Building the Perfect Wrestler. Plus, Swerve Strickland Discusses His Evolution at AEW Four Years Later and More!

COLD OPEN QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Five years ago this week was AEW’s exploding barbed wire death match. If WrestleMania had that match, who would you want to see in it (0:30)?

David and Brian open up the mailbag this week, respond to a few questions from the humanoids, and recap highlights from WWE ‘Raw.’

They discuss the following:

• Build a wrestler by picking from the legends' in-ring skills, mic skills, physical look, and signature moves (3:00)

• Brian’s perfect wrestler in MyRISE mode in 'WWE 2K26' (8:40)

• Is CM Punk working heel right now (20:33)?

• Whether or not David was one of the masked men on 'Raw' (50:10)

• Logan Paul’s WrestleMania and whether or not Tom Brady was involved (52:07)

• Oba Femi’s dominant win over Rusev (56:40)

• Cody Rhodes regains the Undisputed WWE Championship, and fans are buying bots to dislike the YouTube video (1:31:20)

Then Ben speaks with AEW superstar Swerve Strickland, and they discuss the following:

• The total number of matches Swerve has had in his career (1:38:35)

• Looking back at his AEW debut four years ago (1:40:39)

• How he's evolved and become physically bigger since his debut (1:46:23)

• Reactions to Kaz’s description of his personality (1:49:34)

• Previewing his match with Brody King at AEW Revolution (1:52:30)

• His viral entrance with Prince Nana (1:57:24)

Be sure to check out our videos on BlueSky, TikTok, Instagram Threads, and X.

Hosts: David Shoemaker, Brian H. Waters, and Ben Cruz

Guest: Swerve Strickland

Producer: Brian H. Waters

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices