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Welcome to Wrestling Tonight, with your hosts Acefield Retro and Chad.

We open Episode 155 with the defining image of the week: Gunther standing tall as John Cena taps out in the final match of his WWE career. What should have been a shared emotional release instead became a revealing moment about WWE's creative posture, as Saturday Night's Main Event exposed the company's increasingly adversarial relationship with its audience.

The result wasn't the issue. Gunther is already a made man, and his credibility never hinged on retiring Cena. The friction came from the framing. The show was presented as a celebration, yet paced like Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. By the time Cena escaped the sleeper once and Gunther reapplied it, the atmosphere didn't crest into catharsis. It stalled.

That disconnect sharpened during the post-match ceremony. WWE rushed into pageantry — roster surrounding the ring, titles presented, tribute video cued — without letting the building settle. The reaction made clear the audience understood exactly what kind of ending they'd been handed. We break down why the finish felt less organic than corrective, and contrast it with Sting's retirement in AEW, which showed how patience and alignment can create a farewell that feels complete.

From there, we pivot to AEW's Continental Classic, where Dynamite delivered real movement. "Speedball" Mike Bailey stunned Kyle Fletcher, Kazuchika Okada handled Jack Perry, and Claudio Castagnoli and Konosuke Takeshita fought to a punishing time-limit draw that reinforced the Classic as AEW's most sports-driven concept.

We then hit an Observer-style business and schedule corner, breaking down AEW's crowded December — early U.K. Collision, a three-hour Manchester Dynamite with $1 million at stake, a tight Worlds End promotional window — before flipping to WWE's business side: Royal Rumble demand, archive strategy, NXT PLE timing, and mid-December pre-taping.

We close with a look ahead at a loaded week across the industry, from Holiday Bash and the Continental Classic to Impact's cage chaos, SmackDown's continued Cena fallout, NXT's road to New Year's Evil, and a packed runway toward Worlds End, Wrestle Kingdom, the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and WrestleMania 42.

This is Episode 155 of Wrestling Tonight — where the moments matter, the context counts, and the conversation goes deeper than the finish

The week we are joined by Tanner from Kicking Out Pod and Travis from Wicked Bitter! Join us as we ask has modern wrestling shifted too far toward an athletic focus and away from storytelling, or is that necessary to keep the industry moving forward and alive; what is more likely to happen- LA Knight becoming world champion or going to AEW; and if you had the pencil, who would be the next 4 AEW men's world champions? It's going to be a fun week here at The Tavern, so to make sure you do not miss anything, go to patreon.com/theturnbuckletavern for all your Tavern needs!