Aug 18, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min · 27 segments
Solomonster reacts to the final faceoff between CM Punk and Kevin Owens ahead of their championship match, then discusses the date of the next Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton match and why it’s going to…
Jason SolomonHost
Let's take it back to Friday because there was a big face-to-face between CM Punk and Kevin Owens because they're having a WWE Championship match on SmackDown this Friday in Toronto.
I mean, he's gonna be the, uh, the returning hero here because the last time we saw Kevin Owens in a match in Toronto was actually against Sami Zayn at the Elimination Chamber last year, and that was his last m- u- up until Summer Slam just recently, that was his last match, uh, certainly last singles match in WWE.
They went face to face, and what we got out of it was something that I was actually hoping we would get between Cody and Punk heading into Summer Slam, something that was a little more heated, and that came off as very flat and very forced, you know, when they tried to force this, uh, you know, uh, rift or whatever you wanna say between the two of them.
Just some of the stuff that they were doing, it just didn't feel terribly interesting.
With Punk and Owens, they have never wrestled before, but there is history going back to their days in the Ring of Honor locker room back in 2005.
I think I talked about this a few weeks ago, and so sure enough, it came up in the promo on Friday.
They, they told a, an abbreviated version of the T-shirt story, the infamous T-shirt story.
And, I mean, the gist of it is that Kevin Owens was still very new to Ring of Honor.
And I guess Gabe Sapolsky, the booker at the time, had asked him previously, you know, "Don't wear the shirt.
We don't want anybody wearing sh- T-shirts when they go out to the ring to wrestle." And on this particular night, he, he was hoping to wear a shirt, and he got it cleared with Gabe.
Gabe's like, "Fine, you can wear a shirt." And when he got there, he ended up not wearing a shirt.
He chose, he just decided, "You know what? I'm not gonna wear the shirt." But I guess word of this got back to Punk, right? Gabe and Punk were very tight.
I guess the two of them maybe had, uh, you know, traded some friendly barbs earlier.
The first person he sees is Punk, and he says to Punk, "Are you happy now?" But he says, you know, he, he didn't mean it as, like, anything confrontational.
Let's take it back to Friday because there was a big face-to-face between CM Punk and Kevin Owens because they're having a WWE Championship match on SmackDown this Friday in Toronto.
I mean, he's gonna be the, uh, the returning hero here because the last time we saw Kevin Owens in a match in Toronto was actually against Sami Zayn at the Elimination Chamber last year, and that was his last m- u- up until Summer Slam just recently, that was his last match, uh, certainly last singles match in WWE.
They went face to face, and what we got out of it was something that I was actually hoping we would get between Cody and Punk heading into Summer Slam, something that was a little more heated, and that came off as very flat and very forced, you know, when they tried to force this, uh, you know, uh, rift or whatever you wanna say between the two of them.
Just some of the stuff that they were doing, it just didn't feel terribly interesting.
With Punk and Owens, they have never wrestled before, but there is history going back to their days in the Ring of Honor locker room back in 2005.
I think I talked about this a few weeks ago, and so sure enough, it came up in the promo on Friday.
They, they told a, an abbreviated version of the T-shirt story, the infamous T-shirt story.
And, I mean, the gist of it is that Kevin Owens was still very new to Ring of Honor.
And I guess Gabe Sapolsky, the booker at the time, had asked him previously, you know, "Don't wear the shirt.
We don't want anybody wearing sh- T-shirts when they go out to the ring to wrestle." And on this particular night, he, he was hoping to wear a shirt, and he got it cleared with Gabe.
Gabe's like, "Fine, you can wear a shirt." And when he got there, he ended up not wearing a shirt.
He chose, he just decided, "You know what? I'm not gonna wear the shirt." But I guess word of this got back to Punk, right? Gabe and Punk were very tight.
I guess the two of them maybe had, uh, you know, traded some friendly barbs earlier.
The first person he sees is Punk, and he says to Punk, "Are you happy now?" But he says, you know, he, he didn't mean it as, like, anything confrontational.
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