Verbal Tap Podcast

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 93 - 5/8/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

There we go. I respect it.

Ok, how bout Saudi Arabia gets Night 1 of Mania. And New Orleans gets Night 2. Night 1 was all corporate interests and product placement. Night 2 was actually good.

When you bet a lot of money that you’d beat your nephew in a race

Getting to the dance floor when “Back That Azz Up” plays at a wedding.

Randy giving Pat McAfee his blessing to take his place in the main event vs. Cody

“he (pat) knows how to do a promo, too” “🤨 does he? he’s standing there, doing fart jokes, and wrestlemania catchphrases, yelling ‘WHAT’ at a bunch of kids who don’t even remember ‘WHAT’” GET HIS ASS CODY!!

Happy Easter!

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 88 - 3/13/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 87 - 3/6/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 86 - 2/27/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Watch along with our show rn. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

They really got Bob The Drag Queen looking like a missing member of the Dudley Boyz on this Traitors after show.

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 82 - 1/23/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

THE BULLPEN with TIM FREEMAN and RAF ESPARZA (Episode 81 - 1/16/26) x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

You’ve gotta give it to… Here’s the thing: you don’t.

We need the fed (IBJJF) to take the blue belts that quit our of circulation so that we can reignite the belt-conomy! #JiuJitsu #BJJ #THEBULLPENLIVE

My overall thought. Right idea. The landing wasn’t quite right. Tapping might have held more significance if the Cody/Mania heel turn Mania wasn’t botched. If he didn’t lose to Lesnar for zero reason. If the John Cena character had never tapped before (he did 4x before his Super Cena rebranding push). Specifically, the 2025 creative decisions came back to haunt the WWE when they wanted to pull the trigger on this story ending. Cena was always going to lose. He respects the business that way. The dubs also fed the storyline to the press. Gunther cut a promo alluding to it. It makes sense. You take the core of the character and you finish that story. John Cena wasn’t playing a character like The Undertaker or Stone Cold. He was John Cena. Post “The Marine,” he was branded as “hustle, loyalty, respect” with an emphasis on “never give up.” So yeah, I can accept a finish that “gives up” if it makes sense. Should he have passed out? No. Too easy and predictable. And frankly a cowardly way to put over the talent, as this tradition is designed to do. A tap is a good choice. Definitive. Forward thinking. But that smile was diabolical tho. 🤣 Cena was trying to sell us a feel-good ending — letting us know that the hero was finally at peace — but those creative missteps this year brought a stunned silence to an audience that was ready to accept headache, not a full-out head scratch. Fans were lucky this wasn’t an “I Quit Match” (in kayfabe, he never lost one of those and it also could have made sense this year since they were playing the greatest hits). However, not every wrestler gets a final match, let alone a final year victory lap (just the insurance alone is insane if you’re a movie star). The real victory is that he got to leave the business healthy and with a groundswell of appreciation and emotion from the fans. That’s the real ending. How would you have booked the ending?

I implore these wrestling fans to take a jiu jitsu class to understand how often people actually tap out. People tap out to less than what Gunther had in the gym all the time lol. 🤣