I’m sure that Cena had a few matches with Batista when he was the Deacon to Reverend Devon.

James Moorehead (17:01.525)
Hmm, he might have done, yeah. god, yeah, I totally forgot that he had that gimmick for a time.

Graeme (17:09.216)
Yeah, because that as well was rolling back what they’d done in OVW where Batista was Leviathan and he would literally, were literally videos of him emerging from the river as part of his entrance. But his, his rise wasn’t as quick. When I was looking, his rise wasn’t as quick as we actually remember it. So the first kind of big standout moment for me after that.

James Moorehead (17:15.616)
Yes.

James Moorehead (17:21.089)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (17:31.757)
Mm.

Graeme (17:37.708)
was jumping ahead to January 2003 for the Royal Rumble and he was rapping his way to the ring for his entrance in the Royal Rumble match. And that was where you for the first time really you were starting to hear that pop from the crowd when he did appear. What did you make of his rapping?

James Moorehead (17:41.206)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (17:55.277)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (18:01.813)
I mean, some of it to look back on now isn’t exactly what we would call politically correct. It was entertaining, it had the crowd involvement. Nothing really comes to mind as any particular anecdote, but it was always like, he always got you on board. He always entertained you. And I think what he was good at doing as well, and also obviously this comes down to the people he wrestled, he was very good at…

Graeme (18:08.322)
new.

James Moorehead (18:29.567)
allowing his opponents to bounce off of him where necessary. The things that stand out isn’t necessarily John Cena’s rapping, but it’s the rap battle between him and Kurt Angle. Because them two would bounce off of each other really well.

Graeme (18:40.951)
Yep.

Graeme (18:44.814)
Yeah, funnily enough, one of the things that I had thought about in terms of unwrapping was actually a full year later at Royal Rumble 2004 and he was rolling it back with Christian who at that point had his second Tomco.

James Moorehead (18:55.65)
Mm.

Hmm

James Moorehead (19:02.205)
god yeah, he was another wrestler.

Graeme (19:03.756)
I’m the

Yeah, who we saw. But it was just that moment of Christian and someone who can do it absolutely everything. Christian turned to Tomko and said, hey Tomko, give me a beat. And Tomko just went, no.

James Moorehead (19:08.607)
Yep!

James Moorehead (19:20.054)
Mmm.

yeah! They used to pull that referee into the ring as well to do the beatbox thing, because that was the I always remember with the Kurt Angle one. That is just one of my favourite moments.

Graeme (19:26.69)
But Christian wrapped it anyway. Yeah!

Graeme (19:35.949)
Yup.

Graeme (19:40.622)
yeah, speaking of rumbles, no no please please carry on.

James Moorehead (19:43.36)
I remember, go on. I think one of the ones that always kind of sticks out is just sort of when he was in that gimmick, you read in like, but they did elevate him so quickly because I remember him coming down the ring and rapping against Big Shaw and Brock Lesnar and downplaying their march because it was like Big Shaw, Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle were feuding.

Graeme (20:02.466)
Yup.

Graeme (20:10.167)
Yep.

James Moorehead (20:10.183)
Cena came in and erupted it and said you’re not the main event, the real main event is Undertaker John Cena. And it was just sort of, you saw with the rapping the confidence growing and his ability to interact with these heavy hitters at the time and these veterans of the time, know, to be, you know, standing toe to toe and interacting with the likes of Big Shook, Her Angle, Undertaker.

Graeme (20:35.138)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (20:35.255)
Brock was still a little bit young at that time as well, but he had taken the business, you know, like a fish takes the water.

Graeme (20:41.218)
Yeah, and you know, in terms of influential on each other as well, can’t… Sena wouldn’t be where he is just now without Brock Lesnar. Because for those who are a bit younger, the attitude adjustment was not always called the attitude adjustment. Back in the day, the attitude adjustment was christened the FU and he first used it against Brock Lesnar as a response to the F5.

James Moorehead (20:47.572)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (20:52.001)
Yeah, absolutely.

James Moorehead (20:59.788)
No.

James Moorehead (21:06.189)
Hmm.

James Moorehead (21:10.893)
Yeah.

Graeme (21:12.718)
But what I was going to say, speaking of rumbles, have you seen Ready to Rumble?

James Moorehead (21:18.933)
I have not. I would… I’ve avoided it.

Graeme (21:20.491)
Okay.

Graeme (21:25.486)
Cal, I think this should be future watch along episode for anyone who’s interested. Ready to Rumble is absolutely, wonderfully awful. It’s very quotable. So this is the movie that stars David Arquette and Oliver Platt. It was, I don’t know if it was co-funded by WCW, but a lot of their talent appeared in it.

Cal MacD (21:36.385)
Right?

James Moorehead (21:50.135)
think it

Graeme (21:54.178)
but one of the extras in the background is a young John Cena.

James Moorehead (22:00.526)
I didn’t know that. That must be one of his first appearances.

Cal MacD (22:01.025)
Okay.

Graeme (22:02.306)
Yeah, I didn’t know at the time. Yeah, it was when he was with UPW, I think some more joes in it as well.

Cal MacD (22:04.025)
Chris.

James Moorehead (22:09.692)
okay.

Cal MacD (22:12.673)
Yes, I’m reading it was WCW that’s kind of a they were involved in the writing of this. So Tardot, yeah, I think he was directly involved.

Graeme (22:20.172)
Yeah. And I think.

Yeah, but it’s not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s fun.

James Moorehead (22:30.763)
You

Cal MacD (22:33.881)
For some reason you’re giving me flashbacks to The Wizard. Have ever watched that film?

Graeme (22:41.196)
Mm-hmm.

Cal MacD (22:43.001)
which is like, this is, it’s a glorified advert for wrestling. Like the wizard was a glorified advert for Nintendo. That’s for Super Mario 3 specifically. It was just a big promo for that.

Graeme (22:49.165)
Yep.

James Moorehead (22:49.216)
yeah.

Graeme (22:53.1)
Yeah, it’s one of these movies where there are bits of it that should be endlessly quotable but I don’t think enough people have seen it to make it endlessly quotable. It’s not quite The Room. Let’s get that out there. But it’s fun and it’s got an early appearance by Sina. So after his feud with Lesnar, there was the whole…

James Moorehead (23:07.457)
Mmm.

Cal MacD (23:12.963)
Okay.

Graeme (23:22.924)
mutual respect thing that led up to the Survivor Series where we were looking at Team Angle versus Team Lesnar. And Brock was wanting Cena to join his team of dastardly heels. But this was where Cena’s first face turn, or his face turn really came about. And he joined Team Angle, which I thought there was a nice synergy with his debut there as well because, you know, in storyline it was Angle that brought him in.

James Moorehead (23:28.737)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (23:38.679)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (23:44.973)
Mmm.

Graeme (23:51.598)
for want of a better way to put it. And now Angle was there helping elevate him again. Do you have any memories of him, of his initial run as a good guy?

James Moorehead (23:58.572)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (24:07.405)
I’m sure you know it all melds into one unfortunately. I am remembering him starting to get that momentum because I think had he turned face by the time he won his first United States Championship. So I definitely remember I remember the build up I can’t remember who he beat for it now but I do remember him yeah because it was they were really putting over like he was still kind of doing the rapping gimmick from time to time.

Graeme (24:20.278)
Yeah, yeah, because that was Fallen WrestleMania.

Graeme (24:28.514)
Make sure.

James Moorehead (24:36.429)
Joby Joby was still kind of in this ruthless aggression phase. It hadn’t quite gone PG yet. It started to turn that way. But I remember there was mumblings. You start to see, see, and it was like him being able to effortfully lift up people like the big show. That was it really. That was like the memories. It was like these feats of strength that he was showing. And you were starting to see like you.

Graeme (24:49.484)
Yeah.

Graeme (24:56.032)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (24:59.787)
Because obviously seeing his career trajectory as far as the fans would go a little bit up and down depending on the type of fan you were. But at this point, every single fan was kind of behind him and really seeing his potential, his entertainment. was like, wow, look how strong he is. He’s good in the ring. He’s good at talking. This guy, you want to strap that rocket to him. So yeah, it was, I think just those feats of strength really, like seeing that and just his personality really starting to show out.

Graeme (25:21.518)
Yeah.

Graeme (25:25.486)
And there was that whole period as well where he was double stacking guys as well just to show off his strength. And also just insane freakish. Yeah. And then round about that time as well WWE studios were trying to be established and Vince was wanting to make everyone a movie star. And he couldn’t wait to get Cena into a movie.

James Moorehead (25:29.613)
Mmm, yeah.

James Moorehead (25:50.658)
Yep.

Graeme (25:55.342)
James Moorehead (25:55.468)
Yeah, was it the marine- what, their first one was Sea No Evil, wasn’t it, with Cain, the horror attempt, but then-

Graeme (25:58.551)
Yup.

Graeme (26:03.247)
The first one I think was actually the Scorpion King. I think that was the first time that the actual WWE Studios logo appeared on anything.

James Moorehead (26:14.71)
did they have involvement in… the Scorpion King standalone film.

Graeme (26:16.654)
Yeah, they were certainly executive producers on it.

James Moorehead (26:24.141)
I remember at the time, it is a complete tangent, but all of the promo stuff, because you had Booker T and Goldust teaming together at that time doing their At The Movies and they were doing their parody, which is still what them two together was some of the best odd couple tag team I have ever seen. So funny. But yeah, obviously in Being The Marine, I was wondering if we were going to cover this, because I think I know where you’re going.

Cal MacD (26:25.71)
Yeah.

Graeme (26:43.81)
Yes.

Graeme (26:52.045)
you

James Moorehead (26:53.793)
the debut of Carlito and how they wrote John Cena out of storyline for a bit.

Graeme (26:55.832)
Yes.

Yep, and for those who don’t know, John Cena was written out of the storyline because he was stabbed outside a nightclub in Boston by Carlito’s associate, Jesus, who… I… I don’t remember much about Jesus other than he stabbed John Cena. They had a match when John Cena returned from making the movie and then he disappeared never to be seen again.

James Moorehead (27:10.017)
Jesus. Jesus.

Graeme (27:28.748)
I feel like somewhere in there he was managed by Vicky Guerrero. But I might have just had some sort of fever dream about that.

James Moorehead (27:29.142)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (27:33.367)
course.

Possibly, I can’t see… I’m looking up his career and I can’t see anything that he might have done since 2013. So there you go.

Graeme (27:44.974)
Okay. From there I think the rocket ship was well and truly strapped to Sina. The next big moment I have written was the Royal Rumble 2005.

James Moorehead (27:53.357)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (28:00.301)
Mmm.

Graeme (28:02.094)
and the 2005 Royal Rumble is infamous because it’s where your final two were John Cena and Batista and they whiffed the ending slightly leading to one of the hindsight funniest things that ever happened where Vince McMahon came out to the round so angry

James Moorehead (28:12.31)
Yes.

James Moorehead (28:17.568)
Yep.

James Moorehead (28:25.46)
you

Graeme (28:28.91)
that on sliding into the ring he tore both of his quads, tried to stand up, fell over and shouted from a sitting position in the corner for a good few minutes to get the match restarted and then insisted on walking back up the runway.

James Moorehead (28:40.801)
you

James Moorehead (28:44.672)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (28:46.408)
Yeah, you should never laugh at anyone’s suffering, but it’s Vince, so I think there’s an easy exception clause you can apply there.

James Moorehead (28:47.18)
Yeah.

Graeme (28:50.53)
That’s fence.

James Moorehead (28:50.997)
Yeah.

Graeme (28:55.373)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (28:55.543)
thing is though, it is really funny because he’s just sat there like really angrily going

Graeme (28:58.647)
Shit.

Cal MacD (28:59.534)
Hahaha.

Cal MacD (29:03.405)
Basically like proper angry old man basically.

James Moorehead (29:03.457)
like profit. Yeah. But yeah, it’s seeing her and Batista, was because Batista was starting to rise a little bit more then as well. I think in terms of raw, this might have been around the time Batista had turned babyface and started to go against evolution, which were, you know, a little bit past the sell by day at that point. I think seeing her at this point, started to ditch the rapping a little bit more.

Graeme (29:06.412)
Yeah.

Graeme (29:31.266)
Yep.

James Moorehead (29:32.942)
and the feud he was going into was one of the shocking kind of rises in wrestling at the time because WWE were losing stars and they were losing people to either injuries or they were just leaving so they took this guy who had been a tag team specialist and he’s not a bad wrestler by any means but no one ever pegged him for like the top guy it was Bradshaw and they took him from this APA

Graeme (29:58.818)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (30:00.908)
beer drinking bodyguard gimmick, which was brilliant, hilarious, the APA were fantastic, but then turned him into this rich guy, kind of stockbroker person and made him the champion. And weirdly, it kind of worked.

Graeme (30:16.447)
and

I absolutely love Heel Bradshaw. It’s just one of those gimmicks. It just works so well. And yeah, okay, he’s not Stan Hanson. Very few people are. But he did a decent approximation.

James Moorehead (30:22.636)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (30:26.774)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (30:31.308)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (30:35.423)
Yeah, he’s one of those wrestlers, you’re never going to call him a ring general, but you believed him. Because there are wrestlers who are big, and we’ve mentioned a few of them in the past, their size doesn’t count for everything. You don’t believe them. And you can go back to, we mentioned earlier about experiences getting into wrestling, he’s before my time, but like so your big daddy or whatever. No one’s going to call him the best wrestler in the world.

Graeme (30:59.501)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (31:03.841)
but people believed in him and that’s Bradshaw had that quality and he is clothesline from hell one of the best clotheslines in the business and he got people to hate him sometimes he went too far in getting people to hate him let’s not mention the time he needed got kicked out of Germany

Graeme (31:13.143)
Yes.

Yep.

Yeah, even, I mean, we’ll come on to the second one of it later, but the hatred for him during that first ECW one night stand and he played it up so perfectly. You know, from the moment he walked into that building and everything right down to the grin.

James Moorehead (31:34.752)
Yep.

Graeme (31:45.218)
just as soon as they were shouting up, the grin, the arms out, the sprain beard. He played that character perfectly.

James Moorehead (31:45.451)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (31:52.206)
proper old school 80s wrestling mentality. You know, these people are going to hate me. These people are going to riot if I win. I want that. You know, it’s like, you know, sort of thing like Jim Cornett and Midnight Express or the Rock and Roll Express would have wanted back in the day, that sort of thing. But yeah, obviously we’ve come to see, know, Gordon was his first title victory. And I think this is where the PG has started to come in. This is where I started to notice some whisperings of people maybe starting to

Graeme (32:00.32)
Yeah, yes.

James Moorehead (32:21.685)
turn against him little bit because WWE direction was changing.

Graeme (32:23.468)
Yeah.

Graeme (32:28.14)
Yeah, and that was very much put on to, well, this is clearly Sina’s fault because, because there’s… Yeah, and I think as a fan base…

James Moorehead (32:33.013)
Yes, it was very unfair.

Graeme (32:43.16)
wrestling fans very much will support someone until they get near the top and then they love to tear them down. It’s time for Cal to run back his promo about people on the internet love nothing more than to hate the thing they claim to love.

James Moorehead (32:50.785)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (33:01.965)
Yeah, well, we’re all members of fandoms.

James, we’ve kind of experienced this. We’ve been in some Star Trek chat rooms. And the second we mentioned a certain word, discovery, it explodes instantly. just, like, I think I was in that discord with you and we were trying to have just discussion about it, but people just know you have to listen to me rant about how awful this is. So I get where you guys are coming from.

James Moorehead (33:12.481)
Yes.

James Moorehead (33:16.278)
Yep.

Graeme (33:18.634)
I thought it might be.

James Moorehead (33:18.925)
It yes

Graeme (33:31.5)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (33:34.138)
I have had it at conventions. went in a Star Trek uniform, I went in a Discovery uniform to a convention and a guy couldn’t wait to tell me how much he disliked it and I just thought that’s not appropriate and I’m a huge Neon Genesis Evangelion fan and I cosplay Shinji and I’ve cosplayed a male version of one of my favourite characters, Oscar, Blangley Sawyer from it and then people again

Graeme (33:47.726)
you

James Moorehead (34:04.171)
gleefully tell me I don’t like the new movies. Telling me for? But yeah, it’s an awkward internet effect because people are more likely to say something about the things they dislike than they are the things they like and people do turn against this. You see it now. People when Cody Rhodes came back in WWE, people were like, yeah, push him. He needs to be the champion. He needs to be the one to defeat Roman Reigns. As soon as he won, Cody’s boring.

Graeme (34:09.73)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (34:18.969)
Well.

Graeme (34:25.815)
Yep.

Graeme (34:33.272)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

James Moorehead (34:34.634)
he’s rubbish, he was never good. What?! You just praised him a minute ago!

Graeme (34:37.282)
Yeah.

think where we will see it probably in about 18 months time is Dominic Mysterio. Because right now, when we were talking earlier about Sina’s rise as the bad guy, all I could think was the closest modern equivalent I can think of that is Dirty Dom.

James Moorehead (34:45.069)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

James Moorehead (35:01.517)
Dominic is brilliant.

Graeme (35:02.97)
I mean I have completely 180’d on Dom. See when he came in I really couldn’t stand him. He was green, he wasn’t good, he was there but he has taken to it so well and much like that JBL he’s got that old school mentality of you guys can hate me here’s what I’m gonna do to have you hate me and you know he was roughly where I was going to end talking about Cina on tonight but no we’re not wrapping up now.

James Moorehead (35:06.519)
Mm.

James Moorehead (35:20.247)
Yeah. Yeah.

Graeme (35:32.462)
But, Sina did for Dominic Mysterio what I think JBL did for Sina.

James Moorehead (35:33.025)
Nope.

Graeme (35:43.81)
by putting them over.

James Moorehead (35:44.461)
I can see that.

Graeme (35:47.638)
in a way that was true to his character. He could have lost clean but no, he had to get a kick in the nuts and the multiple cheap overbooked finish, that was glorious, I loved it. The other notable thing about the WrestleMania 21 with JBL was the seeds of a future scene rivalry.

James Moorehead (35:50.189)
Mm.

Graeme (36:15.426)
with the first appearance on main WWE TV of CM Punk who was one of the gangsters on the car.

James Moorehead (36:21.409)
Yes, yes. I mean if you were talking about wrestlers with chemistry and some of the best rivalries of all time you know you’re talking like you know Hogan versus Macho Man and Austin versus Rock, Cena, CM Punk, bring out the best in each other. Some of the best matches, some of the best promo work.

absolutely when I saw them you know when I saw the promos earlier this year between the two of them just still chills from it they are just so good at bringing out the best in each other and you know I remember clearly the Piperbomb promo you know Cena gone through a table CM Punk up there calling him out and it felt like because I was part of that internet crowd who was like I kind of started to turn on Cena it wasn’t that I had turned on Cena

Graeme (37:04.835)
Yep.

Graeme (37:17.485)
Yep.

James Moorehead (37:18.719)
I was always kind of like a little bit, well it’s not his fault, it’s the booking. But I was very much in that mindset of, I know WWE has to be PG now. I don’t mind them being PG, I understand the reasoning. I don’t want every match to be blood and gore, I don’t want every match to have swearing or whatever. you know, at the end of the day, know, WWE has always advertised itself as family friendly.

Graeme (37:22.402)
Yeah.

Graeme (37:37.72)
Looking at you Dean Ambrose slash Mopsley.

James Moorehead (37:47.53)
It has always done that. It flirted with, you know, this R rating stuff with the Attitude era. But if people don’t like the fact that it’s PG, they don’t have to watch it and they shouldn’t really complain because you should have things for everyone. But it was how they would do it. And we go back to the example of JBL. It was like, you can be PG. And part of what really hurt it was seeing her writing on JBL’s limo, JBL is poopy.

Cal MacD (37:59.439)
Yes.

Graeme (38:02.744)
Yes.

Graeme (38:16.6)
Yes.

James Moorehead (38:16.907)
You know, it’s so… it’s immature in the complete wrong way. You didn’t have to go that kiddy, that puerile really. And that was sort of what was… I think that was where the frustration was coming from and then seeing Punk cut that promo. And it lit a fire because it seemed like this was a turning point and things were growing up a little bit more but still remaining PG. And you could see it lit a spark with Cena as well.

Graeme (38:25.965)
Yeah.

Graeme (38:43.948)
Yeah, and I think in terms of characters they were and you know possibly off screen as well from what we know about both guys they’re polar opposites. You know you’ve got Cena who is the ultimate company man does whatever, will do whatever, fans first, blah blah blah, punk, total rebel, voice of the voiceless, doesn’t care who he upsets when he speaks, here to make money not friends.

James Moorehead (38:55.308)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (39:10.059)
Yep. Yep.

Graeme (39:13.75)
I think it was just lightning in a bottle again, like those classic rivalries that you mentioned. And it just worked and still works. And you know, it’s two guys, you could just hand them a mic and give them an hour and let them just have a promo battle. It would be amazing.

James Moorehead (39:17.345)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (39:33.343)
I it’s worth mentioning as well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that Cena CM Punk match at Money in the Bank was WWE’s first 5 star rated match from old Davey Meltzer for the first time in a hell of a long time.

Graeme (39:52.334)
Yeah, hope you guys enjoyed!

James Moorehead (39:53.518)
And you know, and for Cena who we will, it’s very hard to talk about who is a good wrestler because ultimately it’s scripted entertainment. And there was certain way to do a match. Cena is not a bad wrestler, but Cena has what people might call a limited move set. And because of his style, it’s not always the most entertaining a watch when you compare it to someone like a Rey Mysterio or a

Graeme (40:04.781)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (40:20.289)
more technically minded wrestler and I can’t think of any technically minded wrestlers at the moment except for the… Thank you, you’ve saved me. Yeah, but know, but Cena had charisma and he could put on a good match, but no one would ever expected a five star match from like, Cena, it was reserved for people like Danielson, for people like nowadays, Kenny Omega, know, apart from the AEW roster who are work-raising, fantastic wrestlers.

Graeme (40:24.398)
Awesome.

Graeme (40:27.939)
Cal MacD (40:28.378)
you

Graeme (40:32.396)
Yes.

Graeme (40:41.262)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (40:49.579)
wrestling wrestlers. WWE has transformed now as well in terms of that, but you didn’t expect it from Cena. But Cena, CM Punk brought everything. Brilliant match, brilliant chemistry, promo work, absolutely top notch.

Graeme (41:05.185)
the whole story, emotion, everything that wrestling should be encapsulated in one microcosm. I think it’s quite interesting because when you look back at all of the, historically the biggest draws, the top guys, you’re thinking Hogan, Dusty Rhodes, Cena, Rock, Austin, Taker, all of these guys, none of them were what you would call outstanding.

James Moorehead (41:25.29)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Graeme (41:34.646)
Restos.

James Moorehead (41:35.957)
No, it’s connection.

Graeme (41:38.06)
Yeah, which takes us right back to where we started with Sina, that there was just something that made you connect with him as a person. Different to what the guys before had, different to what the guys after have had. So that unique charisma that’s particular to him.

James Moorehead (41:45.345)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (41:56.652)
Yeah, it’s that, it’s an it factor. He used a cliche that I’m not always fond of, but it is just a magnetism that people have. And I think just the way he came out on that initial debut, the confidence, the stepping right up to someone like a Kurt Angle and to yell that ruthless aggression, you believed him. It was a two word promo, but you believed.

Graeme (42:19.244)
Yeah.

Yeah. And what was nice about that, if you’d been following, was that the, was it the same episode or was it the week before? Angle had been having his open challenge and McMahon had done a, one of his shouting at the roster moments of, want to see ruthless aggression. And that was what prompted Cena to take what was thrown at them by the boss and run with it against, I would say,

James Moorehead (42:40.669)
Mmm. Yes, yeah.

Graeme (42:54.708)
at the time Angle probably was the best in the world.

quite easily although he did then top that with his TNA work but that’s another episode altogether.

James Moorehead (43:03.789)
Yeah, no, absolutely. You’re not going to get much better than, know, Kurt Angle’s in the top there for being the all around package wrestler.

Graeme (43:13.144)
Yeah, yeah, and in such a short space of time.

Cal MacD (43:14.97)
Just a… I was just going ask you guys, am I right to believe like John Cena’s never really done any sort of very questionable storylines, like morally dubious ones, as storylines have always been?

Graeme (43:31.374)
I mean, depends on your view of things like Rider.

James Moorehead (43:31.405)
Because his run kind of came as WWE was transferring to PG, there’s nothing really ultimately questionable. The Zack Ryder stuff, yeah, I mean, he did kiss someone else’s girlfriend. So that was a bit weird. Yeah, that is a bit, it was a bit weird. mean, we never really came back to that.

Cal MacD (43:50.138)
was that part of the story.

Graeme (43:52.706)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (43:59.013)
Yeah

Graeme (43:59.338)
Yeah, I mean, for me, the Zack Ryder thing, was Eve Torres that he was with on screen and Sena kissed her and then Ryder complained, so Sena pushed his wheelchair down the stairs.

James Moorehead (44:06.624)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (44:13.452)
Yeah

Graeme (44:17.614)
That’s about it.

James Moorehead (44:17.911)
But yeah, I mean, again, because of the PG nature of it, they’ve never really pushed anything too morally dubious. They got hammered pretty hard. know, sponsors were pulling out left, right and centre towards the end of the Attitude Era, so they had to make these dramatic shifts. But yeah.

Graeme (44:37.622)
And round about the same time, of course, you had the whole Benoit thing as well, which meant it leaned even further into the, we are a family friendly company. Yeah. Which in a way led to Sina cutting promos where he’s talking about mustard fudge and donut.

James Moorehead (44:42.861)
Mmm.

Cal MacD (44:45.558)
Yeah, the handles forced a bit by that one here.

James Moorehead (44:45.783)
Yeah.

Hmm

James Moorehead (44:55.884)
Yeah

Graeme (44:57.825)
Stop her.

James Moorehead (44:59.234)
Yeah.

Graeme (45:02.158)
The next things that I had noted down were after Sina wins that first world title. That’s where you get the champas here first and foremost, which has persisted. But also the introduction of the spinner belt.

Graeme (45:20.77)
which at the time I absolutely hated.

James Moorehead (45:24.982)
I… yeah, I really did not like it. But then they’ve introduced Uglier Belt since, so…

Graeme (45:28.926)
And yes, I was literally going to ask James, is it because the belt since have been uglier or is it nostalgia making everything look a bit better in hindsight? Yeah.

James Moorehead (45:41.07)
It’s a bit of both, isn’t it? The one thing I liked about the Spinner Belt is… Well, here’s the thing with the Spinner Belt, is as it was brought in, he was transitioning away from the rapper gimmick. So it started to make no sense for him because he was becoming the marine character that we know now. You know, the one that’s on, like, my t-shirt, the saluting, the rise above hate, the hustle, loyalty, respect thing. So the Spinner Belt kind of made no sense in context.

Graeme (45:53.39)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (46:10.529)
But what I did like about it is how other wrestlers, as they feuded with him and won, you know, if they’d win the title from him, they would turn that into their own gimmick in a way.

Graeme (46:19.982)
Yeah, yeah, I think the Miz actually did it so well because he insisted on flipping at 180 so it was an M.

James Moorehead (46:26.816)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (46:30.283)
Yep. Yep.

Graeme (46:33.422)
That title reign though came to an end with Money in the Bank cash in which led to another one I’ve seen as all time rivalries with Edge and I think that was, was that Elimination Chamber that Edge cashed in?

James Moorehead (46:41.206)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

James Moorehead (46:51.263)
I believe it was. Because I can’t, I might be remembering wrong but I’m pretty sure Edge had lost earlier in the night because I think he might have lost to Matt Hardy.

Graeme (46:59.404)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

I think you did,

James Moorehead (47:04.927)
And then I remember it got to the end of elimination chamber and Sina had won. Cause this is when people were really starting to turn against Sina. Cause it was like the super Sina lol Sina wins meme.

Graeme (47:15.198)
Yup, Cena wins, That was also, I think, the first time that I remember there being the Let’s Go Cena, Cena sucks, Jalen chants that night.

James Moorehead (47:25.377)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it was very much at divide. was like the adult audience was kind of like, we want something else here, but the kids were really on board. The kids and families are really on board. And it was, you know, was very sort of like divisive. What Cena was really good at. And I think this is in a way, this kind of drove the people who didn’t like him to make it more of a fun thing. He ran with it. He acknowledged it. He went, hate me. I don’t care.

Graeme (47:54.978)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (47:55.436)
I’m still gonna be me, I’m gonna be unashamedly be me and I’m gonna own this and he did and I think even the people who kind of went I don’t like him they went I know I respect him.

Graeme (47:59.278)
Yeah.

Graeme (48:10.134)
Yeah, I think one of the… Yeah.

James Moorehead (48:12.065)
But that pop when Edge came out, I remember that. That was insane.

Graeme (48:17.642)
And I mean, for someone who has had such a storied career, is just another one of those all time rivals for him. There’s probably four people that I would put as Sina’s main rivals. We’ve spoken about Punk, we’ve spoken about Edge. There’s another couple that I’m sure we’ll come to. But they’re the ones that come to me. think Sina, his matches?

James Moorehead (48:41.185)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (48:46.562)
his storylines, they’re the ones that I keep coming back to. Thinking about him unashamedly being him, it actually takes me onto One Night Stand 2, where he was facing hometown favourite Rob Van Dam in the ECW arena, in front of the ECW fans where…

James Moorehead (48:59.245)
Mm.

James Moorehead (49:04.759)
Yes. Yeah.

James Moorehead (49:10.508)
Yep.

Graeme (49:11.616)
It was literally saying if Cena wins we riot the crowd were so rabidly anti Cena. And he went into that he wrestled very slightly differently. He did he did wrestle more of a heel style in that match, which I’d actually went back and watched it and there were just little things that were a wee bit more aggression and certain things. Compared with how you would normally do it.

James Moorehead (49:26.391)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (49:36.15)
Yeah, and that’s the thing. mean, with wrestling, we talk about the connection. We talk about how they work in the ring. And to use an example, Hulk Hogan had very limited moves when he was a WWE wrestler. You watch him in Japan and he’s very different because he knew he had to do something else to make a connection with the crowd or to do it to achieve a certain goal. And I think Cena was the same. He knew what he needed to do to have that connection with the crowd wrestling normally.

Graeme (49:52.237)
Yes.

James Moorehead (50:05.773)
but he’s like, no, I want to make a different connection. These guys hate me. I’m never going to get them on my side. I’m not even going to try. So I’m going to play into it. You know, I’m going to be what they think I am.

Graeme (50:16.386)
Yeah. Again, thinking about leaning into things that they tried to talk. There was that whole bit a few years back where he talked about unveiling a new sixth move of doom. And was it a back fist or a back elbow or something? It was basically…

James Moorehead (50:29.542)
yeah!

James Moorehead (50:36.961)
Something like that, yeah.

Graeme (50:39.062)
It was so underwhelming and it was amazing. In fact it would have fit so perfectly in the most recent heel run where he was out to ruin wrestling. If he’d cut a promo where he said, you know, actually you all have been saying for years that I’ve got five moves in but I’m going to give you a sixth move and you’ll see it tonight. And then done, there’s this basically anti-move and finished the match with it. I would have…

James Moorehead (50:42.528)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (50:48.406)
Yes.

James Moorehead (50:59.969)
you

James Moorehead (51:04.652)
Yeah.

Graeme (51:07.394)
marked out big time but that’s… yeah. Yeah. The next thing I’ve got marked was the Fallen Royal Rumble where Cena had one of the best matches of his career that maybe people weren’t expecting to happen and it was a last man standing match with Umaga or as Mr. Regal calls him Umanga.

James Moorehead (51:08.885)
I would have howled. I would have laughed so much.

James Moorehead (51:31.262)
yes!

James Moorehead (51:37.761)
We talked about underrated wrestlers, Regal, up there.

Graeme (51:40.694)
Yes, Regal is my all-time favourite wrestler. Yeah, everything that man does, but again, I could do a whole podcast about that.

James Moorehead (51:44.073)
He’s so good. Yeah.

James Moorehead (51:51.798)
I think this was again, people had been down on Cena and then I think because he had lost quite a bit and he had had back and forth with Edge, people started to come round him a bit more. I don’t think anyone expected much from a Cena-Umarga feud because I don’t remember much praise for Umarga around the time. But clearly he was good. He was very good. But that last one standing match, again, because they played to the strengths of each other and it

Graeme (52:16.355)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (52:21.325)
got him a chance to really showcase his strength which I think they had kind of downplayed quite a bit over the last year or so they hadn’t really you know they had kind of forgotten what had made people love seeing them in the first place they had to remind people and yeah very underrated.

Graeme (52:40.682)
From there, me, Cena enters one of the best periods of work his career because I think maybe not his next direct feud, but certainly by WrestleMania that year he’s feuding with HBK. And they had, it was run about a 40 minute match at WrestleMania and you’ve got John Cena, you’ve got Shawn Michaels and it’s WrestleMania. There can only be good things happening.

James Moorehead (53:05.227)
Yes. Was that the one? I try remember which HBK match that was. That wasn’t a main event was it? Was that the one where they were basically told that you were going on 50s they both got a bit of a chip on their shoulder and went right where it’s gonna have a really good match? I mean Shawn Michaels you can put a mop in the ring with put me in the ring with Shawn Michaels and it’d probably be a good match you know? But yeah it

Graeme (53:13.784)
Nope. Nope.

Graeme (53:23.349)
you

James Moorehead (53:34.549)
I remember, you know, again, the build up to where Sean may be playing a little bit heelish again, not too much so, but you know, they won the tag titles and it was again that sort of thing, is Sean going to betray him?

Graeme (53:41.998)
Yeah, just, just, the dot.

Can they co-exist? as usual, no, no they can’t. And that as well, did that lead on to the Raw match from London? And it was one of the best matches in Raw history. Cena versus Shawn Michaels. Did that get a five star from Meltzer?

James Moorehead (53:49.739)
Yep. Classic WWE trope.

James Moorehead (54:04.896)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (54:11.149)
I don’t know. There’s a few like HPK matches that should have gotten five stars arguably but didn’t for whatever reason. Which I’m sure Sean isn’t bothered about, know he’s Sean Michaels considered to one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. But it very well could, it could have done. But again it was like one of the few, they were magical together.

Graeme (54:13.07)
I might actually fact check that one.

Graeme (54:34.35)
Graeme (54:38.306)
Yeah, they absolutely were. I’m looking at it just now. No, no Meltzer. John Cena has had one five star match in his career and it was against Punk. The WrestleMania match with Meltz with HBK was 4.25.

James Moorehead (54:46.615)
Hmm.

James Moorehead (54:55.295)
it’s a 2-5, bloody hell.

Graeme (54:57.388)
Yeah.

Graeme (55:00.878)
After that, the rest of that year, it was a bit of an up and down year, he had the pectare in October, which was expected to keep him out for at least six months. And then in superhuman John Cena style, he returned at the Royal Rumble in January to the surprise of absolutely everybody. Yep.

James Moorehead (55:09.227)
Yes.

James Moorehead (55:25.269)
yes it was madison square garden as well like wwe spiritual home and i remember him coming out and he just like the smirk and everything and people loved it he did go on did he go on to win that royal rumble i can’t remember if i remember correctly though this is kind of where we started to feud with a bit with triple h and that which i was i don’t remember being massively keen on

Graeme (55:34.506)
Yeah. The… He dead?

Graeme (55:49.262)
No, it was never up there in terms of favourite feuds. was just, it seemed like the logical thing though because I guess he’d beaten the others that were there to be beaten and to be considered a true great. He’d have to beat H. But again, with that sort of call back to the past, Triple H’s return in…

James Moorehead (55:55.552)
No.

James Moorehead (55:59.885)
Mm.

James Moorehead (56:05.549)
Yeah.

Graeme (56:19.16)
Whatever, 2001?

James Moorehead (56:21.581)
2001, 2002, I think it’d be 2002, because one, he had been written out because of the invasion, well, during the invasion because he had the quadtet.

Graeme (56:29.772)
Yes.

Graeme (56:33.302)
Yeah, so his return from the quad tear was in Madison Square Garden as well. So the same arena was Sina Louder? Was the pop for Sina Louder? I don’t know.

James Moorehead (56:38.603)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (56:47.605)
It’s hard to remember, but I mean, it was certainly on par.

Graeme (56:51.97)
Yeah. But that year he then had herniated disc in his neck in August. did he get surgery? I think he did.

James Moorehead (56:59.244)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (57:04.895)
remember. I can’t remember. But I remember it was around this time people were definitely starting to come back around on him a little bit. His feuds weren’t exactly, he didn’t always seem like he was the focus. He didn’t always seem like it, the super scene and stuff had quite calmed down a little bit. So I think maybe you know things have become a bit more muted but it was leading up to would it be that year or next year when he had the Nexus feud?

Graeme (57:13.08)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (57:19.084)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (57:35.054)
So the next year he had the nexus feud. He got the neck injury round about summer slam I think and was back by Survivor Series so again sort of three months which is insane. I’ve actually had the…

James Moorehead (57:37.399)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (57:45.069)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (57:50.775)
Yeah.

Graeme (57:57.26)
the two discs removed in the surgical cage put in my neck. Not because I’m a fan, just because it was actually necessary. But the whole, I remember sneezing two months after that and it felt like my neck was going to explode.

James Moorehead (58:04.769)
Yeah, I love him that much.

James Moorehead (58:14.658)
Hmm.

Graeme (58:19.246)
To be taking bumps of any sort, even with herniated discs, if he didn’t get the surgery it was just rest. It’s insane. think the next thing I remember with Cena was the TLC match with Seamus.

James Moorehead (58:21.579)
Yep. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (58:46.869)
Yes, that was a shock.

Graeme (58:51.706)
Yeah… Was that a botch? Or was it supposed to look like a botch?

James Moorehead (58:56.543)
think it was meant to look like one but it was definitely a shock because I think no one had really expected like Sheamus had came in through the ECW that they had tried to do at the time and he was clearly in line for stuff because I think it came out that he had been training with Triple H, he’s a favorite Triple H so that got him a bit of standing and when he won you know

Graeme (59:07.886)
ECW.

Graeme (59:18.658)
Yeah

James Moorehead (59:23.447)
people were a little bit shocked and again it took the gleam off of the Super Cena stuff because we were starting to see him become bit more vulnerable and yeah, Sheamus I think a very underrated wrestler. I remember going to go see WWE around, it might have been before or after this but I do remember going to go see him and one of the reasons you know I remember taking Sheamus sign it was a son.

Graeme (59:28.15)
Yeah.

Graeme (59:35.778)
Yes, very much so.

Graeme (59:51.054)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (59:52.587)
And said, Seamus fears me. Cause that was like pure pale white Seamus. No tan.

Graeme (59:54.958)
you

Yep. Seamus is one the, again, he’s never going to be your greatest technician in the world. But in the Hogan era Seamus would have been a monster. I think just that.

James Moorehead (01:00:04.364)
No.

Graeme (01:00:15.864)
just a big, big guy from another country who is good at beating people up. He could have got so much… I mean, he’s had an amazing career. He… Absolutely. Yes. That’s probably what I’m trying to say. And in terms of believability, the next thing I’m thinking is the Nexus.

James Moorehead (01:00:19.873)
Yep. Yep.

James Moorehead (01:00:25.545)
Mm-hmm. He’s believable as well.

James Moorehead (01:00:37.781)
Yeah. So the Nexus, great debut. Absolutely fantastic debut. These young upstarts ripping up everything, ripping everything apart. And then they started feuding with Sena and we know where it goes. And this is one of the big blips I think of Sena’s career. And I don’t know if it was Sena’s fault. I don’t know if it was the creative fault. I don’t know who was at fault for this. But I do think this is one of the big mistakes in his booking.

Graeme (01:00:42.658)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:00:49.451)
Literally.

Graeme (01:00:57.954)
Yes.

James Moorehead (01:01:07.757)
is when he went over the Nexus pretty much single-handedly killing any momentum they had and you can argue they weren’t ready you can argue that maybe they weren’t you know that great or whatever but you’ve just killed all of their momentum and made them all look stupid essentially because they’ve all just fell down to one guy and that was a bit more of a resurgence of the Super Sena stuff that I thought we’d been getting away from at that time.

Graeme (01:01:11.703)
Yup.

Graeme (01:01:33.23)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:01:36.263)
it was it what i can say i think that is one mistake of sena’s booking is that nexus stuff i think they should have won

Graeme (01:01:43.758)
I think I certainly remember on Jericho’s podcast round about the time both him and Edge talking about speaking to Cena saying look we cannot go over here we are going to kill these guys and Cena was the one that sort of pushed it well no we’re going over that’s what’s happening we’ve got Brett we’ve got Brian coming back you know that’s the story so no you have just killed I think the other part of the Nexus that made no sense to me

James Moorehead (01:01:54.829)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:02:01.144)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:02:13.816)
was after that I think Barrett beat him in a hell in a cell which then the stipulation was that if Barrett won, Senna was forced to join the Nexus. Why? They came in to destroy him and everything he stood for. Why did they then want him to join just because he got beat?

James Moorehead (01:02:26.295)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:02:36.927)
It’s a very old school kind of stable mentality, I think in wrestling booking and it just didn’t work. And it was, it was again, part of that. And you can’t just, I can’t explain Sina for that. is WWE’s creative at the time. It was just very poor and it killed any momentum. And then with the Nexus, he had the whole new Nexus come in and the car and obviously it dreadful, purely dreadful.

Graeme (01:02:49.132)
Yeah, that’s definitely creative.

Graeme (01:02:59.607)
The core?

Graeme (01:03:04.215)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:03:05.325)
Not the worst stable of all time, Hello Retribution. But the new Nexus would be taken over by CM Punk, which would take us to the greatest, you know, one of the greatest feuds I’ve seen in Korea. And again, I think this was sort of where people started to… They were backing Punk because Punk was the big fan favourite. And there could be an entire episode on the fact that after this feud, Punk got done absolutely dirty.

Graeme (01:03:08.876)
Ha ha.

Graeme (01:03:13.42)
Yep.

Graeme (01:03:33.398)
Yep, he should have been gone for months but instead was at the following week or two weeks later he was at Comic Con and then on Raw… yeah.

James Moorehead (01:03:34.004)
in terms of his booking and that.

James Moorehead (01:03:42.112)
It was barely any time. Yeah. And his booking after your scene is booking well, see, I’m punk’s booking, but they like we say, where we literally they brought up the best in each other. And I think that’s a sort of like start. We were starting to sort of see a bit of a downturn in seeing us booking a bit. He was not this focal point as much anymore. He was still high up. But you could kind of see maybe things were coming to a head at times. But after punk.

think we got to another big feud that people had been angling for for a while.

Graeme (01:04:15.054)
But can we go slightly back to go forward here? Because before Punk we had the WrestleMania main event of The Miz vs John Cena.

James Moorehead (01:04:17.931)
Yep. Yeah, Yeshua.

James Moorehead (01:04:25.959)
god yes! And this was a…

Cal MacD (01:04:26.746)
you

Graeme (01:04:28.078)
Thanks

It was setting up the next feud really. So Miz went over Cena in the main event of WrestleMania and retained the title to everyone’s surprise due to the interference of Dwayne Johnson, The Rock.

James Moorehead (01:04:33.484)
Yep.

James Moorehead (01:04:40.415)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

James Moorehead (01:04:46.761)
Yep. Damn him. I’m just going to put it out there. The Miz, we talk about underrated wrestlers. He’s up there. He is so good.

Graeme (01:04:49.057)
Yep.

Graeme (01:04:53.517)
Yep.

Graeme (01:04:57.292)
Yes, and in terms of underrated things about them as well, the video package for that resume, the To Naz’s Hate Me Now, is one of my all time favourite video packages.

James Moorehead (01:05:09.933)
I watched that again the other week and it is so good. Yeah. And it’s just, you know, the whole, all the screens and everything going on. made it feel really special.

Graeme (01:05:12.29)
Did you? Yeah.

Yep. And Miz is one of these guys that you could cycle into any role in the card at any time. He’s so good at what he does.

But the main events seem to exist to set up the following years WrestleMania, which is once in a lifetime. The Rock versus John Cena for WrestleMania 28. Asterisk.

James Moorehead (01:05:37.025)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, once in a lifetime will only happen once.

It is what it is. Card subject to change and all that. Yeah, we had been wanting it. We’d been wanting The Rock to come back for some time. You know, the fan base had been really angling because we’d seen others come back every now and then and it felt like The Rock had left if someone finished business. And then he finally did make his way back and they set up that match with Rock and Cena who, you know, whether it’s…

Graeme (01:05:52.022)
Yep.

Graeme (01:06:05.453)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:06:14.839)
kayfabe or not, did seem like Sina legitimately didn’t like the rock for a time.

Graeme (01:06:19.49)
Yeah, was it… I might be misremembering here and please correct me. Was it Rock who had a go at Cena for forgetting his lines in a promo here?

James Moorehead (01:06:33.223)
was the other way around because the rock had written his lines on his hand.

Graeme (01:06:34.43)
was the other way around. Honest, yeah, praise Ghost Bumpstar. Yeah, because I was just, I don’t know why I was again thinking that sort of nice mirroring where Cena then pays that forward to the Rocks family later. But that match, it had no business being as entertaining as it was because for me it was exactly like a decade before.

James Moorehead (01:06:47.319)
Hmm.

James Moorehead (01:07:04.247)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:07:04.436)
WrestleMania 18 where you’d Hogan on the Rock. And we wanted it but we didn’t expect great things from it. But the crowd were so in to it, yeah. It was all about emotion, all about spectacle. And yeah, when they actually go for it, I don’t think anyone matches WWE for spectacle in that way.

Cal MacD (01:07:04.985)
Thank

James Moorehead (01:07:12.737)
Yeah, it was about the emotion. Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:07:31.245)
No, they don’t. It’s that big of a thing. Week to week, falters quite a lot. They’re not always the greatest, but yeah, they create moments that you remember.

Graeme (01:07:37.624)
Yep.

Graeme (01:07:42.124)
Yes. Whereas other companies, as we know, you will have better match quality week to week, more consistent match quality. Fair enough. But any memories of once in a lifetime for you? In fact, just before we do, was the video package for once in a lifetime not oddly set to we are young by fun?

James Moorehead (01:07:50.423)
Yes, yeah, 100%.

James Moorehead (01:08:10.901)
Yes, I, it might have been, that was definitely one of the big, big WrestleMania packages because I remember getting the album by them. It was actually a banner of an album.

Graeme (01:08:12.024)
which

Graeme (01:08:23.009)
Yeah.

It was in fact WrestleMania 20 John Cena vs The Rock We Are Young. Yeah, I haven’t misremembered.

James Moorehead (01:08:30.173)
Mm. Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:08:35.593)
I don’t remember the match itself, I’d have to sit down and watch the match again. But I do remember just anticipating it and enjoying it, like getting drawn into it. At the end of the day, it’s easy to talk about wrestling and debate it and go, that was move sets and work rate and all that. But I try to just watch it and enjoy the emotion of it.

Graeme (01:08:48.856)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:09:00.718)
It’s the story. It’s just the story.

James Moorehead (01:09:04.381)
I remember just being captivated by it because it was this guy I hadn’t seen and wanted to come back for so long against a guy who I, you know, I do like even if I had issues I did like him.

Graeme (01:09:12.354)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Graeme (01:09:19.586)
The next things I’d thought about, I think it was probably the next two Summer Slams. like the punk match with Money in the Bank, Summer Slam 2013 I think it was, Cena put Brian over. Big time, sold his arse off for him, made him look like a star.

James Moorehead (01:09:25.29)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:09:41.472)
Yes.

James Moorehead (01:09:47.97)
Yep.

Graeme (01:09:48.584)
and kind of kickstarted the whole yes movement because that year’s WrestleMania of course was when Brian lost to Sheamus in nine seconds.

James Moorehead (01:09:53.963)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:10:00.918)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:10:03.264)
And you had the whole B plus player story, the authority hating on him. And, you know, it looked like it was going to be business as usual. And then Cena goes out of his way to make Brian look like a star.

James Moorehead (01:10:07.265)
the authority.

James Moorehead (01:10:14.338)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:10:23.361)
And it led to one of the greatest WrestleMania moments, arguably of all time with number 30. Now, what I will say is 2014, kind of after that was when I moved up to Scotland from where I lived down in Teesside. So I kind of dropped out of wrestling for a few years. I would follow it by results and NXT and that, but I did drop out for the next few years, but I would follow every WrestleMania and such because you kind of have to.

Graeme (01:10:27.084)
Yes, Miracle in Bourbon Street.

Graeme (01:10:39.074)
Thank you.

Graeme (01:10:53.603)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:10:54.484)
But I do remember the Authority storyline and Cena popping in and out of that but this was where Cena started to go a bit more part-time… after this.

Graeme (01:11:01.41)
Yeah, yep. And I think his… it would have been year later after having been part time on and off, he came back to face Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. And that in terms of shocking moments, he was absolutely mauled.

James Moorehead (01:11:19.093)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:11:28.674)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:11:29.975)
It was like an old school, like a velocity or superstars match where he was just utterly ragdolled from the first bell to the closing bell.

James Moorehead (01:11:40.109)
It would be like Tugbo vs Salvatore Sincere in 1993. That is a deep cut of a jobber name right there, Salvatore Sincere.

Graeme (01:11:44.406)
Graeme (01:11:49.73)
Right, yes. And I can picture them.

James Moorehead (01:11:53.633)
Hahaha!

There you go. That’s the seven point for the podcast now. You don’t get many podcasts that reference Salvatore Sencia.

Graeme (01:12:06.968)
My favourite jobber name of all time though is Julio Fantastico. Who I believe it on to be Julio De Nero in ECW.

James Moorehead (01:12:09.693)
He was great.

Cal MacD (01:12:12.748)
Okay.

James Moorehead (01:12:20.781)
But yeah, mean, he would do the Lesnar stuff, because I remember Lesnar coming back being a big shock. We did not expect him back. I remember seeing a weirdly winning at the end of that though. He got destroyed, but did he not win the match ultimately?

Graeme (01:12:34.862)
No, no, I’m 100 % certain.

James Moorehead (01:12:38.773)
Am I thinking of when he fought… No, I’m thinking of he fought Triple H and Triple H won. Yeah, of course he did.

Graeme (01:12:43.03)
Yeah, yeah, Triple H wins LOL. Brock, I mean, destroyed that. This was the creation of Suplex City because it was just the camera was right up in Lesn. was a Suplex City bitch. And from there, many a T-shirt was born.

James Moorehead (01:12:53.247)
Yes.

James Moorehead (01:12:57.801)
Hahaha

James Moorehead (01:13:01.695)
Yep.

Graeme (01:13:04.002)
But for all of, you know, we’ve all criticised the Cena wins, super Cena stuff. He wasn’t afraid to put people over at all. Possibly apart from the Nexus.

James Moorehead (01:13:14.697)
No. And yeah, and I think one of things he did do and you know, he made people look good in defeat. Sometimes with him he was winning at the skin of his teeth and he made people look good. And that would go into the United States title stuff in his latter days of his career. Yep.

Graeme (01:13:37.986)
Yeah, the open challenge.

James Moorehead (01:13:43.893)
when he would wrestle these up and comers in the same way that he debuted himself. Again, a full circle moment.

Graeme (01:13:48.823)
Yeah.

And then probably the two highest profile that would be Kevin Owens who again actually he had a kind of later career really really good feud with and Sami Zayn who are just the most lovable babyface that ever baby faced I think. So enthusiastic that he tore his own shoulder in

James Moorehead (01:14:02.594)
Yes. Yes.

James Moorehead (01:14:12.405)
I love Samizan so much.

Graeme (01:14:21.09)
Sort of gesturing, taunting on his way into that debut match in his hometown. Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:14:25.993)
felt so bad for him because he had been bigged up by Bret Hart a moment ago and debut match in on Raw but he still did it yeah

Graeme (01:14:31.615)
Yep.

Graeme (01:14:36.65)
and still had an absolute cracking match.

somebody he should have put over. Rusev, WrestleMania 31.

James Moorehead (01:14:46.815)
I agree actually with that one. Rusev was ready for that.

Graeme (01:14:49.379)
So.

Yeah, I mean he came to the ring in a Soviet tank.

Sorry for the spoilers Cal, but even just that entrance I think you’ll get a kick out of. He would, would… Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:15:03.896)
Alright.

James Moorehead (01:15:03.913)
It was brilliant. Again, spectacle. No one does spectacle like WWE do.

Graeme (01:15:10.06)
Yeah. Do you think that losing to Cena at that time killed Rusev as a cat? Because it was his first loss, I think. But…

James Moorehead (01:15:23.117)
I don’t know.

Graeme (01:15:26.594)
don’t know if he ever fully… yeah, Rusevday became a bit of a meme. But he’s never quite hit the heights of where he was before that match for me.

James Moorehead (01:15:31.938)
Hmm.

James Moorehead (01:15:37.984)
I think it’s a problem that plagues a lot of giants in wrestling in WWE in that as soon as they get that first loss, WWE creative and this has happened all the way back to the nineties goes, are they rubbish now? And then they lose and they lose and they lose and they lose. And Rusev was someone who wasn’t quite a giant in the same vein like great Carly or the big show were.

or even a cane. He was charismatic, he could have bounced back from that. They could have said you got lucky, you escaped, let’s do it again. think what happened to Rysov wasn’t necessarily a fault of losing a Senna, it was just W Creative were just so afraid to do something with him. Much in the same way they did this repeatedly with a few other stars. You know, I can’t remember what he was… Yeah.

Graeme (01:16:08.13)
but he was built like one.

Graeme (01:16:13.144)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:16:34.602)
They do like a losing streak angle actually. You’ll have a winning streak angle and then let’s make you lose for months and months and Was it MVP had that? He took the feud with Matt Hardy and then had a long losing streak after having been elevated. It makes no sense.

James Moorehead (01:16:45.781)
Yes, MVP’s done it.

James Moorehead (01:16:55.411)
It feels like one of their things they do is build them up and then suddenly tear them right down. And I don’t know if it’s some sort of weird test where like, see how you can handle this. Maybe they’re wanting them to advocate for themselves. Maybe they’re wanting them to kick up a fuss or something, or maybe just wanting to see how they will handle the crowds and keep themselves. But it’s weird. Strange.

Graeme (01:17:05.698)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:17:16.726)
Yeah.

I wonder if that’s something that’s changed with the regime change. Because it sounds… You you always heard the stories about Vince encouraging people to come and wrestle me on the plane, buddy. Can you take me down? Is that, yes, because you’re a roided up commentator, I’m an Olympic gold medalist, of course I can take you down. Can you shit on me? Let’s not go there, Vince.

Cal MacD (01:17:22.581)
you

James Moorehead (01:17:22.795)
Hmm

James Moorehead (01:17:31.872)
Yeah.

Hahaha

James Moorehead (01:17:39.149)
Ha

James Moorehead (01:17:45.53)
Graeme (01:17:52.014)
See you

The next thing that really stood out for me would be AJ Styles, who was one of the ones I was thinking of in terms of seen as all time opponents. The two faces of rival companies who came together and it was just magic the whole time. Now I could have done without the Good Brothers because I think…

In terms of the Talking Shop podcast, can be entertaining sometimes. Gallows seems like a genuinely funny person at times.

James Moorehead (01:18:30.379)
very funny on what was it they called it the wd network did a series of self-war championship wrestling very good on that but yeah i’m not really into them beyond

Graeme (01:18:36.45)
Yes, the Southport Championship. Yeah.

Graeme (01:18:44.578)
No, I think they were one of the biggest victims of WWE creative and haha poopy, etc. Much like the revival with the whole, here we go guys, one of the best times, can you shave your back? Can you shave my back? No, just let them wrestle, let them be entertaining. But.

James Moorehead (01:18:54.444)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:19:06.721)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:19:16.022)
Yeah, the stuff that got the criticism. But the matches between Cena and Styles were probably the best pure matches he’d had since HBK for me. I mean, Styles is, there are so many similarities with Shawn Michaels and Styles in terms of how they work anyway. It might just be that that style merges perfectly for Cena. But it was phenomenal, pun intended.

James Moorehead (01:19:41.165)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:19:45.237)
Yep. And you’re talking to guys who at that point were towards the tail end of their careers. know, AJ Styles wasn’t young, neither was Cena.

Graeme (01:19:52.172)
Yeah.

Nope, and I think they’re actually the same age. And Stiles has said that 2026 is going to be his last year, so in a year’s time we’ll meet again and do the agee Stiles retrospective.

James Moorehead (01:20:00.332)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:20:09.089)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:20:12.386)
But, yeah, just in terms of two guys who can absolutely go at any point in their careers, they just worked so well.

James Moorehead (01:20:22.829)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:20:25.902)
In amongst all of this of course we’ve forgotten about the John Cena reality show Total Divas

James Moorehead (01:20:25.921)
Yeah, very much so.

James Moorehead (01:20:40.589)
I did not watch this. My mum watched it from time to time and she said it was crap. I think this is maybe one of the few places where maybe people kind of saw a of a negative side of John though.

Graeme (01:20:48.876)
Yes, it’s total crap.

Graeme (01:21:00.118)
watched it for a while and it always felt like he was playing he was written to be playing a character in it because yeah because it just didn’t feel you know from the same guy that you see doing all of the overly positive media being approachable and everything to right no here are the rules about my house for

James Moorehead (01:21:03.085)
Mm.

James Moorehead (01:21:08.682)
Yeah, well, it wouldn’t shock me.

James Moorehead (01:21:21.431)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:21:27.5)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:21:28.022)
you, you must store this wine here, you must take your shoes off here, you… It felt like… It almost felt like he was the overly strict dad from a 1980s sitcom.

James Moorehead (01:21:41.101)
Yeah, that’s what I heard about it. Like I said, I never watched it, but it’s what I heard. It’s like he had all these rules and all these things that he didn’t want to do or wasn’t going to do or whatever. And it was, I always found it really odd that they allowed that to go out, given who he was and his status with the company.

Graeme (01:21:42.78)
Graeme (01:21:46.35)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:21:57.217)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:22:00.776)
Mm-hmm. It was weird and it just didn’t ring true. But the interactions with him and Brian, who I mean, think Brian was there to wind him up. Because it was I’ve got my Rear’s Bell, I’ve got a compost toilet that you need to use, And then the wacky antics of the Bellas and their family and Johnny Ace and yeah.

James Moorehead (01:22:08.781)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:22:12.225)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:22:18.403)
Hahaha

James Moorehead (01:22:24.801)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:22:29.386)
Yeah, it didn’t show him in the most positive light, but I genuinely felt it was very character based.

James Moorehead (01:22:37.165)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:22:40.685)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:22:41.101)
I think a lot of them reality shows, they do tend to be, you got to think of a hook. But yeah, yeah.

Graeme (01:22:44.418)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:22:49.018)
can’t think of a worse thing that’s seen as done.

Cal MacD (01:22:54.554)
Can you think of like, so that’s even more unpleasant to watch.

Fred the movie. The Fred Ficklehorn movie.

James Moorehead (01:23:03.713)
I’ve never seen it. I can’t, but I’ve heard it is dreadful.

Graeme (01:23:08.482)
thoughts.

Cal MacD (01:23:08.548)
But bizarrely, he’s the best thing in it, Cena. He turns up, goes, Fred’s hallucinating that’s who his dad was. And the first thing Cena does is he starts smacking him. So it’s got its high point there. You want to see Fred fig…

James Moorehead (01:23:11.073)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:23:18.38)
Ha ha!

James Moorehead (01:23:20.405)
My understanding is that from the films and TV shows seen as being in, the films and shows aren’t great or might be rubbish, but he tends to be the best thing about them.

Cal MacD (01:23:32.39)
It’s bizarrely going to reference someone we talk about a lot, Graham, like what they said about Tim Curry. Every one star movie he was in, he was the reason for that one star. I think it’s the same with scene as a… But the Bumblebee movie was actually decent and he was in that. Okay, that was the one good Transformers film.

Graeme (01:23:32.781)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:23:39.416)
James Moorehead (01:23:39.437)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:23:43.224)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:23:43.255)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:23:47.586)
You

James Moorehead (01:23:48.788)
I saw a game with Tim Curry in the other day in CEX, was Frankenstein for the Sega Saturn, I think it was Frankenstein, it was an FMV adventure game starring Tim Curry.

Cal MacD (01:23:59.983)
FMV of a Whoa, there you go grim. We’re just bubbling with excitement now for that

Graeme (01:24:07.758)
How does it sit compared to Red Alert 3?

James Moorehead (01:24:12.425)
It was certainly, it sounded more expensive because it was about £200.

Cal MacD (01:24:12.964)
Hi.

Graeme (01:24:17.022)
Okay, do you know what we said?

Cal MacD (01:24:18.554)
That’s a, I’ve got a few that’s an episode we could do about why did they think FMV was going to be a big thing? It’s like, look, yep.

Graeme (01:24:25.644)
because laser desk.

James Moorehead (01:24:27.699)
I will happily hop on that because I will defend the X-Files game.

Cal MacD (01:24:33.976)
I mean, the FMV acting sequences were glorious to watch though, some of them. were just the level of act. that was so, Tim Curry just knew what he was doing when he did that. When he did Red Alert, sorry, we’re on about Tim Curry and Red Alert. Like I say, our chat room quite often goes off to talk about Tim Curry and Red Alert.

James Moorehead (01:24:38.189)
yeah.

James Moorehead (01:24:52.171)
Hey, I have no issues talking about Tim Curry and Red Alert.

Cal MacD (01:24:56.964)
Yes.

Graeme (01:24:58.254)
That can be actually working a reference into every show.

Cal MacD (01:25:03.927)
Yes, we probably could.

Graeme (01:25:05.095)
I think we can and if not then someone has clearly rained on our glorious parade and for that we’ll come out them with everything we have.

Cal MacD (01:25:10.402)
Yes. Yes.

Graeme (01:25:14.858)
So I’m glad you mentioned X-Files there James because I think the next kind of standout thing for me was something a little bit weird with Cena and that was the Firefly Funhouse match.

James Moorehead (01:25:24.364)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Devisive. Because there are people out there who think it is one of the worst things to ever happen.

Graeme (01:25:33.684)
They’re just wrong.

James Moorehead (01:25:35.433)
It was brilliant, it was not a wrestling match, it was a character study that played so well into this enigmatic Bray Wyatt character that really dug in the scene and threw us all for a loop.

Graeme (01:25:37.442)
Mm-hmm. Nope.

Graeme (01:25:46.114)
Yep.

Graeme (01:25:51.63)
It was also an acknowledgement and could argue a love letter to the fans who’d been there for his whole career. Because it had callbacks to ruthless aggression, had what if he joined the NWO. know, it was just, I think the COVID times as well meant they had to be a bit more creative. And…

James Moorehead (01:25:59.228)
Mm. Yeah.

Graeme (01:26:20.876)
Everything that I read about the Firefly Funhouse match was that Vince didn’t get it and it was Bray Wyatt and Cena who created it and Cena went right into writing the bits about him.

He’s always had that awareness and that willingness to lean into, here’s what the fans think.

James Moorehead (01:26:40.907)
I think it’s a difference between him and the rock really. I’m not the one to slag off the rock here or whatever, but I will. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think Cena has, like you said, that self-awareness and he’s got that humbleness to him. He’s not afraid to make himself look a fool. He’s not afraid to make himself look stupid if it’s for a benefit or whatever. It’ll go that extra mile compared to someone like the rock who is a prat.

Graeme (01:26:43.618)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:26:47.16)
We’ll do that in a minute.

Graeme (01:27:11.254)
Yeah and speaking of the rock we need to

Cal MacD (01:27:13.079)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:27:15.649)
I hope he doesn’t watch this.

Graeme (01:27:18.456)
Well, we’ve got him and slagged off Tom Cruise recently now, so we’ll be doing okay.

James Moorehead (01:27:24.499)
well then.

Cal MacD (01:27:25.242)
Yeah, we went kind of viral on Instagram for a few days because we slagged off Tom Cruise. there you go. We’ve got 250,000 views on one of our reels. So yeah. And then within a few days, I was just looking, oh, comments are fairly decent. It’s quite respectable. Oh, they’re questioning each other’s sexuality now. Yep, it’s turned into the internet again.

James Moorehead (01:27:31.373)
You

James Moorehead (01:27:35.5)
wow. Wow.

Graeme (01:27:47.188)
It’s the internet. So the Rock and his effect on the latter part of John Cena’s career.

James Moorehead (01:27:47.617)
time to shut off the comments section.

Cal MacD (01:27:50.073)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:27:57.547)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:27:59.918)
A year ago, Cena announced that this 2025 was going to be his last year in wrestling. He was going to retire. For the longest time, us fans have said we would love to see a heel run. Let’s make him interest. Let’s go back to where he was at. Let’s do a heel run. And then at Elimination Chamber this year, we thought we had it. had the, carry on.

James Moorehead (01:28:27.305)
one of the best turns I’ve ever seen in wrestling. Up there, Hogan turning heel as a character, obviously in real life he already was. The double turn at WrestleMania, you know, with Bret and Austin.

Graeme (01:28:29.932)
Yes. Yep.

Graeme (01:28:35.522)
Yes.

Yo.

Graeme (01:28:45.23)
with Bretton Austin 13. Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:28:47.629)
That scene of he’ll turn was masterful. And then it fell apart.

Graeme (01:28:51.648)
Yup. And yeah, because the Rock decided he didn’t want to go to work anymore or something.

James Moorehead (01:29:00.587)
Yep, what I will say, obviously I’ve alluded to it, I’m wearing this t-shirt. We went to go see him in Glasgow. He was brilliant as a heel, coming out with his, you know, the dialogue and what he was saying to the fans, playing into it, bouncing off of the fans as a heel. Really, really good. And this was pre-WrestleMania, obviously, because it was a raw I went to pre-WrestleMania. And you just felt, my God.

Graeme (01:29:09.719)
Yep.

Graeme (01:29:23.437)
Yep.

James Moorehead (01:29:29.367)
They’ve got something here. They’ve done it. They could do something really good. You’re going to have the Rock involved here. There’s that other guy as well who I wish wasn’t involved, but you know, whatever. He’s a… I get it, celebrity involvement and all that. And then WrestleMania came.

Graeme (01:29:47.454)
And yeah, and we fully expected the rock to make an appearance.

James Moorehead (01:29:53.921)
Yep. He didn’t.

Graeme (01:29:55.018)
have an influence on the ending. But instead, no, he didn’t show up. And Travis Scott did and took about six minutes to get to the ring.

James Moorehead (01:30:07.275)
Yeah, it was ridiculous. We knew Cena was going to win that match and go on to do whatever he was going to do. And I remember sitting there with Charlie, my girlfriend. We were watching it and we knew what was going to happen. And then we heard Travis Scott’s music hit and we were like, it’s happening. This is going to be the rock. And we just felt so flat afterwards. We were like, what was that? We were both just like, that was one of the worst.

Graeme (01:30:10.168)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:30:17.654)
and reward. Good luck!

James Moorehead (01:30:37.645)
She’s only recently got interested in the last couple years because of me and that, but she loves it. I mean she was like, that was dreadful, that was awful, really bad.

Graeme (01:30:47.788)
Mm-hmm. And it left that whole event on a total downer because it had been a pretty good event.

James Moorehead (01:30:58.028)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:30:59.63)
but further to be absolutely nothing else from The Rock after, you know, he demanded Cody’s soul, didn’t get it, so pulled the thread on Cena acting as his champion. All it needed was a little bit of follow up.

then we’re going to ruin wrestling because you could even take it back to the once in a lifetime because when I seen his complaints was that rocks a part-timer well guess what you’ve sold your soul you’re now a part-timer we’re part-timers we’re going to ruin wrestling and they could have had a blast with it and Cena he tried he like you say you saw it live what he did he did very well

I liked that he purposely wrestled boring matches during that period. It was very much what it reminded me of was when Cactus Jack in ECW was doing the anti-hardcore stuff and he would shoot someone off the ropes, go for a big move and just to grab a headlock. That sort of thing. was just gonna say. Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:31:54.298)
Mm Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:32:05.985)
Yes, yeah.

James Moorehead (01:32:11.105)
Yeah. Yeah, it was very cleverly done.

Graeme (01:32:17.804)
That’s the sort of thing that I really enjoy when people are just totally messing with what’s expected. But then, well, they had to pivot because they couldn’t have the payoff that it needed.

James Moorehead (01:32:23.094)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:32:33.719)
Yep, they knew they weren’t going to get the Rock back. I mean, you managed to get good matches out of it. You know, you got here, you managed to get the reverse of the pipe bomb with CM Punk. You got the good match out of that. The R-Truth stuff was entertaining. The R-Truth stuff was very entertaining and it was, but you could kind of feel even a month after WrestleMania that the wheels had kind of came off. It wasn’t what people want. It just wasn’t working.

Graeme (01:32:36.194)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:32:45.101)
Yep.

Graeme (01:32:50.69)
Yeah, it was.

James Moorehead (01:33:02.973)
I think it’s part of it part of it is because yes we wanted John Cena to turn heel but did we at that point did we actually want it anymore we we always thought well what if it’s like well nah he’s a career baby face now we didn’t actually want it but if it had that extra level like you say the rocks involvement then maybe it could have been better I don’t know

Graeme (01:33:30.35)
I think if he had done what, you know, if there hadn’t been the rock involvement at all and there had been some sort of, you know, this is my last year, I’m taking it back to what got me to the top, you know, bringing back the doctor of thuganomics, throw up the double horns, bring back what life is music, etc. Then we would all have bought into it hugely because

James Moorehead (01:33:47.849)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Graeme (01:33:58.094)
Ultimately it’s a show that rewards you for nostalgia. Especially in its current guise, Duh-wee Duh-wee is all about nostalgia. That’s why we’re always bringing back stars from the past. Let’s have a look at what they used to be. That was brilliant. Look, don’t you wish you had something as good as that? We would all have bought into it because we are now the late 30s, early 40s guys who remember that from when we were in our 20s, late teens, early 20s.

James Moorehead (01:34:01.74)
Yes.

Graeme (01:34:28.64)
and there’s huge money to be made out of nostalgia. So I think it would have worked. I think with better creative, what they gave us could have worked, but we needed the rock to be there for part of it. And he didn’t give us that.

James Moorehead (01:34:31.885)
Yep. 100%.

James Moorehead (01:34:45.079)
Yeah. No. 100%. It’s… It is… It sounds so ridiculous to say it, but I think it is purely his fault. It just didn’t pan out as well as it could have done. For whatever reason. Also, the involvement Travis Scott was ludicrous. I’m just going to put that out there. He never looked right in there. Celebrity involvement in wrestling is always awkward. I’m going to go back to your Ready to Rumble example.

Graeme (01:35:05.678)
Thank

Nope.

James Moorehead (01:35:13.879)
David Arquette had no place being a WCW champion, spoiler warning. But some celebrities, some wrestlers, some celebrities do work. Bad Bunny has worked, Jelly Roll has worked.

Cal MacD (01:35:19.29)
you

Graeme (01:35:22.05)
He had more place than Travis Scott.

Graeme (01:35:27.15)
Bad Bunny, Stephen Amell, Arl

James Moorehead (01:35:32.171)
Yeah. Yep.

Graeme (01:35:36.366)
Yes, all. Cal, have you seen Shatner sings WWE Superstars theme tunes? Right, I’ll send it to you later. yeah. It’s totally worth it. I do actually.

James Moorehead (01:35:36.577)
William Schatner.

Cal MacD (01:35:44.642)
No, no, this sounds incredible.

James Moorehead (01:35:45.633)
You need to.

Cal MacD (01:35:49.25)
Okay.

Cal MacD (01:35:53.432)
It sounds like it would enrich my life significantly having heard it.

Graeme (01:35:56.238)
I’m so tempted to spoil certain ones for you but I’m not going to it’s just yeah it’s everything you imagine it would be yeah

James Moorehead (01:36:04.683)
It’s William Jopner.

Graeme (01:36:08.972)
and it’s Jim Johnson theme songs, so they’re good.

Cal MacD (01:36:14.755)
rank up there with that letter B cover you sent me a few weeks ago.

Graeme (01:36:18.604)
yes. It might even talk like in some ways.

Cal MacD (01:36:23.789)
Okay.

Graeme (01:36:25.964)
Yeah, I think I actually have quite a lot of respect for the way that they reset the John Cena thing in the lead up to the rematch with Cody where

James Moorehead (01:36:35.307)
Yes.

James Moorehead (01:36:39.02)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:36:41.26)
You know, they acknowledged that that wasn’t me. I was doing a bit, basically. And they didn’t try and wreck on it in some sort of, well, you know the way they would have five years ago.

James Moorehead (01:36:47.233)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:36:58.157)
Yeah and I’m pivoting back, it was a smart move.

Graeme (01:36:58.456)
Did you think… Yeah. Did you think he was going to get the Grand Slam? When he went for the IC title.

James Moorehead (01:37:07.917)
Do know what? A part of me didn’t think so. Genuinely. Because I just thought it was so close to his final retirement day. And I thought, well he’s already had one title. I didn’t think they were going to, I thought they were actually going to put Dominic over like that. Because I think, I don’t know, Dominic had done so well. But on the flip side, when they had done the rematch, I thought Dominic’s going to get it back.

Graeme (01:37:12.61)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:37:26.574)
So did I.

Graeme (01:37:37.506)
Yeah, absolutely. like I earlier, think Dominic lost but in the same way as seeing a loss to Kurt Angle, he came out of it looking even better than he already did going in it and Dominic had looked amazing. And that’s kind of brought us pretty much right up to date. So.

James Moorehead (01:37:48.405)
Yep. Yes.

James Moorehead (01:37:58.859)
Yep, to what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Graeme (01:38:04.29)
You’ve got the man who hasn’t tapped out apart from two Kurt Angle, I think. Was there anybody else? Did Ben Wamecom tap?

James Moorehead (01:38:11.725)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:38:16.813)
I can’t remember. I don’t know, actually.

Graeme (01:38:22.286)
But we’re talking someone who hasn’t tapped out in probably 20 years.

James Moorehead (01:38:26.573)
Yep. Four times apparently he has. Yep. He has not tapped out in 21 years. It seems.

Graeme (01:38:27.882)
against four. When was the last one? There we go. So it was the early days of his career.

Graeme (01:38:42.894)
The Dying Goat Penemon

James Moorehead (01:38:45.975)
Think angle tap them.

Graeme (01:38:49.128)
So yeah, but I’m thinking and for me I would like to see his career end the way it started. I would like to see him tap out and especially because Gunther is one of my absolute favorites on the roster to watch. This is a man who I don’t think he’s capable of having a bad match.

James Moorehead (01:38:49.495)
but it’s cut at angle, so…

James Moorehead (01:39:10.561)
Yes.

James Moorehead (01:39:15.755)
No, absolutely.

Graeme (01:39:17.518)
And one of the things I like about him is yes he has a powerbomb, yes he has a big splash, yes he has a sleeper, naked choke. He will use whatever to beat people, he makes it look like a fight. And did you see he had a little bit of a side swipe at Goldberg? In the press, it might not have been today, there was an interview with one of the New York papers I think.

James Moorehead (01:39:36.937)
No, I didn’t see that.

Graeme (01:39:45.698)
they asked him what his expectations were for the match. said, well, you know, I had a good match with Goldberg, but I’m expecting much more things tomorrow with Cena because let’s face it, he’s a much better wrestler and I think we can do a lot more things together. He’s not wrong.

James Moorehead (01:39:48.716)
Mm.

James Moorehead (01:39:56.813)
You

James Moorehead (01:40:01.518)
I mean…

he’s not wrong at all gunter’s clearly been chatting a lot to brit heart though hadn’t he taking swipes at gordberg he loves him yeah i think sena taps i think sena taps to gunter i think it makes gunter look like an absolute beast it like say it brings it full circle on his career i think you know it’s the ultimate

Graeme (01:40:10.414)
That’s his favorite wrestler.

James Moorehead (01:40:32.649)
I’m putting you over, I’m going out on my back, facing the lights. I think Cena’s a traditionalist when it comes down to it. He, you know, he sees the value in it and he, at the end of the day, Cena, Cena doesn’t lose anything by tapping out. No one’s gonna, if Cena came back next year, no one’s gonna look at him and go, he’s the guy who tapped out a gun. They’re gonna go, that’s John Cena. He could beat anyone. You know.

Graeme (01:40:52.94)
No. Yeah. Yeah.

So the question I think we should probably end on is about his legacy. We’ve seen a lot on TV that they’re outright calling John Cena the Goat. Is he?

James Moorehead (01:41:05.217)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:41:19.149)
Ooh, we’re fighting a battle here between what my heart says and what is an objective truth. If we’re talking objectively, he is certainly up there.

Graeme (01:41:22.637)
Yep.

Graeme (01:41:31.991)
Yep.

James Moorehead (01:41:33.673)
he I don’t think he reaches the he doesn’t quite reach the peak of Stone Cold Steve Austin for me because Stone Cold is one of my all-time favorites you know he is the actual leader for me and I you know I think CM Punk is one of my favorites as well and Undertaker but if we’re talking objectively for what he’s done for the industry for the bridges he has built for the industry he has

Graeme (01:41:43.362)
Yep. We are that age.

Graeme (01:41:52.248)
Mm-hmm.

James Moorehead (01:42:03.821)
how do he’s got a reach people around the world know who John Cena is he’s a draw people come to see John Cena if you’re talking his stats he has wrestled a hell of a lot of obviously it’s scripted but you know we’re going in he’s won he’s held titles he’s drew money while holding titles he’s shown flexibility of his character he connects with the fans yeah objectively

Graeme (01:42:08.333)
Yep.

James Moorehead (01:42:33.065)
He probably is. I don’t think he’s had the benefit of an era like Hulk Hogan or Austin has, but he had to carry WWE Jew in some of its darker times and I think he managed to keep it afloat better than the likes of a Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels were able to do.

Graeme (01:42:53.816)
you’re in a new generation yeah I think it’s in a lot of ways it’s hard to argue against him being the god we haven’t even mentioned and yes okay scripted we haven’t even mentioned that his last world title was his 17th which takes him past the flare number which yeah that there you go I mean for Triple H to book that as well for someone who is such a traditionalist

James Moorehead (01:43:09.151)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

James Moorehead (01:43:18.657)
Yes.

Graeme (01:43:24.728)
That’s saying something. He’s had a longer run than Hogan did. He’s had a longer run than Austin did. He’s had a longer run at the top than Flare did, Dusty, Sting. He’s transcended the business. His charity work alone puts him in all time top 10 humans, I think.

James Moorehead (01:43:51.125)
is at a number one rap album.

Graeme (01:43:52.736)
He has had a number one rap album and it’s not awful. Nobody did have a song about him on Randy Savage’s… Yeah, be a man, Hogan.

James Moorehead (01:43:56.257)
No. Hulk Hogan never had a rap album.

James Moorehead (01:44:02.806)
Yeah, Macho Man had a rap album.

I love the macho man Randy Savage but what were you doing lad? Come on. Yeah it’s hard, why are you against it?

Graeme (01:44:10.432)
Yep.

I mean, us fans in general who are on the internet talking about wrestling, we tend to put a lot of stock into things. We spoke about this a bit earlier, but we put a lot of stock into things like moves and work rate and tangibles really.

James Moorehead (01:44:36.555)
Yeah, we dig into the art form.

Graeme (01:44:39.03)
Yeah, but when it comes right down to it, it’s those intangibles, the ability to connect with an audience. I think it was Jake’s Hall of Fame speech where said, what we do is fucking with people’s emotions. And that part and just generally being entertaining with whatever you’re given. We know that WWE is aimed at families, it always has been. And for

Certainly 20 of the last 23 years Cena has consistently been the white meat babyface, updated hero, the one that they want the kids to cheer, get behind, t-shirts in every colour, caps in every colour, wristbands, foam fingers, the total merch machine behind them. We’re older, we’re jaded and want anti-heroes. mean you said yourself Steve Austin and CM Punk, are there any bigger anti-heroes in wrestling? Two of my absolute favourites.

James Moorehead (01:45:34.101)
So not, yeah.

Graeme (01:45:36.034)
But what gets you hooked as a little kid is that white meat, good guy, baby face who stands up for what’s right and drinks his milk, says his prayers, takes his vitamins, etc. He’s never gonna be in my top 10 of wrestlers I want to watch. But objectively, he probably is the best to-

do it consistently at that level.

James Moorehead (01:46:06.775)
Yeah. Yeah.

Graeme (01:46:10.132)
And regardless of what happens tomorrow night, that’s not going to change. Like you said, he could come back next year for thrice in a lifetime and we would all be behind Seah, 100%.

James Moorehead (01:46:10.637)
100 %

James Moorehead (01:46:24.013)
Yeah, we would. Which begs the question, does the rock come back tomorrow night and interfere and make it fray some lifetime? No, he doesn’t. doesn’t. Go on, no.

Graeme (01:46:30.648)
you

Graeme (01:46:35.182)
Goldberg does. Goldberg gets his proper send off on Saturday night, his main event, without being cut off to commercial.

James Moorehead (01:46:43.703)
Goldberg comes out but gets clubbed by Bret Hart.

Graeme (01:46:46.114)
by Bret Hart and it ends with a STFU slash sharpshooter combo somehow on Goldberg.

James Moorehead (01:46:54.005)
Yeah, while Tyson Fury and Drew McIntyre sing Oasis songs.

Graeme (01:47:00.568)
No!

James Moorehead (01:47:02.701)
It’s gone off the rails.

Cal MacD (01:47:06.189)
Yep. Right. Yes, nearly two hours. I was wondering, are they going to beat the Stranger Things record that myself and Kieran set or not?

Graeme (01:47:06.254)
And apparently it’s been nearly two hours.

Graeme (01:47:16.578)
How long was that?

James Moorehead (01:47:16.589)
I mean to be fair, it’s a 21 year, 22 year career so…

Cal MacD (01:47:19.769)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, myself and Kato’s two and a half hours we spoke about stranger things for. So that’s the kind of…

Graeme (01:47:20.515)
Yeah.

Graeme (01:47:26.41)
I mean, if you want, can dig into his movies, his rap album.

Cal MacD (01:47:32.025)
Well, I think we’ll finish off. And these are the words. I think Heather nearly quit old cast when she heard me these words at the end of the supernatural one. You know I like to do quizzes, Graham. So the look on Heather’s face when I said that she was going, oh no.

Graeme (01:47:43.436)
Yes, I know you like to do quizzes.

Graeme (01:47:49.142)
And I never thought about this before. I’ve been busy. I don’t have time to study.

Cal MacD (01:47:51.962)
Yes. A little bit of background. You know about Okon, a lovely little convention here. Well, on the night before Okon, we have a lovely little quiz. It’s a nice straightforward quiz. Doesn’t cause anyone any issues, does it, Grimm? It’s not like I write this quiz and I feel a whole audience upheap. I become the heel suddenly. It’s not us.

James Moorehead (01:47:58.764)
Yeah, yeah.

Graeme (01:48:09.494)
No, but it’s remarkably straightforward.

James Moorehead (01:48:19.722)
no.

Cal MacD (01:48:21.335)
Like, I have had some dirty looks at the end of the night.

James Moorehead (01:48:24.597)
I’m scared now.

Graeme (01:48:24.736)
In terms of this quiz, in terms of the Okon quiz, is pretty much the JBL. He knows people are going to help him, he leans into it and he does it with a shit-eating grin.

James Moorehead (01:48:32.512)
Right.

Cal MacD (01:48:32.697)
You

Cal MacD (01:48:36.152)
Yes.

Yes, and I think I ratcheted up. It gets worse and worse as the night goes on because when I reached translations around this year, you guys were raging with me, I think. Just ten quick questions about John Cena. Just shout out the answers. So in OVW, Cena wrestled under a different ring name before joining WWE. What was it?

Graeme (01:48:44.078)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (01:48:51.8)
somewhere.

James Moorehead (01:48:57.429)
god. I’m gonna get all of these wrong.

Graeme (01:49:07.768)
prototype. We talked about it.

James Moorehead (01:49:08.211)
the prototype.

Cal MacD (01:49:09.753)
Yep, guys might do alright with this. Cena’s first televised WWE match was against Kurt Angle in 2002. What famous phrase did Kurt Angle ask him before the match, prompting Cena to say, ruthless aggression?

James Moorehead (01:49:12.225)
One out of 10.

James Moorehead (01:49:28.245)
gods!

Cal MacD (01:49:30.573)
What was it Kurt Angle said to him to make him save it?

James Moorehead (01:49:31.885)
Oh, it was something on the lines of any of you in the bar. Oh, no, I’m thinking of I’m thinking of when he made his debut against when Taz made his debut against him. Yeah, it’s what you’re going to say Graham.

Graeme (01:49:33.875)
What do you have that makes you think?

Graeme (01:49:44.814)
It’s something along the lines of what makes you think you’ve got what it takes to go toe to toe with the best in the world. Something along those lines.

Cal MacD (01:49:55.396)
yeah, I’ll give you that. What makes you think you have what it takes to face me? Is the exact same.

Graeme (01:50:02.926)
I’ll take it.

James Moorehead (01:50:03.243)
Yours is better, Graham, actually.

Graeme (01:50:06.286)
So I should be on the creative team.

James Moorehead (01:50:08.182)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:50:09.621)
Okay, at WrestleMania 22, Cena defended WWE Championship against Triple H. What unique entrance did Cena use for that match?

Graeme (01:50:09.729)
be should come.

Graeme (01:50:24.686)
Me too.

James Moorehead (01:50:26.253)
James Moorehead (01:50:30.721)
This one, god, 22.

James Moorehead (01:50:37.428)
I can’t remember that at all.

Graeme (01:50:39.598)
21 was the gangster car, 22…

Graeme (01:50:46.754)
Was it the Army of John Cenas? The lookalikes.

Cal MacD (01:50:50.221)
No, no, your first answer was actually right. 22 is the gangster car.

James Moorehead (01:50:55.917)
was 22 of the gangsters!

Graeme (01:50:58.754)
Was it? I thought I’m sure that was the JBL match. But happy to be…

James Moorehead (01:51:05.549)
He might not have had any gimmick for that one.

Cal MacD (01:51:06.36)
Okay,

Okay, I don’t know about this one. Seeing this rap album, you can’t see me feature a track with his cousin, Tha Tredermark, am I saying that? What is his cousin’s real name?

Graeme (01:51:23.821)
Mark Sina.

James Moorehead (01:51:26.067)
Edward Cena.

Cal MacD (01:51:26.627)
Nope. Nope. Mark Predica. Mark Predica. You’re almost there.

Graeme (01:51:29.366)
lunch, you know. Okay.

James Moorehead (01:51:33.148)
tip of my tongue.

Cal MacD (01:51:35.193)
Okay, Cena’s first Royal Rumble victory came in 2008. Who was the last man he eliminated?

James Moorehead (01:51:42.061)
Batista.

Graeme (01:51:43.682)
Yeah, no that was 2005.

James Moorehead (01:51:46.451)
Was that too far? Did he not win it in too far away?

Graeme (01:51:52.098)
He won 2005 E-Bitista.

Graeme (01:51:57.582)
2008 would be.

Graeme (01:52:02.616)
Make sure.

James Moorehead (01:52:02.776)
Hmm.

edge? of course, too far in there yeah.

Cal MacD (01:52:07.459)
Thanks for watching.

Graeme (01:52:09.174)
Of course it was.

Cal MacD (01:52:13.067)
Okay, in 2011, Sino was forced to join the Nexus after losing a match. Who defeated him to enforce that stipulation?

Graeme (01:52:21.155)
We bought it.

James Moorehead (01:52:22.209)
Yeah, word borrow.

Cal MacD (01:52:22.871)
Yep. Number seven, Cena’s 2013 SummerSlam match against Daniel Bryan was refereed by a legendary wrestler. Who was it?

James Moorehead (01:52:34.177)
That was Triple H.

Graeme (01:52:35.918)
Yep.

Cal MacD (01:52:36.557)
Yes, that was, think every second answer’s been triple H.

Graeme (01:52:42.156)
And as well we-

James Moorehead (01:52:42.189)
Triple H likes to be second answer.

Graeme (01:52:45.15)
Yeah and we never even touched on Randy Orton who was his other all-time opponent.

Cal MacD (01:52:45.185)
Yes, like he’s already he just

Cal MacD (01:52:51.555)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:52:51.741)
my god, yeah, mean, Randy was again one of the greats.

Cal MacD (01:52:56.299)
Okay.

Okay, number eight, Cena has appeared in multiple Scooby-Doo crossover films. In Scooby-Doo WrestleMania mystery, what supernatural does he oppose or does he help the gang fight?

Graeme (01:53:15.352)
Frankenstein.

Cal MacD (01:53:15.405)
This is gay, yeah. No.

James Moorehead (01:53:17.357)
Hulk Hogan’s wig.

Cal MacD (01:53:22.091)
No, it’s just a ghost bear. was something he was…

Cal MacD (01:53:29.273)
Alright, I think you’ll get this one. C does never give up Motu. It is tied to his charity work. In 2015 he set a Guinness World Record with Make-A-Wish. What was the milestone?

James Moorehead (01:53:39.615)
It was the most wishes granted, wasn’t it? It was like…

Graeme (01:53:42.094)
Yep. So like 600 and something.

Cal MacD (01:53:42.521)
Yeah, it was 500 at the time. yeah, it was 650. He’s done over 650, isn’t it?

James Moorehead (01:53:46.157)
Was it 500? Yeah.

Graeme (01:53:50.71)
Yeah, I know he’s over 600 odd now.

James Moorehead (01:53:52.087)
Jeez.

Cal MacD (01:53:55.211)
Okay, last one. Serious feud with CM Punk peaked at Money in the Bank 2011. Punk left the arena with a WWE Championship. What city did this match take place in?

James Moorehead (01:54:08.032)
It was Chicago.

Graeme (01:54:08.12)
Chicago.

Cal MacD (01:54:09.817)
Yes, there you go. See, it wasn’t too bad, Graham, was it? That’s one of my better ones. Watch back the supernatural one. And when I mentioned the word quiz, just look at Heather’s reaction. It’s taken so long for her to get on OKCAST, and I think I almost made a runaway at that point.

Graeme (01:54:12.908)
No, that was good.

James Moorehead (01:54:15.575)
That was alright, yeah.

James Moorehead (01:54:24.48)
You

James Moorehead (01:54:30.327)
Hahaha

Cal MacD (01:54:33.625)
Excuse me.

Graeme (01:54:34.67)
So before we finish, do we have time just to briefly mention Kenny’s question? Because was something he was going to ask. So Kenny had messaged into the host chat earlier just to say that basically, what do you think would have happened if after Ready to Rumble, Cena had signed with WCW instead of WWE? Do you think his career would have had the same trajectory?

Cal MacD (01:54:43.563)
Yeah, yes.

Graeme (01:55:07.914)
I agree entirely.

James Moorehead (01:55:10.765)
think so because I think he would have got lost in the shuffle of whatever happened when they took on all them WCW people and he probably would have ended up going to like the likes of TNA or something like that. That said, seeing as the sort of person who seems to have that sort of determination to make something of himself

Graeme (01:55:32.044)
He’d have got there, but for me he wouldn’t have reached, he might have reached the heights eventually, but he certainly wouldn’t have reached them as quickly. He would have been about 20, I think, when he was in Ready to Rumble. Now, it’s still a few years later before AJ Styles was in WCW and he was there when they sold to WWE and he was barely used despite being.

James Moorehead (01:55:41.666)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:55:47.275)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:55:53.825)
Mmm.

Graeme (01:56:01.482)
AJ Styles. mean within a couple of years he was already the rising star of TNA. I think if he had been bought as part of the WCW deal he would have went the same way as above average Mike Sanders or what’s his name? Jindrak and O’Hare. would have been

James Moorehead (01:56:10.007)
Yep.

James Moorehead (01:56:22.518)
Hmm.

Graeme (01:56:30.784)
it would have had some features that they’d never have gotten behind them.

and yeah, he would end up in TNA, he would have, and not the good period of TNA either.

James Moorehead (01:56:43.573)
I think part of it as well is it was that trip to Ohio Valley Wrestling that helped season him and he was there with Randy Orton, Batista, Brock Lesnar and Jim Cornette helping to steer him. He wouldn’t have had that seasoning.

Graeme (01:56:59.214)
And despite how poorly they came across on WWE TV guys like Doug Basham, Damager, what’s his name, he played Eugene Nick Dinsmore. All of whom were really sort of, I was of that age where I followed the dirt sheets and would spend hours downloading single matches off of.

James Moorehead (01:57:06.391)
you

James Moorehead (01:57:09.973)
yes.

Graeme (01:57:22.85)
Kazaa or Linemeyer or something. So you’d read about these guys and RSPW and stuff and try and get in. They were very, very good wrestlers. But then they came in and they were, additional support needs and a pair of submissives managed by Dominatrix. And yeah, no.

James Moorehead (01:57:27.158)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:57:47.093)
Yes. Not the best gimmicks to be given.

Graeme (01:57:52.204)
especially in the family friendly era.

James Moorehead (01:57:54.805)
Hmm, some of them may be borderline offensive you could argue. Wrestling gonna wrestling.

Graeme (01:57:57.806)
However, yeah and without Eugene we wouldn’t have had the Regal promo. The Regal promo.

James Moorehead (01:58:07.954)
yes.

I know which one you mean, that is amazing.

Graeme (01:58:14.444)
keep that for a regal special when he gets inducted to the Hall of Fame.

James Moorehead (01:58:16.845)
Yes.

Graeme (01:58:20.204)
That will be the longest episode you ever have, Cal.

James Moorehead (01:58:23.085)
Thanks

Cal MacD (01:58:23.513)
Alright, I thought it would be like, say, if we want to talk about awful things Hulk Hogan’s done or something like that, that could be quite a lengthy one, couldn’t it? What’s everything? Just everything he’s ever done. Yeah. Or we could just do a show about Vince and we could, I think we’d be there for all weekend, would we, going on about Vince, would we?

Graeme (01:58:30.337)
all of them.

James Moorehead (01:58:32.333)
It’s not enough… Not enough time.

Graeme (01:58:33.56)
Just everything.

Yeah.

Graeme (01:58:43.862)
Behind the bastards did it well.

Cal MacD (01:58:46.635)
Yeah, we can repeat a classic like that.

Graeme (01:58:49.558)
Yeah, and the Lapsed Fam did the other big distasteful subject over three episodes which we couldn’t touch what they did. It was difficult to listen to but also handled perfectly.

Cal MacD (01:59:03.127)
Yeah. And with that, there was one last trivia question, but it’s just for James, can we ask this of all our guests, would you ever consider coming up to Ocon? Have you ever got the chance? yeah, we’d more than welcome you.

James Moorehead (01:59:13.011)
Absolutely, yeah, it’d be fantastic to experience somewhere a bit different as well.

Cal MacD (01:59:18.677)
Yeah, it’s a nice wee community convention. You probably heard Rob go on about it plenty in the chat, about the time he had. It was great having him. But thanks for coming along, James. I’m sure we’re going to see you again. I think you’d like to come back on and talk about wrestling for hours with you.

Graeme (01:59:18.989)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (01:59:20.844)
Mmm.

James Moorehead (01:59:24.394)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you very much for having me.

James Moorehead (01:59:36.705)
You know what, wrestling and retro games are my main thing. So if you have a retro gaming special.

Cal MacD (01:59:40.377)
Ooh.

Well, we did a few weeks ago when we had, I think we had Howard Scott Warshaw on, but you weren’t available that night, I did ask, and you were like, man, I think you said you were giving it. But, I can tell you this, very soon we’re giving away this in a prize draw. yeah, signed by the man himself. So keep your eyes peeled, there’s gonna be an announcement soon about how you can win that book.

Graeme (01:59:44.041)
is you hook up a heroin.

James Moorehead (01:59:49.417)
Mmm. Yeah.

James Moorehead (02:00:00.622)
interesting. nice.

Yeah.

Absolutely keep an eye out for that.

Cal MacD (02:00:14.337)
Thank All right. And thank you, Graeme, for coming along as well. And to everyone, if you’ve enjoyed that, like, listen, subscribe, leave us a review, helps us get up on the algorithm. And with that, that’s our last recorded show of the year. It’s not going to be the last one that goes out this year, but it’s been a good year, Graeme. think we’ve done quite well this year with the podcast.

Graeme (02:00:35.764)
It certainly seems to have. I’m only recently joined, but it’s been a pleasure to listen to earlier in the year. And then getting involved has been amazing.

Cal MacD (02:00:45.761)
Yeah, and you kind of just got roped in the same way I think everyone does. You’re yeah, I might do it. And then you’re just like, get on now. You’re like, what? And you just throw it in the deep end. That’s what we do to everyone.

Graeme (02:00:50.424)
Yeah.

Graeme (02:00:57.004)
Yeah, you like this thing, come and talk about it. OK.

James Moorehead (02:01:02.797)
I’m joking.

Cal MacD (02:01:03.673)
That’s basically my audition process for this. But again, thanks everyone for tuning in. We’ll be back. So I think the next Hebridean Hammerlock is scheduled for Rumble weekend. So James, you’re up for that. Because I think we’re going to do a preview episode on a Friday and then a follow up on the Sunday or Monday night depending on the schedules. So you can talk about what’s going on and all that.

Graeme (02:01:15.424)
Yeah, yeah, we’re plundered.

James Moorehead (02:01:17.782)
I will make sure I clear my schedule.

James Moorehead (02:01:25.538)
Okay.

Graeme (02:01:26.626)
Yeah.

James Moorehead (02:01:29.985)
Mm-hmm.

Graeme (02:01:30.284)
I’ll throw it out there if anyone’s awake enough we can do a live watch along

James Moorehead (02:01:34.733)
Yeah.

Graeme (02:01:36.682)
It might just need to go out with a higher parental rating on it because yes, we’ve dropped a couple. Yes, is. it wouldn’t be as late, but might need extra.

Cal MacD (02:01:37.689)
We could have.

James Moorehead (02:01:42.399)
It’s in Saudi this year, next year, I’m pretty sure.

Cal MacD (02:01:45.817)
Yeah, well, I think it’s on five or six o’clock in the evening or something here. So yeah, yeah, you know, watch along might not actually be so unfeasible this time.

Graeme (02:01:53.442)
Yeah. Yeah.

Graeme (02:02:01.954)
But yeah, thank you for coming on James. Absolute pleasure and enjoy.

Cal MacD (02:02:02.904)
Anyway.

James Moorehead (02:02:05.389)
Thank you very much for having me.

Cal MacD (02:02:08.116)
no problem, it’s been our pleasure. And with that, good night everyone and Happy Crappy Christmas and New Year when it comes.