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 there, I'm Adam.
Welcome to another episode of finishes and factions.
And on this episode we're going to be reviewing
Saturday Night's main event from Saturday the 25th of January
from San Antonio, Texas out of the Frostbank Stadium.
And as always I've got my co-host Rich. Rich, how are you doing?
I'm not too bad mate, how are you?
Yeah, all good mate, I'm all good.
We've got an old school show, an old school show feel for
Saturday Night's main event as some classic fans would know.
Saturday Night's main event was a staple towards the end of the
golden era of WWE moving ever so slightly into the
attitude era where it dropped off and they've started bringing it back.
And not only did they bring back Saturday Night's main event
but they also this time brought back Jesse the body of Ventura
which was nice to see.
Oh, it was a complete blast from the past.
I mean Jesse Ventura is known as a wrestler and still
practicing politician to this day.
But he also served in the US Navy as a Marine at one point.
He's been a very busy boy and yeah, just really nice to see some of the old stars.
I mean one of the old stars we saw in attendance on this show was
the million dollar man, Ted D.B. Asse.
And it was not his first appearance on a Saturday Night main event.
He was on seven of the original runs of them.
So it was definitely nice to see him home on Saturday Night main event this week.
And in fairness, he wasn't the only legend in place on this show.
We see throughout the show we're treated to some absolute highlights
of Hall of Fame plus fanatics.
We've got to see Jesse Ventura, we've got to see Alonzo Blaze, Mark Henry was in the building.
We've got two massive Hall of Famers right there himself.
Yeah, we saw Hacksaw, Hacksaw, Jim McDougan as well as Dory Funk Jr.
WrestleMania 2.
So that was a nice big blast of the past.
Another Hall of Famer we saw as well was HBK, the Heartbreak Kid, Sean Michaels.
Yes, we certainly did.
And we also saw Arne Anderson and Tully Blanchard, the Brain Busters.
Oh, that's nice to see them come back in as well.
It was, they spent a bit of time outside of WWE as well.
Arne Anderson and Tully Blanchard spent some time over in AEW at one point.
Both under contract there for a couple of years.
Before now, they're not really under contract anywhere.
They just sort of make random appearances as and when.
As you mentioned AEW, one of the other Hall of Famers that was there this evening, Mark Henry,
he was under contract with them at one point.
Is he still under contract with AEW or is he not doing any work with them at the moment?
He does a lot of work with a fellow wrestling podcast full of absolute legends being busted open radio.
Is where he seems to spend a majority of his energies now.
I don't think he's still under contract for AEW.
But yeah, we had, we, as what, I mean, the entire feel of Saturday night,
this Saturday night's main event was old school.
The ref uniforms were old school.
Even the announcement microphones were the old style microphones that came down from the ceiling.
It's nice to hear that sound again as well.
They have those very unique audio qualities.
Those older mics and it was nice to hear that sort of raspiness from them as well.
Yeah, 100%. And I mean, the first time we heard it was the challenger and champion announcements
from our first match, which was the women's heavyweight championship match between Nia Jax and Ria Bloody Ripley.
Oh, yeah.
And this was a match that you were particularly excited to see.
It was purely because I love watching Ria wrestle. She's a very talented wrestler,
but I've been really enjoying watching this Nia Jax heel run.
Like we've said in the episode for SmackDown yesterday, you know, it's, she does it very, very well.
And she carries on doing it into this match, but she, she hits Ria Ripley before the introductions have even finished.
Yeah, drops a Glasgow kiss on Ria Ripley during the announcements and the ring is having to be right off.
Oh, 100%. But the match gets started.
I mean, as we would have expected from these absolute titans of the women's division, it was a brutal match.
There was nothing left. Nothing left unsaid or undone as it goes.
And Ria Ripley had a huge Samoan drop, a huge Samoan drop done to a Vynaya Jax.
And I mean, at one point I was some kind of like they referred to it as a code red, which almost looked like a standing Sunset flip.
Ria is quite lucky. You know, this is the same city that she run the Royal Rumble in in 2023.
She's always done quite well when she's been in San Antonio.
So for her to carry on strong going into this match, especially with, you know, the, the rumble coming up.
You needed to keep her as strong as she has been, but you've also got to still try and build Naira and a strength as well.
So how was this story as far from over? Oh, 100%. This is, if they play this right, this has got the legs to take it all the way to WrestleMania,
which in a bit of a throwback to the previous episode about SmackDown from the 24th of January,
I mentioned that obviously there was a Tiffany Stratton promo during that particular episode of SmackDown,
where Tiffany was basically making it out like she was the only choice.
But I suppose she's sort of right in that sense.
If WWE play it right and get the legs off the current few between Naira Jax and Ria Ripley.
Yeah, I can't see them trying to add a third person into this few because by having the women's rumble winner pick Ria,
it's essentially what they're doing or they're going to have someone try and make an alignment,
have the women's run up, women's rumble winner.
That's a bit of a mouthful. Try and make an alliance with Naira Jax to sneak Ria's title out from underneath her.
Yeah, I mean, just wrapping match one up from here, I think. Ria retains the title in this match with a riptide to absolute rapturous applause.
It wasn't just the riptide she hit though. Like we said, she hit a code red at some point, she hit an electric chair at one point.
She was hitting power bombs from the second rope. Her and Naira, they went to war and I think just the riptide was the icing on the cake, so to speak.
That was the cherry on top.
100%. 100%.
The good thing about one of these types of shows or good and bad is that all of the story development is done in the ring.
So there isn't a lot of promos to bulk out the show or anything like that.
But we move on from the women's heavyweight championship match to the men's intercontinental championship match between Seamus and Bronn Breaker.
I've got a statistic for you.
Oh, is it the same one as me though?
I think so.
I think I'm going to sneak out from underneath you. This is the first time since 1992 that the intercontinental championship has been defended on Saturday night main event.
And that match was between the heartbreak kid himself, Shawn Michaels and the British Bulldog, Davey Smith.
So that was the same bit of trivia the lot of us were going to throw in there. I'll have to try and find some trivia somewhere else in this episode to throw in there.
But yeah, a few more tales of the tape here for it.
As we've highlighted and the commentary team highlight constantly, Seamus has found the intercontinental championship to be one of the most elusive championships in his career.
So it's the only one he has not won yet.
I have some more stats for you.
Kind of.
I was going to try and bulk this out, but I got slightly sidetracked by a call of duty.
So Seamus has won the WWE Championship three times.
He's won the World Heavyweight Championship once.
He's a three time United States champion, a five time tag champion, a 2012 Royal Rumble winner.
And he is the 2015 Mr Money in the Bank.
Yeah, so the odd thing about all of those stats is is that he.
One of those you would expect him to have risen through the ranks as a lot of superstars do.
Seamus won a lot of those in reverse order, so he won the big titles first and then later in the world heavyweight championship against John Cena within six months joining the company.
Joining the main roster release.
This this match between him and Bron Breaker this evening marks Seamus's 10th attempt in his career to snatch the IC tag title.
That's 10 matches that Seamus has gone into and lost not being able to capture that elusive intercontinental champion.
Seamus and this title start and feel a little bit like Dolph Ziggler in the world title.
One day he might get it, but he's just going to be going to play you with it until they give it to him.
I personally think if they do decide to let him have it, I think they'll have it on the ground the stage of them all just to make it, you know, if they think that him in the IC title at WrestleMania, that will be the biggest pop of the night,
apart from maybe Jey Uso pulling off a title himself at main WrestleMania.
Yeah, this is it. But yeah, as for the actual match itself, I'll be honest, I didn't get a fantastic amount of notes because I did get really kind of sucked into it.
Again, I've said before in previous episodes, Seamus is one of my absolute all time favourites.
And Bron Breaker I'm not terribly familiar with, although I do know that they did sort of, I don't know if it's a closely guarded secret. It's not something that I knew before, but they did mention something along the lines of Bron Breaker being a Steiner at one point.
Do you call this a Steiner?
Breaker is Rick Steiner's son. So yeah, Scott Steiner's nephew. He followed them into the line of football. He played college football. I remember who for off the top of my head, I'd have to have a little look.
But yeah, he then went into professional wrestling afterwards. So yeah, he's definitely definitely a Steiner. And I think you can tell by the way you look at him at some point as well because he is a big boy.
But unfortunately, he's always seems I've not seen him cut much in the way of a promo. He's obviously got the wrestling pedigree, the wrestling ability, but not seen him cut much of a promo just yet.
I'd like to see a little bit more of him doing that, just to sort of give my to expose myself to more of a well rounded performance from him as a as a professional wrestler. Because we know in from past experience, you're either going to you're either going to be a fantastic wrestler with no with
no workable promo skill or little to no promo workable promo skills, or you're going to be completely the opposite. Yeah, right. So just clicking on Bronn breakers Wikipedia Bronn breaker played for the Baltimore Ravens.
And while I am here. I don't know why it is taking me to a link to Coral Jade's Wikipedia page.
Well, we're not here to talk about Coral Jade. Just at the moment, maybe in a future episode somewhere we will have a conversation about Coral Jade. But right now we're here to talk about shameless and Bronn breaker and I did.
As I said, didn't take a great many notes for this. I did call out a couple of spots that I quite enjoyed. One of which there was an absolutely spear spear from Bronn breaker, which was a defining moment within this match
in the game. And I had just before that that shameless toss Bronn breaker into the timekeepers area.
And I had available to them. Yeah, I had that beautiful spear. And how shameless got up from that I have no clue because if that was me I'd have folded up like a garden dexter. I would not have moved off that floor.
And to be able to stand up from something like that. But we know that that eventually played a part in the overall overall result of the match as it seems that during that spear shameless may have potentially injured some ribs or done some kind of internal damage to
where to himself, which ultimately led to an unsuccessful challenge on this match. Did manage to get some payback of himself though he hit Bronn breaker 16 times in the chest when he had entangled up on the ropes.
Now, shameless is absolute drum. Shameless is known for having a hell of a slap on him so to and you could see Bronn break his chest at the end of it. That was redder than shameless is hair color. That was an impressive shade of ouch.
I will give you that. Oh 100%. But, but yeah, I mean, in the end, Bronn breaker retains the championship for this one. So that's two title shot. That's two title matches we've had so far during this during this
paper view. It's more of a paper view. But it's not it's more of a we've just thrown an extra program in to keep rich and out of busy. I wish we were that one but you know.
So after after Bronn breaker retained with the three count off the spear, we got to see a hometown hero, two time Hall of Famer back to back Royal Rumble winner and the ladder match master. So who better to overlook the contracts.
So we've got one more moniker that we have that we can't we can't honestly forget as we draw closer to the the road to WrestleMania WrestleMania himself.
This is a guy though that has that many nicknames that if we were to write a book we'd need a couple of no pads over his career he's had a fair few.
100%. This was the in ring contract signing for the WWE Championship match in Indianapolis on Saturday, the first of February at the Royal Rumble between Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens with Sean Michaels moderating the contract signing and
he he's definitely looking older than he he used to.
This is it.
Definitely. We know he's getting on a bit but Jesus he looked at and after his entrance that poor guy was gassed.
Yeah, 100%. He doesn't he doesn't do anything close to the amount of activities he's used to he used to be able to do. I mean we're long past the point where HBK is dressing up as Shane McMahon doing a stupid dance in the middle of the ring that probably would
lead him into some kind of asthma attack if he tried to do that now or a lawsuit or a lawsuit and he's not too far past the point of being able to switch in music Stan in the middle of the corridor or just to prove how controversial he truly is.
Poor Stan. Poor Stan. Stan was never the same after that. He wrote a letter to his favourite rapper and it all went downhill from there.
Yeah, this is it. But yeah, I mean HBK starts his little is his little pre-contract signing promo by taking a job at current Smithdown GM Nick Aldous. There's a reason I've said current because I've seen a rumor that Nick Aldous potentially could be being replaced as
a former Smithdown GM. I'm not 100% sure why I don't believe this is anything to do with Nick Aldous's performance as he was previously, previously NXT GM. He's then done a really good job within NXT to then move on to SmackDown.
I'm not sure what Nick Aldous's future is after this if this rumor turns out to be true, but I've heard that he could be being replaced by the whole effing show are the D Rob Van Dam could potentially be coming in as
a SmackDown GM if this rumor pans out to be true. But I was hoping you'd say it was Teddy Long. No, Fred not. I don't think there's enough superstars to fit the tag team challenge that Teddy Long will inevitably come up with player.
Hello. Hello. But yeah, one thing I noticed about this once HBK had had his had his little moment in the sun was the first person he bought out wasn't the current official WWE champion being Cody Rhodes.
He bought out Kevin Owens first, which I thought was an interesting thing to do was it. I think if he'd have bought Kevin Owens out second, then that potentially could have led to some animosity and say, Well, why are you bringing him out second?
I was going to say there was some ego scratching going on. It was just to shut Kevin Owens up, which 100% you would have thought with the you know after the slapping he got last night on SmackDown from Jimmy Uso that his mouth would be quite so big today.
But no, definitely Kevin Owens is back up to his normal standard.
Yeah, this is it. But yeah, I mean, he is going to it's going to take a while to shake this heel persona off once he's once he's had his time with it. But at the moment,
obviously, the contract signing was to make the match stipulation official, which was that they were to both surrender their titles to have them suspended above the ring for a ladder match where they were in Indianapolis on Saturday, they will be asked
they will compete in a standard ladder match where the idea is that they remove both title belts from the from their suspension above the ring to walk out undisputed WWE champion.
Obviously, with the ladder match, there are no disqualifications count how pinfalls or submissions. The only way to win this match is to climb the ladder retrieve both tiles are hanging above the ring.
And my favorite part about the ladder match ladders can and will be used as a weapon.
Yeah, 100%. It is, it is for all intent and purpose a no disqualification zone. It's there. There's very little that can that doesn't go in a ladder matching WWE as we have seen so many times in the past.
I mean,
it's been put through a ladder. Yes, so much. But with excitement.
Cody shows a lot of maturity in this promo signed the contract. No issue.
It's kept it's and this is going to come as a surprise to absolutely nobody. Kevin Owens that seems to kick up the most amount of fuss about getting this contract signed and honestly, I think Kevin Owens, he just comes across as very bitter and and I mean,
he calls even says the comes across as jealous. Oh, 100%. I mean, Cody Rhodes calls him out, of course, Kevin out for making it all about him that Kevin's just bitching about lost friendships.
He is.
He for all the fact for all the times that Cody's fans have been called crybabies. It just this entire promo seem to wreak of Kevin being a bit of a Kevin crybaby. I'm not going to lie.
Kevin is acting like a Karen. Let's put it that way.
But one thing I did quite enjoy was a O's references to a O's references to even the time when.
Michael's lost his smile back in the attitude era where he literally took he literally took his toys at one point and went home. Only one. What's the Mr. Hulk Hogan? Or there was an occasion where where even stone cold Steve Austin refused to turn up at a TV taping at one point because
of a match decision. But at least with that one, I can understand the reasoning behind it. But yeah, Kevin Owens finally signs it, bants it firmly in Sean Michaels chest, which I think sort of just showed.
Michael's. Oh, 100%. But it shows it showed Sean Michaels his age at that point because had this been a Sean Michaels in his prime, he would have kicked the living shit at Kevin Owens.
All starting with that striking of the band and we would have asked three word question first.
Are you ready?
Not a question that it's not a question that Sean Michaels asks.
That's a triple H question.
There's been a few opportunities in the in the times over the years that Sean has managed to creep that one up.
Yeah, this is true. But yeah, in the closing moments of this contract signing, as per the stipulation, both belts are surrendered and suspended above the ring in preparation for the ladder match in Indianapolis on Saturday.
Kevin manages to work. Kevin takes no time realistically, manages to insult everybody in the ring, as only Kevin Owens can.
Well, yeah, but he then also had the absolute the fucking balls on this guy, I tell you, to snub a handshake from Sean Michaels. Now, I would personally quite like to quite enjoy shaking Sean Michaels hand, but have the balls to snub it and then to have a pop shot at Cody afterwards.
Like, yeah, so works a cheap shot to Cody and and then adding insult to potential injury.
He keeps adding layers of dick headness to this character, doesn't it? It's like an onion.
Oh, 100% extra layer every week.
But he tries a package pile driver, but this time he's trying it to the heartbreak kid himself.
And I'd like to say that would have some repercussions, but I don't think there is enough pain meds and retirement home for Sean Michaels to have one last match.
Well, let's face it, let's face it, if Sean Michaels were to get injured by Kevin Owens, I don't think Kevin Owens would be in WWE for much longer, bearing in mind who the chief content officer is of WWE at the moment.
Being everybody's favorite and yours and I, it's Mr Paul LeVec, Paul Triple H LeVec himself.
Still haven't had my phone calls regarding the Royal Rumble tickets that I show speed got either, Paul.
You know, I'm missing that phone call myself and we're running out of time here. It's, as we're recording this, it's it's Monday evening. You'll be getting ready for Raw shortly and I've still not received that phone call, but I'll keep the phone on load.
Just in case. So, yeah, but the package pile driver.
I don't mind being stuck being packaged in a box and shipped that way, but to be quite honest, I don't mind how I make it there. I'll make it there.
But yeah, Cody falls the package pile driver attempt and KO gets gets a firsthand look at what a super kick should look like from the master himself.
Mr. Shawn Michaels comes back with a sweet chin music to finish that that little promo that little in contract in ring contract signing off. I mean, it was always going to end in chaos.
I will be honest, I just always thought Shawn Michaels a Billy instigator.
Yeah, and it was not that way to go this time, but it was nice to see Kevin Owens definitely feeling the after effects of that sweet chin music. He's a he's taken a fair few bumps to that rather large chin of his the last couple of days.
So it's got to be feeling a little bit sore.
All's hoping all's hoping that we move on from there to a repeat of a VT promo shown on Smackdown of the Taylor the tape between the one big SOB Braun Strowman and the Samoan were wolf himself, Jacob Fatou ahead of their singles match, which is the next match on the card.
Yeah, that was the VT that basically set up like a boxing match to knit with all the statistics on it.
Yeah, look at the statistics paper Braun Strowman should steam walk Jacob Fatou.
But the Simone were wolf is not someone you want to be counting out.
So the personalities that these two guys definitely hold into this much.
So there were a few bits and pieces that I picked out before this match even started.
One of them was the fact that the commentary team happened to drop in there that Jacob Fatou has done three stints in prison before his 18th birthday before the
jail. Yeah, so that was a little bit later on as to why he became a professional wrestler.
So he did three stints in jail before it was 18.
He basically worked out that if he joined the family right business of being a pro wrestler, he could beat people up legally and not have to keep going back to jail because the last after the last time he came out of jail.
He was homeless sleeping on a mattress, which, you know, for some of the homeless guys is a privilege I suppose to have a mattress, but he was definitely chose to go straight in.
He's definitely better than myself working his way into the WWE.
Yeah, this is it.
But the the other bit that I sort of cherry picked out of Jacob Fatou's entrance.
We mentioned it and Oolah Farla type thing he was wearing when he entered.
Yeah, I sort of saw it as a different as a sort of a combination between a lay which you see in Hawaiian culture as being a symbol of welcoming and and being quite a spitable thing to do.
And the Oolah Farla that we saw in tribal combat on the first episode of Raw in Netflix era that Roman Reigns and solo so coer have been scrapping over recently.
It was.
Which you could find at the start of our podcast library.
Yes, 100%.
But the yeah, the Oolah Farla looking type thing that Jacob Fatou walked out wearing that nobody seemed to mention.
None of the commentary team seemed to pick up on it, but it was something that really stuck out at me and I'm sort of glad that it sort of stuck out at you as well.
It made me it's made me feel a little bit better about bringing it up where it was just a detail that was throw away.
Because another throw a detail to do with that is Jimmy Uso is wearing one when he enters the ring for his match a little bit later on.
If you notice, I thought it was because they were Jacob Fatou was saying that Braun Strowman needs to get in where he fits in on the way to the ring.
I guess they used it to put a microphone in without having to physically give him a microphone or clip one on to him that he'd have to take off on his entrance.
So obviously at the end of the end of his entrance when he takes it off and he puts it inside the ring, the microphone is in it.
So it's already turned off.
It's just ready to go.
Yeah, true.
But yeah, those were the two details that I picked out before the match and then sort of moving into the match.
It was a very different.
What kind of a match was it?
Oh, 100%. But it was a very different strategy to for Jacob Fatou going in against going against the Braun Strowman, the monster among monsters.
It's a case that Fatou started using speed instead of just raw power to try and bully his way through this match as we've seen him do in the past.
We are more commonly used to seeing from Braun Strowman, but these two decided they were going to mix it up in front of a maximum capacity in San Antonio of 16,406.
Watching what I felt was probably a contender for much the evening.
You had some really basic moves used very, very well like Braun Strowman, here, Jacob Fatou with a couple of shoulder tackles.
The first one into the barricade.
The second one sent Fatou flying over the announce table.
But Strowman went to this well a little bit too often as he tried it, that he did try a third one after barging Fatou over the over the announce table and was met with.
What was that? Sorry, he got caught out trying to do it.
Oh, 100%. It was scoped, reversed, no one home for that one, unfortunately.
And that sort of shifted the momentum at that moment into Fatou's favour.
Where he managed to drop Braun Strowman onto the announce table with a hefty Samoan drop. Now to be able to get someone of Braun Strowman's size up for a Samoan drop is a challenge.
Like Strowman is an absolute unit.
But again, the announce team referenced the reinforced announce table and it must be reinforced with that Samoan drop you expected Strowman to go through it.
Did he? Did he help?
No, this is it.
Bounced like a, well, I don't think I can describe something off the top of my head the way Strowman bounced off that announce table.
But yeah, the announce table was very stale.
That spoke to the beginning of the end for this match really, didn't it?
I don't think Strowman really recovered from this point.
Well, after Fatou threw him back into the ring, he kind of got dumped into the turnbuckle, didn't he?
And it was just constant hemslams, repeated, repeated from one turnbuckle to the other on the hemslams.
And then, you know, he got to the point where he tossed the referee out the ring because he's, you know, the ref saying, look, he's done, man, just pin him.
It's finished.
And then because of that, we ended up with a no DQ finish.
This actually, this was a bit of an odd finish because when we saw this a few weeks previous with the Carmelo Hayes match,
it was put down as a no contest.
However, for this match, Braun Strowman was named winner by DQ.
Yes.
So I'd love to understand the reason behind why Carmelo's match was down as a no contest with no winner.
Right.
So I think I know why.
I think Carmelo's match was done, was no contest due to interference.
Where with this one, it was done as a disqualification because as soon as you put your hands on a referee, you're disqualified.
So that's true.
So Jacob Fatou was an active combatant in the match where with the Carmelo match, he was an interference running.
So yeah, no, that makes sense.
At this point, that tips the scales over the edge and Jacob Fatou goes well, Wolf mode, I suppose.
If that's the way you do it, I'd love to see if he uses it as like an alter ego in the way that Finn Balor brings out the demon.
I think that could be quite a cool aspect for a one-light only for it.
But yeah, he grabs a steel chair.
He lays into Braun Strowman with that.
He's laying into security.
He just doesn't care at this point.
He is completely, like his cheese is completely slid off his cracker.
He's going nuts.
Oh, he just goes completely unhinged.
And I mean, by the time Jacob Fatou is done with Brawl, is anywhere close to being done with Braun Strowman.
Braun Strowman is literally hissing blood.
I think at one point, Jacob Fatou hits four moonsaults from the top rope consecutively on him.
I say Strowman got hit with a chair. He is bleeding profusely.
So I think from beginning to end, I counted half a dozen.
So six moonsaults to an already chronically injured Braun Strowman.
I'm hoping sort of this doesn't put him back on the injured list moving forward because it was really good to see Strowman back.
And he's been nice and powerful as well.
Yeah, this is it. I mean, he's only been back for a couple of weeks.
This is the first time we've seen him in any real in-ring action.
Yeah, so I think he returned last week to save at LA Night, didn't he?
And then this is the first week that we've seen him in action or in-ring action anyway.
So he returned the week before last. So two weeks ago, he returned as something that nobody saw coming.
We didn't realise he was going to do it. He returned, teamed up with LA Night to defend themselves against the team of Tamatonga and Jacob Fatou.
This is when last night's match with Tamatonga and LA Night was made as well as the match for tonight, which we've just talked about, which was Braun Strowman versus Jacob Fatou.
The only difference, and we pointed this out, yes, with that in our last episode about Friday Night SmackDown, was that when Tamatonga faced LA Night, Jacob Fatou stayed at ringside.
It was not the same case for Tamatonga with Jacob Fatou facing Braun Strowman, which I found quite interesting.
Although, Tamatonga did end up in-ring and at ringside, trying to basically peel Jacob Fatou away from Braun Strowman in an attempt to show some kind of mercy to the poor guy.
Yeah, I don't think that Jacob Fatou is going to show any mercy at all. He is building one hell of a character.
A ruthless heel, which I think we need something along the lines of what we're getting with Tamatonga and Fatou.
It reminds me very much of a young shield where they are just coming in and fucking shit up because they can.
Yeah, and this was just absolute insanity, realistically.
It was almost a difficult thing to watch for Braun Strowman because I like Braun Strowman. He's got a good character about him in terms of promos.
He's got a good in-ring ability for a big guy.
He is the last active member of the Wyatt family as well. Obviously, we've lost Bray Wyatt, we've lost Luke Harper, Eric Rowan's not wrestling at the moment that I'm aware of.
It is literally just Braun Strowman.
Yeah, this is it. It seems a shame that that's the way we've gone with it, but that's life.
Right, I'm going to try and throw some statistics at you this time and see if you haven't already picked up on these with the affiliation between San Antonio and the WWE.
So San Antonio has hosted four Royal Rumbles over the course of the Royal Rumble being an event.
The first one being in 1997, 10 years later in 2007, another 10 years later in 2017, and then just a few short years later in 2023 was the last time San Antonio hosted a Royal Rumble event.
Yep, Rio Ripley won the women's event and Cody Rhodes won the men's Royal Rumble in the last one to be held in San Antonio.
Wow.
So and as well as that, Saturday Night Main Event has been hosted by San Antonio a grand total of 38 times, which is an insane number of Saturday Night Main Events to be hosted by one city.
It certainly is.
Saturday Night Main Event was definitely different when it went through the last time as the announce team mentioned that the late mean Jean Oakland spent a lot of his time doing bits and pieces on Saturday Night Main Event.
So they paid a small tribute to another Hall of Famer that unfortunately can't be with them this evening that would definitely have been so if he'd have still been with us.
Oh, definitely. He wouldn't have missed it for the world. But these things, again, this is life.
And this is where we see that. I think it was, I'm not terribly familiar with him, but I show speed.
Yes. So before we had that, we had another little interview with with Jesse Ventura and he basically just said in this that, you know, wrestling when he was was around more, it was more technical wrestlers these days are a lot more vicious.
And especially after watching that last match, which I believe it was Joe Tessitore told him it was not all like that these days that was just a that was just a bit of a a one off.
And followed closely again by another Royal Rumble VT basically just giving us another visual on those that have already declared themselves for both the men's and the women's rumbles and some of those other matches that have already been set up to take place, for example, the Cody Rhodes,
Kevin Owens ladder match.
So we we got a brief tease of what we were what to expect at Royal Rumble in a week's time.
And before, so moving on, as I said, I show speed was phoned up by Triple H and basically invited to the Royal Rumble in Indianapolis on the 1st of February.
And at which point he bases like, yeah, I'll be there, you know, am I allowed to stream it, which you told he is that's not an issue.
And then he's like, you know, kind of, I see stream senior and it's like, well, the funny little retort of if you can see him, you can stream him.
Does that mean that we could have confirmation there of a John Cena appearance at the Royal Rumble? We've not seen much of him at all on his retirement tour so far.
As far as I'm aware, we've not had him in any in ring action at all.
I don't actually think we've seen him on the Netflix era.
So we have he was on the 1st episode of Raw where he did announce his his.
Yeah, we had a promo that we've not had a match, have we?
No, we haven't had it. We've seen no in ring action from Cody Rhodes as of yet.
But we are someone we have seen some in ring action for in recent weeks is Jey Uso and we see it again in the main event match.
I mean, this was actually a surprisingly short card for a more premium event realistically with WWE.
Especially considering Smackdown the night before was a seven match card to only have four matches on the card for this for this event was actually a little bit underwhelming.
I think the quality of match we got over the quantity of matches made it just the right fit. And for me personally, I really enjoyed watching this this overall program.
But the four matches, I think was just just enough to be fair.
I didn't have too much kind of given us it wasn't too much information to digest. You know, it's taken a little bit of extra off next week or this week's programming with Monday Night Raw and XT and Smackdown leading into the rumble.
I think it was it was timed nicely to be fair.
Yeah, it was it was very nicely laid out.
But yeah, we went into this main event match. This was for the World Heavyweight Championship currently held by the ring general Gunther and being challenged for by main event Jey Uso.
Now, one last set of statistics from me. Gunther has currently held the World Heavyweight Championship for 165 days. He's also held the Intercontinental Championship at one point and he held the NXT Championship as well.
So in total, Gunther has spent over four years as champion, which is 80% of his tenure with WWE. So 80% of his tenure at WWE Gunther has had a tag strap strapped around his waist.
Yeah, which is a phenomenal statistic to to be able to hold to your name to have spent that long as a champion or that much of your tenure within a company as a champion of in one form or another.
Which is interesting because he is not necessarily a superstar that you would associate with having that much potential, I suppose they must see a lot in him to be giving him that much belt.
But he's definitely not being as over as some other wrestlers on the roster. It's interesting to kind of see, but he does do what he does do very, very well.
This is what he said in Promo is leading up to this match is that he's not and he's not an entertainment superstar. He is a professional wrestler. He is he is there to hit us and then go home.
He's not there to shake hands, kiss babies, create trends or anything like that. He is there to go in, dominate, go home. And again, it's something that Gunther does very, very well.
Up until this match.
So yeah, this was a this was a surprise for me. I will be on. I wasn't. I wasn't expecting the result of the match was what I expected.
Yes, I didn't expect was how competitive this match was.
I think and I think we should be we should be clear here. We all knew in the week leading up to WrestleMania, there was not going to be not the weekly.
It's going to be a great WrestleMania this year.
That title was not changing hands with you before we knew that.
So we can with that confirm that good the retained but the match they had leading up to that was incredible.
You saw at the end of it the amount of respect that good there had learned for J for the things that we know the spots and the works they'd had within that match.
And it was a great match and the two of them have got history anyway, which made that match even better.
You know, Gunther was the guy who eliminated Jay from last year's Royal Rumble.
He beat when you know, and Gunther held the I.C. title when Jay was trying to get his hands on that gun to beat him there.
You know, he beat him in the King of the Rings semi finals.
There's a lot a lot of history between the superstars which just made this match more and more compelling.
It's a and I don't really want to make the comparison.
I feel like I'm going to anyway.
It's one of those finish the story stories.
Eventually, J is so it's going to be allowed to finish the story.
He will beat whichever champion he is he's feuding with.
I think it will be good.
I think J is so will be the next World Heavyweight Champion.
I don't know whether that be a Royal Rumble thing or I don't know if they're going to try and string this one out until WrestleMania and have what I believe could be the biggest pop scene at WrestleMania since Mick Foley,
Sean Michaels and Stone Cold came out against the League of Nations.
Well, if you'll allow me to speculate just for a moment.
We already know.
So from this match, we know that unfortunately J is so is an unsuccessful in defeating Gunther in this match after an absolute brutal war of a match.
J is so does not pick up the title.
So he unfortunately is unsuccessful at beating Gunther yet again.
However, this leaves J is so free to be an entrant within the men's main within the men's Royal Rumble on Saturday.
Now, if if J is so wins the men's Royal Rumble event, which is more than possible, that leave them with a main event spot at the show of shows WrestleMania.
And if we are realistic, we know that that following up if J walks out of Royal Rumble with the 2025 Royal Rumble winner title to his name,
that the likelihood is is that he will may he may well choose Gunther as his opponent going into WrestleMania, which keeps the story going.
I think it's possible if that happens that J is so goes on after an extended program with Gunther where he showed where he begins to improve.
We come week making sure that he is finding all those little weaknesses getting really under Gunther skin, which we've seen him do in promos leading up to this match.
It's a possibility that we could see J who so's first World Heavyweight Championship rain begin at the show of shows.
And he get and score his foot one of his first wins over Gunther.
Yeah, and I think I have just found one of the perfect ways to finish this episode, Adam. I have just been sat on scrolling through social media while we've been recording this episode and wrestling daily news have just released a story saying that Jordan race has just signed a multi year deal with
WWE. So that could be one of the entrance in the female Royal Rumble this year.
So Jordan Grace, I believe has not long but vacated a title in TNA, which is a bit of an odd move considering TNA's multi year deal to share talent between that and NXT.
So according to the article with this WWE just locked in on one of the biggest names on the free agent market after weeks of speculation, Jordan Grace is officially heading to WWE.
Apparently they wasted no time making a move for Grace saying that she wrapped up her TNA wrestling run, making it clear they weren't willing to let her test for free agency.
So she decided that basically once her contract was up she was leaving TNA so she dropped the title to do so.
Which do you know what fair play to fair play to her and I'm looking forward to seeing what how that shakes up the women's division moving forward.
I mean, yeah, we've come to the end of the show and as I say a four match card so not much to choose from. Do you have a match of the night?
Yes, I do. I went into recording this with one of two in my mind while we've been recording this. I think I've made my choice.
For me, the match of the night was a real Ripley and Nia Jax.
Okay, that wasn't what I expected you to say.
You were expecting me to go for Jey Uso and I think I probably would have done if he'd have won.
As it stands, I'll correct you. I wasn't expecting you to go for Jey Uso for that very reason. Had he won that title, we'd have both been in agreement and both gone for that main event.
And I think you both would have done it if it was the Seamus match. If Seamus had won, we'd have both chosen between those two.
So you'd have probably won Seamus. I'd have probably gone for Jey Uso.
As it stands, I'm still picking the Jey Uso match. That was a fantastic story told and a genuine threat has been identified for Gunther's reign as World Heavyweight Championship.
It was definitely a way of building that story.
What I expected you to come out with was actually the only non-title match in this card.
I honestly expected you to say that your match of the night was going to be Braun Strowman vs Jacob Fatou.
I'd like to have been able to pick that one and I'll explain to you why. I think they could have done a little bit more with it and I think it could have been a little bit longer.
I don't think the beatdown needed to go on for quite as much. I know they're trying to build Fatou's character, but at the same time they're taking a lot away from a lot of work they've put in with Braun Strowman over the last decade.
And I don't think Strowman's at a point where he's looking at passing a torch.
Do you know what? I agree with that. I'm out of points. I've got nothing else.
I am pretty much done too. So thank you for hanging out and I will catch you for the next episode which will be Monday Night Raw.
Yeah, thank you all.
See you all soon. Bye.
Bye.