Welcome to the ring, it's rich and atom.
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion.
Tag teams grappling, belts are clashing.
Finishes and factions catching action.
Hi, I'm rich.
And hi, I'm Adam.
And this is finishes and factions NXT edition from Orlando, Florida in the performance center.
Yeah, this was the episode that went out on the that was live on the 21st of January and obviously available through Netflix for every but for every
body else.
And I'm going to give a quick pre warning on this my on this particular episode as we do with all of our NXT episodes is that you will find that we don't know a massive amount about the superstars and we will talk about the fact that we've had to sit and research you some of them are it's because we're not terribly as experienced with NXT as we are with both raw and smack down.
It's, it's a bit of a learning curve, but we'll get there. So, yeah, let's jump in.
Yeah, so we had a bit of a recap at the start of previous episodes and and what we were going to expect from this episode.
And then it kind of threw us pretty much straight in at the deep end with them with the first match to be fair.
So there were a few notes before before we start the Eternal War Workhorse South.
Bailey is in attendance in the building for NXT again this week.
And this makes a fifth appearance on televised events in the last in the last justin.
Last five.
Yeah.
I was going to say she's five for five as far as appearances go as we've had her on two rows now to NXT's and a smack down.
I think it's maybe she might have a week.
She might have a day off on on Friday night on Friday night.
Who knows?
The other other small bit of business I'd like to bring I'd love to bring to everybody's attention is that we did have Corey Graves on commentary making it a bit of a three man
booth.
And this sort of caused a I think there was a little bit of controversy maybe around this decision as Corey Graves didn't really seem to appreciate the decision being thrust upon him.
Or at least that was the impression that a lot of people seem to have out in the WWE Universe.
I think mostly led by some of Corey Graves is social media posts.
Yeah, his wife told him to shut the fuck up.
Carmella told him to behave.
And that's pretty much what he's done.
Either that or it's I don't think it's part of a work.
I think it is genuine that he was that he was disappointed to be taken off that he was taken off raw.
I believe it was.
He was taken off raw and essentially saw it as a demotion to go down to NXT and contribute to a three man booth.
I've got a feeling we're still going to see him at PLE events and PLE events may end up may end up being three man booths, as in one from raw one from NXT one from SmackDown, which I think they've done in the past.
And I think this might be the reason why Corey Graves has been has been sent down to NXT that and obviously he was an ex and an ex and XT start himself.
So.
But yeah, and a bit of a break from how WWE seem to have done it since the beginning of the Netflix era.
They jumped straight in with match one this week rather than.
Rather than treating us to about a couple of dozen promos before we get into any real action and.
I've enjoyed it.
100% it was a very refreshing break and straight back in this was one of.
This was one of three title defenses on on the card this evening so first and foremost we had the.
This was the men's North American NXT championship currently held by Tony de Angelo of the Angelo family.
And was being different and the challenger was Ridge Holland.
Now we saw these two at the end of the during last week's NXT episode have a bit of a parking lot brawl which.
Was interesting and we also we treated to where being told that Tony had recently passed the 100 days mark as reigning defending champion.
Yes, nice little interest and statistic to get there as well.
That backstage parking lot brawl was interesting as well.
I quite enjoy good old brawl and you definitely knew coming into this that it was not going to be.
Tame and peaceful at all, especially with the fact that you had Sean Spears show up quite early on into the match as well to kind of push a distraction.
So I struggled with Sean Spears again back to the little preamble I had at the beginning of this episode is that I'm not terribly familiar with a lot of the NXT talent and to the best of my knowledge neither is rich.
However, we do know Sean we do know Sean Spears.
But under a slightly different name. What originally triggered my interest in him was that he had a certain angles he had a very similar sort of facial structure and very similar expressions to one Damien Sandow but that's not how we know Sean Spears at all.
Does the name tie Dillinger bring any bells for you there rich.
So that is Sean Spears.
They are the same person.
Recognised him but I couldn't put my finger on where but fair play to find out.
Again, research research during the night. And we have seen Sean Spears on an episode on NXT as well. And he was in the Hannaway promo. I think it was last week's NXT where he was actually chatting to a member of the of the family being at Rizzo.
It was, I put it down as a as a he was trying to essentially extract it out of the family, which she didn't really seem that enraptured about doing but yeah, that was how we sort of know Sean Spears but he's seems to be taking a bit more of an active role this week in walking out in the beginning parts of this match.
He takes an active role in coming out but he's one of those he doesn't actually get his hands dirty at all. He literally just stands there and just watches.
There's nothing, you know, he's literally just his presence at the top at the point is enough to put off the guys in the ring.
And so credit given my credits do Tony D'Angelo didn't spend that much time focused on Spears at all. And in terms of the match itself, a very sort of physically aggressive match very evenly matched fight between the two of them.
It's difficult to see one moment to the next who was who was sort of holding any sort of advantage or anything like that. But Spears did inevitably get involved again, not getting his hands dirty as such but very much inserting himself into the situation to be able to be able to to get that to influence the outcome of the match almost.
So this goons getting involved to be able to cause the destruction as well. And then this was a name I had to go back and look at to be fair. Didn't know who Izzy Dame was. And for some reason the subtitles gave me a completely different name.
Yeah, the subtitles this week weren't terribly reliable. I noticed this as well. But Izzy Dame we have seen before. Again, same promo referenced earlier on the Panaway promo from last week's NXT.
She's the one that she is the young lady who was talking about the fact that she no longer owes the family anything. And we heard her say something very similar after this match ended.
Yeah, no, they're even as well. Yeah, so she said something very similar last week. And I don't know if this is pre existing from from when from before our time watching NXT potentially this is a pre existing storyline or something to that extent.
It's difficult to difficult to fill the blanks in there I'm afraid. And going back and watching an awful lot of content that we might not necessarily have the time to absorb.
No, this is it we've we've both got full time obligations outside of this podcast to keep us go to keep us busy in the background but yeah, ultimately this match ends in Tony D'Angelo retaining in a rather sort of chaotic and fast paced finish to the point that when I was watching this I had to go back and I think I may have watched the same section about six or seven
times just to try and fully absorb everything that had gone on so that I could make sure that I've got a lot of it noted down but yeah is he is he dame comes in takes out rich heart takes out rich Holland and essentially retreats back out of the ring saying I no longer owe anybody but it's
I've got a feeling is there's a there's a part of me that wants to believe that maybe is he dame is making up the fact that she feels like she owes the family something maybe is she trying to work away into the family instead is this is it could
potentially end in a feud between her and Rizzo I believe but nothing so far or nothing that seems to have caught me nothing that seems to have made itself known.
I'm looking forward to learning a little bit more about this one it was definitely one of those story lines that got me this week to a point where I'm looking forward to be able to see where this continues.
Yeah definitely and if you've listened to our next episodes before you'll know that that's actually a first for rich while we've been doing this podcast it's a case that the NXT stuff has really sort of gone over our heads and it's been something we've really
struggled with so to find something that we've both taken a genuine interest in is.
It is a step in the right direction folks for me if it's just that gimmick that Tony D'Angelo's got with the whole gangster Godfather thing but kind of makes me go and want to go and watch the movie and with that kind of like yeah I'll go back and watch the next episode of that story.
I can understand that because I feel very much the same it's the it's the pinstripes are quite like the pinstripes and yeah there's a lot that there's a lot there to appreciate I feel.
Yeah it was quite good.
But let's keep it moving forward and I've got the next item on the on the docket being the locker room pro now Tyson DuPont Tyreek Iguay and Wesley Lee I believe were some of the gentlemen that were talking backstage when it started.
Yeah so these were the sort of what main three antagonists I would say sort of begin by antagonizing Dion Lennox and we saw very briefly last week on NXT have a very brief exchange with overfemi about.
I'm not there yet but I'm going to be I will be.
Again I knew I'd seen him somewhere couldn't put my face on it yet last week's episode of NXT where he was talking to overfemi yeah.
He wasn't around for too much longer but they did have a nice little puppet trick Williams I couldn't help but give it that thing I would have done as a if I was in a locker room somewhere I've made the same sort of comments.
See the puppet trick Williams was great.
The response that was given that guy slapped the history out of Wesley.
It was absolutely it was a phenomenal slap and I've seen that it's been clipped by WWE themselves to be able to put out a short form content on their social media and yeah that that slap was amazing.
Well Smith could learn a few lessons from that guy I'll tell you.
Oh 100%.
But yeah I think this sort of speaks to trick Williams his mindset.
He's not in a mood to be he's not in a mood to be fucked with I mean last week we saw very briefly that he put out some kind of social media social media.
Post saying I'm sort of reevaluating what reevaluating what's important to me and this week he seems to have come back with an absolute vengeance.
Well it's not the only time we see him in this episode and it does build towards that next encounter with him so I think the way they've worked this was actually a really good angle.
There's a lot of angles of play.
But we'll we'll build to that in the same way that the episode did a little bit later on in the broadcast so.
Following on the same way the episode did they gave us a nice VT for NXT vengeance which is in Washington on the 15th of February.
Yes I don't know much about the card for this just yet I don't know if they've stopped it out the toys in the actual.
I didn't look too much into it I was hoping there'd be something on next week's NXT which would build it for me without me having to do the research.
And then yeah a little bit more filled in.
We have the same thought I'm guessing.
Well my thought is is that they'll get Saturday night's main event out of the way.
They've then got the rumble to build to but they can build to vengeance day in DC after Saturday night's main event if they build to too much too quickly it gets confusing for the fan base.
I mean I'm a simple soul as it is it doesn't take a lot to confuse me.
There any men after rule.
Well yeah this is it.
I think after that it was a in ring promo with.
Everybody's everybody's favorite every show every week every show every week Bailey coming out to well coming out to quite a sizable pop for an NXT crowd.
It was quite a populated NXT crowd as well I didn't actually pick up a figure for how many people with that this week.
They don't know what the performance center holds so.
They don't put out a lot of they don't put out.
Like attendance figures for NXT shows I've noticed this in previous weeks that I've watched as well.
Is that they don't talk about the attendance wreck the attendance.
At the NXT shows in the same way.
That they do with raw and Smackdown and I think that is because.
NXT it doesn't seem worth when you compare them to raw and Smackdown's figures NXT inevitably takes part in smaller venues.
It does it's it's just televised that's all it really boils down to so I don't think they.
They will we've heard a lot about attendance.
Apart from maybe that the PLE is that.
NXT do so be interesting to watch to watch judgment to see if if they talk about attendance figures with that one.
Vengeance will soon say.
Yeah, judgment.
I mean NXT pay-per-view coming live soon.
Maybe you do what I meant it's been a long day.
All right, but yeah, Bailey came out to well basically address the situation developing between her and Roxanne Perez former NXT women's champion.
And I can't make it again soon they're going to fight hard.
I'm looking forward to this.
100% it's building into a feud.
It didn't look like it was going to a one point it look like it might have just been a bit of a flash in the pan.
But now that Bailey started making regular appearances at NXT and Roxanne Perez is making regular appearances on the main roster shows as well.
It's it's certainly building into something which I think we may see at the PLE event.
I think this could be one of the matches on the card.
Here's to hope and I'll give it that much.
But yeah, Bailey comes out calls Perez calls Perez out for being for being entitled and basically saying he's immature.
Idiot at the moment, which is really frustrating me because there's so many other words and no we said this on the raw episode.
They're just kind of testing the waters to see what they can get away with.
It just reminds me of Chris Jericho.
You're an idiot.
You just made the list.
Love that.
You just made the list.
But yeah, especially with NXT still being broadcast on the CW in the States.
I think they've got to be really careful with what sort of language they use, especially on NXT.
I think you see the odd slip of a swear word in with smack down and roar.
I don't think they could just going to come out and go, oh, fuck this, fuck that, fuck that.
Yeah, it's not going to be like WWE with Tourette.
It's going to be a bit more structured than that.
Imagine if Stone Cold had been around if they'd have done that sort of thing.
Gonna have a shot of beer, fuck, two beers, fuck, three beers, fuck.
Yeah, he'd have given it a fuck basically.
He didn't drunk it instead.
But we have, during this promo, we have an unexpected, somebody unexpected come out and actually interrupt Bayley, but for all the right reasons.
And this was the current NXT women's champion, Shia.
She came out and basically said that she had a lot of respect for Bayley and then she wanted to kind of hold the title in the same way that Bayley did with quite a lot of honour and love.
For someone like the current champion to be telling me as a former champion, I want to kind of be like you with this title.
Nice to see Bayley's been the forefront of the women's division for a long, long time, so we're actually starting to see guys now that were like young kids watching wrestling that are now jumping into the ring and going, oh shit, I wasn't watching this person as a teenager.
And now I'm getting to wrestle them. So for some of these guys, it's going to be insane.
Yeah, I mean, Bayley was one of the original four horse women of the women's division renaissance that went on has been going on for the last few years.
It's why we're seeing a lot more female based matches on the card than we did sort of out of the attitude era and into the PG era.
It's even early days of the PG era. We were still we were still seeing at women's wrestling not really being given much of a go.
And then we had the four horse women come along who really sort of took WWE to task to say, look, it's the 21st century.
We need to be given an equal shake of the stick at it. And although not going to lie, I do miss some of the Brar and panties matches, but it's not appropriate for this for further modern era, unfortunately.
But yeah, Bailey and Julia are discussing title prestige and everything all that comes along with that. And they're then interrupted by not just Roxanne Perez, which would be a rather sort of the word predictable sort of person to come out and
Yes, she bought Corra Jade with her as well, which was not really something I would have expected.
So I've got a feeling that Corra Jade in her contract has got so many appearances. She's got to make so many appearances to be able to make a contract.
And the only reason I say this is because she seems to crop up in the oddest of places. She had she realistically had no reason to be out there with Roxanne Perez, other than to add an extra body to an already stacked ring with Julia and Bailey in it.
So she was there as she was there as moral support, but Corra Jade is popping up a hell of a lot because she's been in every NXT broadcast we've had. And she also made, I believe, an appearance at TNA Genesis that's just gone by it again still haven't watched it.
I will get round to it at some point.
But I put my notes with this that the way they were cutting this they felt like they were going to tee off for a tag event.
And I was stuck there kind of hoping I really hope they don't do this. If they do they've kind of got to use it as a squash for Bailey and Julia surely just to make them look.
I mean, Julia doesn't need to look strong. She's the NXT champion. Bailey doesn't really need to look that too strong either. But I can't see why they they push that sort of angle if they were going to do anything useful with it.
No, and realistically we know now that they weren't pushing that that angle at least at the moment doesn't appear to be being pushed. But the booze that Perez and Jade came out to were deafening to a certain extent they were drowning Corra Jade and Roxanne Perez completely out.
This crowd was 100% on the side of Bailey and the NXT women's champion. It was hilarious to a point.
But this promo sort of ends. This was a very sort of confusing promo to say the least but yeah Julia and Bailey throw the first punch in what turns into a bit of an arena brawl really that has to be broken up by WWE officials referees security.
Every Tom Dick and Harry in the background in the in the back came out to try and split those those four up with them.
We went to the backstage section when it quiet down a little bit. We had a conversation with Kalani and Jada backstage.
And then they bust out fighting and every way you look there is just a brawl and the security is kind of stood there going the fuck are we doing here but none of the other members of the roster that I noticed got involved no one.
None of the other wrestlers were trying to split anyone out they're all in the cantina.
Yeah I think they were but but yeah we had Jada Parker who was watching the action unfold in the ring seemed really buzzed at the fact that Bailey had mentioned her name obviously Bailey being originally NXT she's a huge name in in that promotion somebody that a lot of talent look up to.
And then we've got Kalani Jordan points out that her name her name was actually mentioned before Jada's which is when Jada just turns into a bit of a bit of bitch.
She arguments in shoe and then you've got of all people Carmen Petrovic who is I mean bless her she's on cloud nine she got what she is the cat that got the cream so to speak.
And the cream being a shanty adonis last week again during this and this panel eight promo.
See we said at the time we felt that promo is really a needed but now we've got a week into it and it has kind of it's concreted in a few cracks to the some of the questions you're asking hasn't really given us a huge.
It's just the format that we had with that with that promo was it was just really unique it's not something we've seen in WWE previously.
So I mean if it's something they're going to continue to use happy days if it seems to leave you with a lot of questions when you first see it and then they fill in the blanks later which I'm not I'm not opposed to it was just it just didn't see it.
It just didn't seem to make sense at the time but I think yeah this is a watched a lot of NXT maybe because you know we've not watched each of them we've missed that they do things slightly differently.
So we may just be used to setting up and the way they would set up roar or Smackdown where it is.
Yeah it's a brand and they're trying something else out that possibly could work possibly could not.
Yeah I think it's very situational if they're trying to tie a lot of tie a lot of storylines together it's possible that that's how they're going to do it and fit something they may resort to doing in future but we went from locker room back to win ring where the action just kicked off again between
Perez Jade Bailey and Julia and it just looks like it just like complete chaos.
The only thing that could have made it slightly more fun to watch would have been if someone had introduced a weapon of some kind.
But I don't think people being hit with a steel chair.
I was going to say I think that's more of a more of a personal one than anything that could be sort of folded into the story it may have just come across as unnecessary to a certain degree if they had gone to that extent but I mean even at the NXT GM made a brief cameo in this where she was trying to sort of talk sense into Perez and Jade next
sort of in I don't even know if you call it the gorilla position I don't think NXT have a gorilla position.
Which for people that are quite new to quite new to the intricacies of backstage works within WWE gorilla position is the position that sits just behind where the entrance way is generally manned by the head of the company and they basically sit there with monitors and watch the show from backstage call the shots from there.
So yeah, glad you explained that because my had a complete brain farm.
So they're going up.
Sure, you can't really see that.
Well, if I can offer any if I can offer any any knowledge at any point I'm almost definitely do that.
Now, we that sort of blended the fighting continued but blends quite seamlessly into the second match because at the end of that little promo segment, we see Dion Lennox coming out to the ring and dodge all these fighting women.
Yeah, pretty much.
While I'm thinking about it actually during the in ring segment for the the Bailey promo.
It was the it was the all male ref team that I actually felt sorry for throughout that entire thing.
Because there's no way that all four of those blokes were like, yeah, no, we've got to split this up.
I'm pretty sure at least one of them was thought, would it be the worst thing in the world if we just let them do it.
We're just just chanting let them fight.
So everyone wanted to see it.
This is it.
But yeah, match two was a men's singles match between Dion Lennox and West Lee.
Accompanied to the ring by Tyson de Pointe and Tyreek Igway.
Can you even call this a match?
I mean,
Oh, it was.
It was a squash match.
Let's be honest.
It was.
I mean, Lennox comes out swinging, tries to put as much into it as he possibly can.
It has been alluded to within promos this week and last that Lennox is still very new to the industry.
He's not got a lot of experience under his belt, but he's got a hell of a lot of enthusiasm.
And yeah, it was a squash match.
I just watched the hell out of him, but this wasn't this wasn't designed at least to get Lennox over in that way.
He was at least initially used as just a bit of a prop really.
But yeah, it was a well placed knee from Lee that helped him gain control in the match out to initially gain control in the match.
And yeah, Lee just seems to take Lennox out with a succession of kicks, which I'd almost say borders on disrespectful to Lennox.
I mean, he is inexperienced as you want, but at least make it a convincing loss.
Yeah, it just didn't.
It didn't feel like they'd put a lot of effort into the actual fight.
I could have played that out a little bit better.
It could have been it could have had a bit more to it.
I feel like Lennox took one hell of a dive.
I mean, any other fight in sport and we'd have been pulling people out for taking a dive on that one realistically.
It felt to me like they were pulled behind backstage.
Like, guys, you've got five to 10 minutes, you know, this is what's going to happen. Just go and go and do something.
Waste some time. And that's pretty much what it was.
Well, they got ready for the next match, which is what it felt like.
Yeah, I mean, but this is where it sort of builds into something that might be worthwhile.
So once the match is over and Wesley has his hand raised, Lee then immediately goes to cut a promo,
basically calling out Trick Williams for slapping him like a bitch.
He is a bitch.
You can squash a rookie like that, he's still a bitch.
And I think Trick Williams comes out and basically said and I mean, the guy takes out two opponents and confirms a match for next week with Wesley.
But the little nod that I don't think is going to get as much airtime as we think it will, at least to begin with,
is the shoulder bump that Williams gives on his way out of the arena and shoulder bumps Lennox,
who seems to not take that very well at all.
But the look on that guy's face is like somebody ate his birthday cake in front of him and told him to like it.
Someone's just pissed on his cornflakes and he's still got to eat that bowl.
Oh, 100%.
But yeah, I mean, going from there, we had a BT promo.
They've had their cornflakes pissed in.
So we had a BT promo recap in the history between Lexus King.
Oh, no, it was sort of a recap of Lexus King, essentially, who seemed to have come into NXT in a less conventional fashion, whereas most of the professional wrestlers in his class that came in were sort of very well put together and everything along those lines,
is that Lexus King just seems to have picked up a bit of the, what's the word, I'm looking for, the legacy that his father left behind being Brian Pilman.
Which is funny considering he's trying to do the whole, you know, I'm not like my dad, I'm completely different, you know, he's not, he's just like his old man.
He is trying to be better though.
Credit given where credit's due.
But yeah, basically we had from when Lexus, we had a BT recap of when Lexus King came into WWE, came into NXT to pretty much what happened during the Heritage Cup, the Heritage Cup and the conversation with Ava, where a Heritage Cup rematch was asked for
by Charlie Dempsey, well, not Charlie Dempsey, Charlie Dempsey's female compatriot who is part of the stable he's a part of, which I did have written down and I can't quite remember.
I know it's CSC or CSCS, I'm not entirely sure and I can't remember what it all stands for.
It'll come to me later on. But yes, this BT promo basically blends into match three, which is the second title defense on the card this evening.
And this was for the NXT Heritage Cup.
And this was with Charlie Dempsey versus Lexus King, who is the reigning defending Heritage Cup champion.
And this one was slated to take place under Heritage Cup rules.
Now I made a note here that I wanted to go back and have a look to see what those were.
Now I did the research and found out what Heritage Cup rules are.
So Heritage Cup rules, it's a basically it's a two out of three fours match. So the entire match is three fours long.
And it's whoever gains the majority wins the match overall, but the match itself is broken down into six three minute rounds with sort of 20 to 30 second breaks between each round.
So any falls could be won by pinfall submission or count out.
So if an opponent is counted out, it's not champion's advantage. They gain that their opponent will gain the point for that round and any falls end around.
So if you're in the middle of the first round, two minutes in gain a pinfall that's that round over, even though there would be another minute left on the clock.
That round ends with going straight into a break period and then they start the next round from there.
And that's Heritage Cup rules.
It's pretty interesting. I just had to have a little Google because I mean I was interested obviously because Alexis King is the son of Brian Pillman and Charlie Dempsey is the son of British wrestler William Regal.
They I was looking to see if their dads ever matched and apparently Brian Pillman and William Regal wrestled to a time limit draw at spring stampede in 1994 for the WCW World Television Championship, which Regal was currently holding at the time.
Yeah, so there's not like a terribly storied history between Regal and Pillman. Pillman's history and what Pillman is known for is more to do with how he sort of carried himself and behaved, not just in the ring but outside of it as well.
I haven't done enough research into Brian Pillman and can't recall enough off the top of my head to tell you sort of the basic detail about it. And plus I think if I did, it'd be a podcast episode in of itself.
I mean, if that is something that anybody would like to hear about, I'm more than happy to go away do the research and record a podcast episode around it, but you'll have to let us know.
Moving on. Oh, 100%. I'll quite happily do the research. I've got no issue with that. But yeah, obviously the big controversy with the Heritage Cup changing hands between from Charlie Dempsey to Lexus King was an inadvertent headshot.
I think that was a double kill.
Double headshot potentially. But yeah, so basically Charlie Dempsey's championship reign was ended by an inadvertent headbutt to the plums and yeah, that his match sort of spiralled out of control from there and we did almost have a repeat.
They did pay homage to the old head to the plums, didn't they? They lined it up and Charlie Dempsey covered himself up like, I don't think so. Not today, my good sir.
No, this is it. And I mean, these two obviously know each other really well. They've wrestled plenty of times in the past. So they know each other's movesets.
Whereas sort of Lexus King is more of a strike high flying style wrestler. You've got Charlie Dempsey takes after his dad, takes after his dad who trained him and is more of a ground on submission technical wrestler.
So they are two very sort of opposing opposing styles. And I mean, if we went by based purely on style Charlie Dempsey holds the advantage because if he can ground if he can ground Lexus King, that's it.
Lexus King hasn't got a leg to stand on normally. But first round passes without incident. They you could almost call it a feeling out process if you wanted to go that deep.
But it's Lexus King that gains the first fall in round two by pinfall, I believe.
It was, yes.
So I've got a few different notes here. I'm just going to try and scroll back through. So you've got the first fall in round two with a roll up reversal.
So he reversed to move into a roll up and got the shoulders down for the three count. And then Charlie Dempsey won round three with a pinfall after using the ropes to take Lexus King off a choke hold that you had him held in.
Now I believe it was the chicken wing crossface that he was using at the time, but I could be wrong.
This seems to have been a bit of a favorite move of Dempsey and it's not a hold we see on a very regular basis.
So I have to assume that this is something that Regal took on riding teaching his offspring how to do this particular hold.
And I mean, he seems to carry it out to quite a bit of proficiency. But one of the big recurring themes in this matchup was so each in very much the same fashion as a boxing match between the rounds.
Obviously, as I mentioned earlier on, they have like 20 to 30 seconds to freshen themselves up, give themselves a bit of a pep talk and then go into the next round of the fight.
They kept focusing on the item in the ice bucket. They kept focusing on in Lexus King's corner.
The good old brass nooks.
Got a lovely set of brass nooks.
It's possible that I mean, we saw in the VT recap that William Regal has tried to pass Lexus King brass nooks in the past to try and win matches.
And it's possible that's how they made their way in there.
Even though I know William Regal isn't currently signed to a NXT to any form of NXT contract to the best of my knowledge.
But one way or another, brass nooks made their way into Kings, into Kings ice bucket.
And yeah, he was very good on several occasions to to use those same same brass knuckles.
He did take them out of the bucket at one point, didn't he, in the middle of the round break. And then he kind of thought, thought against him and put him back like that.
You can see he was definitely thinking about going, you know, fuck it, I'll use them.
But no, he definitely decided against it. Thankfully, he could have caused a lot of damage with those brass knuckles.
I mean, he didn't he didn't exactly get away with a clean slate, so to speak, as far as as far as the match goes, because Lexus King does walk out there with a victory retaining the Heritage Cup championship.
After another incident with Charlie Dempsey's plums, I'm starting to think that they've got a love connection going on here.
There's a lot of touchy touchy feely feely.
Well, the first time it was accidental, and you can see that it was accidental.
But the one in this match, that was purposefully done.
I mean, technically speaking, a great match from the two of them.
It was a real clinic of technical wrestling and a very different format to anything that we've seen for quite a while. It's not very often we see a two out of three, two out of three falls match in WWE at all.
But the fact that they've made it into its very own championship is quite interesting.
It certainly is, and it gives us an opportunity to see some of the match titles that we wouldn't necessarily see a lot of. When we get tournaments like that, it makes everything a little bit more fresh and a little bit more interesting.
Yeah, this is it. It just goes to show that WWE have not completely given up being original and just sticking a bunch of superstars in the ring and saying, yeah, fucking have at it.
But yeah, so we've had two titles at two title matches so far. Both of them have retained, so no titles have changed hands at this point.
But moving away from the action, we went to a backstage promo where the very first thing on the docket was that an announcement was made that Brooks Jensen and Nico Vance take on Stacks and Luca Cruisifino of the family.
Later on on this same card.
Yeah, no, that was definitely once that was announced, something I was looking forward to.
And this NXT sort of product itself has been.
It's kind of been growing on me slowly. You get to when we first started watching it because they didn't know who everyone was and what was going on.
It was very much like we both said it was very difficult to watch.
We're now what three weeks in we've learned a little bit more, you know, to do some research and kind of catch up with what's been on.
And yeah, no, some of these little bits are really kind of growing on me, especially this Tony D'Angelo and the D'Angelo family.
I mean, it still has its moments where it's difficult to watch. But again, we're still being introduced to a lot of the roster.
And yeah, it just it does get difficult in places.
And there are parts of that this week where I found it particularly difficult where it takes me out where I've got no clue who any of these people are.
But we'll get to that.
The other bit of this backstage promo was a bit of a promo with Stephanie Vaker, the winner of a tournament on the first NXT on in the Netflix era,
I believe, for women's United States Championship, women's NXT US Champion Championship opportunity, which seems to have been stolen light from under by Shotzi, essentially.
But both of them have legitimate claims as we've discussed in previous episodes.
Yeah.
So yeah, once we'd heard about the announcement of Jensen and Nico versus Stacks and crucifino later in the night, we also had a bit of a bit of a promo from Stephanie Vaker, who seems to have not necessarily lost out on the opportunity,
but has had to have her opportunity delayed due to Shotzi having an equally valid on the on the number one contendership for the for the women's US NXT Championship.
And yeah, she just feels a bit she feels a bit forgotten, I think, and that's that was sort of reestablishing herself as continuing to be relevant in this situation.
And that was sort of the extent of that little promo.
It wasn't wasn't much of anything, if truth be told.
I think if I was over personally with this, I just make it a triple threat match, set the champion in with Shotzi and with them.
I'm a Stephanie Vaker and just, you know, make it a no deep match and crack in.
If I remember correctly, I believe Shotzi has her opportunity next week on NXT.
What in Atlanta?
Yes.
That gives you a damn good reason to watch the NXT in Atlanta then or tune into our podcast next week.
Precisely.
So, yeah, where did we go from there, Rich?
My notes from the say that we ended up with a Cartman Petrovich and Jada Parker intro.
Which was closely followed up by a Royal Rumble VT and a backstage promo flash conversation with Andre Chase, Hank Walker and Tank Ledger.
I believe there was also a backstage promo in there for with a VT sort of promo with Naomi and Bianca Belair, the current women's tag team champions.
Talking about their match next week in Atlanta with Lush Legend and Jakara Jackson.
Yeah, so they had a promo which didn't really, again, sort of amount to anything other than the fact that, yeah, we're here.
Yeah, we're having a match and no, we're not really worried about the competition.
Which is why everyone seems to be saying at the moment.
No one seems to be worried about the competition and these title defences are well, they're being retained.
So, see for some, yeah, some of them they've got a reason not to be.
It seems a bit of a formality almost, but yeah, we will pick up with match four on the card or match four as I've got it down, which was a women's singles match between Carmen Petrovich, a company to the ring by a Shantae Donis versus Jada Parker.
This sort of boiled over from a backstage promo we saw right at the top of the show this evening and yeah, not tremendously inspiring match.
Parker showing some creative offence.
I think there was some resourceful use of a surroundings within our offence during this match or at least that was the note that I made.
Jada Parker seems to have sort of come out with a bad attitude and we had an interference during the match from Coloni Jordan.
She popped a distraction which meant that, you know, she distracted Jada Parker so Carmen Petrovich could kind of roll her up.
I had this conversation with you a few weeks ago about roll up pins, roll up victories. They are so cheap and lazy, it's unreal.
But I think for this one, I'm going to allow it to go because it ended what was the worst match of the night for me.
It was about time, these guys just needed to clear the ring and get ready for what was next.
Yeah, so not a tremendous, like a tremendous, not a tremendously inspiring match as such.
I mean, I've spoken before about Coloni Jordan that I just find very, very dull to watch and there's just nothing that sort of inspires me to like.
Or dislike her. I just find her very boring.
And again, she seems to be, she seems to, NXT seemed to be trying to find the right fit for her.
She's again appeared in quite a number of different angles over the last few weeks and without any sort of real direction as if she's got to be there to fill a space.
And this is how they've chosen to use her in this particular, this particular instance.
I mean, this could be building towards a feud between Jordan and Parker in the future.
But yeah, it just, it was, it felt like a very unnecessary match.
And I will pick up on a promo backstage promo you referenced just a moment ago, however, because it was during the entrance for match four, which was the Hank and tank and Andre Chase promo.
Yeah.
Now, this sort of started the line for me where I started not really knowing who anybody was. So Andre Chase, Hank Walker, Tank Ledger have no clue who they are before this point.
I didn't either.
And yeah, so it took this entire promo with how it was weaved together, looked like another pan away, potentially another pan away promo, which frustrated me a little bit.
It didn't turn out to be quite like that. But it did give me a little bit more to go on as to who these characters were and things like that.
So Hank and tank talk about Chase walking out on them a few weeks, a few weeks ago, and Chase basically retorts with saying, well, if you're not happy, split up, go for a singles run or met a form another tag team or whatever you want to do, just not really that first.
Which is pretty much my entire attitude to this entire promo. Just do what you've got to do. I'm not really that first crack.
So it's, it was interesting the next part because again, this was what gave me a little bit more backstory. I had to go away and do a bit of the research for it.
But yeah, so Andre Chase walks away from this interaction. The camera follows him around to where he's addressed by another relatively unknown superstar to me at least, Kale Dixon.
But the real interesting point was what was playing in the background. So he had about half a dozen superstars sat watching TV, sat watching something on TV where you'd quite clearly got Andre Chase in some sort of a coaching role or something along those lines.
Yeah, he reminded me of those TV shows in America with the cultist leader, priest guys that are always ranting and raving, the evangelists. That's that's pretty much what came across.
It's interesting that you say that. So Chase seems a little bit adrift at the moment, based on what I've been able to research. And he seems to be a bit lost after the closure of Chase U or University Chase, which was a faction that he'd established with
himself as the Dean of this university, where he was giving an education, I'm assuming some kind of wrestling education to a number of different superstars that fell within that faction.
This entire faction fell apart or was disassembled back on November 19th episode of NXT, which is available on on Netflix as it stands, I believe.
And it was a match between Ridge Holland and and Andre Chase, which Chase ended up losing, resulting in that faction being disbanded.
I'm not really sure of what the backstory that involved Ridge Holland in it, but but that was about as much as I was willing to look into it, which gave me enough context to put all of that in some sort of
semi credible limelight. So there is something building there. It's just not in top. We could be seeing a return of Chase U, especially as Kale Dixon seems to think that there's a
way of overturning the decision that Chase U had to be disbanded, potentially. So this may be something that builds over a number of weeks, which will be interesting to watch, in my view.
We'll have to see how that pans out. Yeah, so we went from there to the ladies locker room and last legend and jacara Jackson.
Basically talking up the height, talking about the hype promo for their match next week versus Naomi and Bianca. And this was all a sort of very pep talky rah rah sort of very American pep rally sort of promo to me.
So basically she's got lash legend, jacara Jackson bathing in the glow of the fact that they've got an opportunity to take these titles and bring them to NXT and sort of pointing out to the likes of Sol Rooker and Zarea that if they
bring these titles back to NXT, then all of these NXT superstars basically get a crack at these titles, which could be an interesting, interesting way that Naomi and Bianca lose their, lose their tag straps.
So we're going to go back to the show, which is to NXT adding another title to the NXT roster, maybe. Possibly. Because we have seen some very minor cracks starting to show in the over and Bianca recently and we have discussed this on previous episodes of the podcast spanning
where we've seen inadvertent, inadvertent hair shots from Bianca from Bianca to Naomi and matches in matches.
I was going to bring that up actually.
It's it's all sort of starting to feed in together a little bit or at least that's how I'm.
I'm starting to see how this might this might end.
It might not be too far away. It could be a mania job. It could be between now and mania could play out.
Yeah, this is it.
This is it. But but yeah, that was very much the the end of that promo. And I believe we went from there into match five unless I know your notes have a tendency to be a little bit more of a play by players to what's included within the episode.
Have I missed anything here?
So we went into a backstage promo with which is basically just a hype event for Eddie Thorpe and the over Femi main event.
Which then pushed through into the Brooks Jensen and Nico Vance versus the other members of the D'Angelo family whose names I didn't pick up.
I will apologize. And Brooks Jensen and Nico Vance came out with Sean Spears, as we said earlier, formerly known as Ty Dillinger.
Yep.
And then we had Stax and crucifino crucifino crucifino coming out with Rizzo basically the D'Angelo family minus D'Angelo himself.
But commentary on this for this match did state that he had just had a rather grueling match.
Grueling match himself at the beginning. Hard he could be elsewhere having a like taking a breather.
Receiving some medical treatment, that's possible.
Yeah. I mean, it was a very physical matchup, very sort of very chaotic and fast paced.
Him and Rich Holland went to war for a little while, so he's definitely going to be feeling a bit rough while they are.
But you'd expect him to be able to let the underboss deal with what needed to be dealt with.
Yeah. And it's interesting that they referred to, I'm not sure if it was Stax or crucifino, which one it was, who it is that is referred to as the underboss.
Again, anybody knows, drop us a message and through all the normal channels for it.
But again, this match tag team match I put down, it was physical, it was chaotic, it was fast paced.
There was a lot of urgency behind it.
It started off as well. You know, everyone came in, it just started off and the bell didn't even ring and they were fighting.
There was all sorts of action going off here, there and everywhere. You didn't really know where to look.
Who was going to have the bear with the two matchups out of the four guys in the ring?
Yeah. I mean, Nico and Brooks did eventually pick up the rather sort of brutal victory over Stax and crucifino, which, yeah, sort of wrapped that match up.
But not a tremendously inspiring match as it goes, but yeah, one of those things, I think.
I think we've said a lot of these matches, I've necessarily had a lot of to them.
They've all been pretty, like they've not had a lot of padding. It's been what needs to be done, it's been done quite quickly,
which kind of makes me feel maybe they could get away with dropping a match every week and just making the ones they've got slightly more padded if you get me.
So where is in like last week, the week before NXT was a five match card, interspersed with Promo's VT's and an interview sort of thing.
This is a break away where they did six matches to the card, three of them being championship matches.
And yeah, I feel like they definitely could have done with losing at least one of these matches from the card altogether and possibly saving the money on the appearances of those particular superstars.
But again, I think this could all come down to a contract deal that they've all got to have a certain amount of experiences within set periods of time to be able to maintain their contract moving forward.
Or at least that's that it's the only thing that I can think of as to why they keep, why they keep sort of booking these throwaway matches or maybe these throwaway matches will make sense next week when we develop those storylines a little bit more.
Who knows.
Find out after Atlanta, if we're right, filling any gaps in. Now, I'm not sure what you've got on this one, but I did put down the Vance finish this one with quite a powerful Larry and picked up the three count.
I didn't really pull a lot of notes out of this much. No, I'm not sure if it was because I was too engrossed in the match or if it was because there just wasn't a lot to necessarily discuss at the end of it.
For me, it was because it was quite chaotic. I was watching it during the day, the day after it aired. And if I watch something during the day, I've got to have it finished by a certain time because chances are I've got to go if I'm there during the day, I've got to go out and do school run at two o'clock in the afternoon.
I get back here until sometimes nine, 10 o'clock. And with NXT especially, I have to keep pausing, rewinding, rewatching to make sure that I absorb everything that's going on.
So my notes for this match were very limited to physical, chaotic and a brutal victory essentially because for me to have sat there and absorbed all the detail, I'd have to have gone back and rewatched individual segments of that match.
Multiple times for them to make sense.
Yeah, neither of us have got the time to be able to get away with doing that at the moment.
I think once we're a little bit more established within NXT brands and we know who a lot of these wrestlers are, we won't need to necessarily go back and rewatch and things like that.
It'll flow a little bit better for us, but this is where I think our lack of NXT experience is sort of a bit of a detriment to us.
But we'll push on regardless and move past that match into a backstage interview with Fraxium, who have had quite a busy week since last we saw them.
They made an appearance at Genesis. Do you not know if they made an in-ring appearance or if it was just an in-the-crowd appearance, but I am aware they made an appearance?
So having not watched Genesis, I don't know the specific detail, but I believe it was an in-ring appearance at Genesis, and they are also set to go on a title defense for the NXT Men's Tag Team Champions championships on TNA this week.
So they are heading to, I believe it's still called the Impact Zone.
So they are heading to the Impact Zone this week for a title defense with, I believe the team they're defending against is called the Rascals, but that's about as much as I know.
I'm not someone who consumes a lot of TNA product, unless it is a cheeky little reel on Facebook of that man, Joe Hendry, I mean, don't really pay too much attention.
And I haven't consumed TNA content in about four or five years. It's been a long time. I used to watch it way back when, but not as much anymore.
But this promo was more so, I think, to push an angle we saw last week, which was Josh Briggs and Yoshiki Inamura.
They're still not being given the chance that they feel they were owed or promised.
Last week they lost out to OTM this week. They're not getting a title shot because, apparently, TNA got dibs over them.
Basically, they came out accusing Fraxium of dodging the challenge and Fraxium hit them back saying, well, do they really deserve it?
Who have you beaten to get that shot, to deserve that shot sort of thing?
We haven't seen them in any sort of match since the Netflix era.
And I can't imagine that there's been a great many matches for them since then.
But this promo breaks down when OTM basically come out and swing for the fences with Inamura and Briggs.
And yeah, that breaks down really rather quickly.
And we move on.
Another backstage promo which starts with an incensed...
No.
No. You're in a different spot to me because this was a...
It was another almost pan away promo. We started off with a backstage promo with an incensed Dion Lennox crashing around and breaking shit backstage.
I remember him throwing the ladder around but I can't remember.
It wasn't a tremendously long appearance for him.
It wasn't a tremendously long appearance for Dion Lennox and it sort of skipped away.
Obviously not happy with the way his match went.
The shoulder bump. I think there is going to be some massive fallout from that young man in the weeks to follow.
But the big story here was we panned to the newly retained Tony DiAngelo at the men's United States NXT champion.
And Izzy Dame speculating that someone has a crush on her.
I've speculated maybe Sean Spears as he does seem to be spending a lot of time around the family.
And Izzy Dame and all of these bits and pieces.
But this was a short lived conversation. I feel like we came in just at the end.
There's some detail that we didn't get.
Sure we'll get that detail at a late date though.
But it was the fact that the rest of the DiAngelo family were like, what the fuck are you? What were you doing?
And he was just there like, Izzy wouldn't shut up and we just kind of had to keep listening to her talk.
It was very dismissive of what Izzy was trying to say.
Yeah, very much so.
I get the impression that he's above the rest of the family.
That is the dynamic that they've set.
That he does sit in top dog status.
But doesn't really seem to concern himself with anyone who's operating beneath him.
And yeah, basically admitting to the rest of his team, oh yeah, no, I can't always be there.
But I expect you to be there for me. That's the way this works.
Well yeah, he's not a powerful champion if he hasn't got his homies around to help him out though, is he?
No, this is it. But should a champion really need a team of people around him to maintain his championship?
I've speculated on many occasions where we have a heel champ that feels he needs a faction or a stable or a tag team around him to be able to maintain his dominance.
Are they really championship material?
Well, no.
We digress.
This next bit I've got down as a VT recap of Ethan Page's actions last week, where he has put another superstar on the injured list.
This time being wrestlers last named Chen, who Paul Blow ends up with a probably a shattered ankle or broken first.
Using the steel steps last week to basically just obliterate that lower limb.
And it's not the first time he's done it. He hurt Cedric Alexander's hand. He busts Javon's jaw.
So he's been on a spree of injuring some people. And obviously last week Javon went running in to help out another wrestler that was getting in trouble with Ethan Page.
And he took a one shot to the face. He got punched on that broken jaw right at the chin and that dropped him back to the mat where he pretty much was the last place we saw him.
Yeah, and this was basically Ethan Page's way of saying, look, don't come back until you're ready because if you come back again, you're not going to have a jaw left to be able to wire together.
Pretty much. And there's only so many times you can smash that into pieces before you run out of options.
Really pushing the unhinged angle with Ethan Page. He seems to have really gone off a deep end here.
And I mean, I suppose every brand has one now. They've all got someone that's gone off the deep end, but Ethan Page seems on a completely different level too.
Kevin Owens and Drew McIntyre on Raw and Smackdown respectively.
But this feeds directly into a promo in the GM's office with Ava and Javon Evans discussing the VT that was played just moments before.
Javon Evans bless him trying to discuss it with Ava, but he saw through gritted teeth with that wired jaw put in place.
I'll tell you that's not a comfortable thing to have done either. So the fact that he's even wanting to try and have a match with a wired jaw is ballsy, but fair play to Ava for saying that.
You're not being medically clear. You're not going to be for a while. It's not happening. Not on my Nelly, off you go, son.
Well, Ava took a very diplomatic approach to it. She was very sympathetic for Javon, but sort of basically told him in the same breath, mate, it's your own fault.
You went in there knowing you were injured. He took full advantage of that injury in a fight, which means anybody that's ever been in a fight, which is pretty much everybody.
It's a case that you know that if you know that your opponent has a weakness, you're going to capitalise on that weakness to make sure you walk out with a dub.
It's survival of the fittest. It's the oldest law, law of the jungle.
So yeah, but it's funny you should mention Cedric Alexander as you did a few moments ago because Javon Evans isn't cleared for competition.
Cedric Alexander is.
And he has been set for a match confirmed for next week in Atlanta, which we've seen.
Ethan Page versus Cedric Alexander.
Which then leads us into another backstage segment with the A-Town Down Under showed up.
So this was a continuation of the same promo as it goes.
It's Cedric Alexander and Javon Evans leave A-Town Down Under come in to talk to Ava ahead of an appearance that they are making in Atlanta next week.
The Grayson Waller Effect.
Yeah, basically setting up the fact that the Grayson Waller Effect talk show segment will be featuring the winner of the NXT Championship match.
This for basically the last section of the last section of the of the episode of NXT, the last section of our podcast today.
And is that Oberfemian Eddie Thorpe for the NXT World Championship?
Yes, so Oberfemian being defend at being this being his first title defense.
And I'm not going to lie, I was I was actually really surprised by this match.
After the display that Oberfemian put on to win the title.
It was actually quite surprising to see that Eddie Thorpe was the one that was in control for a lot of this match.
Or at least that's that's how I viewed it.
It was Oberfemi, apart from towards the end, wasn't really allowed to build up much of a much of a head of steam.
And in fact, it seems as though it shows that with Oberfemi, his, you know, if you allow him to have time to build up and start sort of getting momentum,
you're in trouble, but if you can stop him from building that momentum, which is what Eddie thought did at the start of this match.
Basically, did the first three quarters of it to be fair.
It really does pay, you know, advantage to you in the long run.
Yes, you might tie yourself out a little bit, trying to kind of keep him down and wear him out.
But once you've got him in a position, he looks vulnerable.
He didn't look as strong as he did when he won it at all.
No, he didn't. This was a different side to Oberfemi than we've seen seen previously.
I mean, he's got he seemed very easily distracted.
I mean, eight-hound down under seemed to have premium seats to this fight and being in some kind of raised platform above the.
Above the above the ring to to be able to view this match and very much sort of making their presence known.
But Thorpe seemed to stay sort of laser focused.
Regardless of that, Thorpe still does not walk out of this with a victory.
It seems that he managed to let Oberfemi get or gain a little bit too much space and after.
He did take a beating in the process.
I mean, I've got down in the Oberfemi at one point.
I think he caught him in a crossbody attempt.
It just threw him across the ring like he was a cigarette butt.
Just flicked him across. It was horrific.
You know, he got hit with a pretty pretty nasty choke slam at some point as well.
Oberfemi can do like can use that and use it well.
It was a really effective move for him.
I know he's obviously he's a big guy and he thought it was not as big and powerful,
but it's nice to see a good old choke slam get used occasionally and used to a decent quality as well.
Considering we're used to seeing guys like sort of Kane and Undertaker slam these people around to be able to see someone else that wouldn't actually look kind of out of missing like a Vince McMahon style locker room with the big,
nasty guys that he likes.
He would have fitted him really well there.
So to hit that move was beautiful.
Yeah, this is it.
But as I've alluded to Oberfemi retains, which means we have no title changing titles changing hands at this week's NXT.
But Oberfemi picks up the win and retains and I've just put down in my notes what a challenge from Thorpe.
I mean, he's well and truly cemented that he is a real contender for any title he wants to put his mind to.
You may not have picked up a dub, but it definitely didn't do him any harm.
It shows he's definitely a good workhorse and we'll see him picking up gold at some point in the next few months, I'm sure.
Which title we see him holding on.
I wouldn't like to try and guess, but we will definitely see him holding something.
No, because the closing moments of this show were all too telling as to who Oberfemi's next opponent is most likely to be as seemingly out of nowhere after the match.
You've got Oberfemi sort of seeming to have some kind of altercation with A-Town Down Under.
And they're having a bit of a mouthing session on there and then Trick Williams just pops up out of nowhere.
With a very determined look on his face.
So I think going into the next premium live event, we may see a rematch for that NXT world championship.
I'm going to say though, how badly does Eddie Thorpe get treated by Trick Williams here, the disrespect in getting dropped like that was just fucked him right up.
Oh, 100%.
How many times has that allowed being beaten up, concussed and downright done dirty in the last few weeks? Poor Eddie Thorpe.
Yeah, you have sort of got to feel sorry for him at this point because as we've said just now, he has proven himself in this match that he is not an incapable wrestler.
He is not a workshop person at all because he really took over Femi to task this week and just was seriously unlucky that he didn't manage to walk out with some championship gold round his waist.
Right. Well, I think this for me has been the end of it. I haven't got much else that I'd want to throw in there.
I think I've pretty much given everything I need to give.
I mean, we always try to add like our personal match of the week. I've got to admit that over Femi versus Eddie Thorpe match really blew me away.
The rest of the matches weren't quite up to that standard, but we sort of expect it in a main event match, especially for a brand championship.
It's one of those. I think over Femi and Eddie Thorpe put on a fantastic show. It was all fantastically done.
I mean, Eddie Thorpe did a lot of the heavy lifting in my opinion, but 100% believable match and well deserved of a match of the night, at least from me.
What about you, Rich?
I'm going to disagree with you. I'm going to disagree with you. I'm going for a different title match.
Mine was the North American Championship match. Tony D'Angelo and Rich Holland, I think I really enjoyed that.
It wasn't just necessarily the match itself, but it was the start of that build with the whole of the family and the other members of the factions they're part of.
So, yeah, now I'm interested to see what's going to go down with that one.
The only other detail that neither of us mentioned about this show this evening is the in attendance, as well as some of the...
We had a whole of famers.
I was going to mention this just at the start of the last section, but couldn't find the right place to introduce DDP.
He's not worth a sneaky side entrance. He needs his own little bit on his own.
Well, this is why I thought we'll add this bit in right at the end.
So, yeah, we had Diamond Dallas page.
The holder of the move that is the precursor to the RKO, essentially.
Good old Diamond Cutter.
I mean, he does now a lot of work with retired superstars with his DDP yoga, which has done wonders for a lot of older retired talent, which are struggling just generally trying to get themselves back on their feet, essentially.
I've watched the video, I think it was a WWE production that he worked with Butterbean and that was phenomenal.
Yeah, I mean, he's doing some phenomenal work and he's really turned his own life around.
I mean, that guy had some serious substance abuse and alcohol abuse problems.
When he was on the road, the road was not kind to Diamond Dallas page, but since giving up the time in the ring, he's really sort of turned himself around, really a poster child for reform, in my opinion.
Because, yeah, he was partying himself into an early grave.
But don't get me wrong, that has had a physical toll on him, but he has done phenomenally well and hats off to the Hall of Famer.
Right, well, thank you all for watching and we will see you next time with SmackDown. Peace out.
Bye Adam.
100%
Bye.