MUSIC
Welcome to the ring, it's Richard and Adam
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion
Tag teams grappling belts are clashing
MUSIC
Hey, welcome to the next SmackDown edition of
Finishes and Factures with myself Rich and my co-host Adam
Hi Adam, hi there, how you doing?
Not bad, by yourself.
I'm doing pretty good mate, doing pretty good.
Right, this week we are in the Game Bridge Fieldhouse Arena
which is the home of the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis, Indiana
Yeah and not only that, it is a sold out
SmackDown before the Royal Rumble, this is the last televised
live event they have before 30 men, 30 women enter the ring
with one of each emerging victorious and on their way to wrestle Mania
and I am absolutely ecstatic to be able to crack into those
Royal Rumble matches and there's a few other matches on that card
that I'm looking forward to watching as well so we'll get to break those down
in the next couple of days as well.
Yeah, they've been built up something massive and having watched this week's
episode of SmackDown they don't skimp on being able to just get that
last little bit of shine in on that card kicking off tomorrow
but we start off this evening with a rare treat for Friday Night SmackDown
we are treated to a voice we don't hear very often anymore on Friday nights
we have Michael Cole and Pat McAfee on SmackDown this evening
We do
Now Pat McAfee is something of a local hero
my understanding is that he used to play for
Yeah, Pat McAfee played for the Indianapolis Colts
he was a punter, played from 2009 to 2017
and what a welcome that man got on his entrance
they welcomed he got and what an introduction he gave
but moving on because we hear quite a bit from Michael Cole and Pat McAfee
throughout the evening the first segment we went to was an in-ring interview
between Joe Tessatori and Kevin Owens
This was a bit of a, a meant to be a come up and some last week, wasn't it?
Kevin Owens last week felt he was disrespected by Joe Tessatori
giving Cody Rhodes the first option
and this was supposed to be Joe's way of apologizing by the looks of it
but it was interesting to see how he was going to go about doing it
I mean, let's face it, when doesn't Kevin Owens feel disrespected recently?
I'm pretty sure somebody could breathe in his direction incorrectly
and that man would feel disrespected in one way, shape or form
so he's, I don't think he's telling us anything new
but KO was really coming down that ramp meaning business after his introduction
there was no even enjoying being in Indiana, Indianapolis on that evening
He's there for business at the moment
as far as he's concerned he is just there for one reason and one reason only
and that's why he's going to be in the last tomorrow night against Cody Rhodes
Yeah, this is it and I mean he, during this promo, I mean Tessatori starts out
trying to sort of address some of his recent actions, the recent attacks that he's got
and sort of asks him like what's the disconnect here?
What has caused all of this sort of hostility
and what is already quite a hostile business as it is anyway
and sort of KO just sort of responds, almost outraged at the question
and again he just feels like he's being disrespected
which is a bit of a common theme as we've already said
Everyone seems to disrespect him even when they're trying to help him
Show him respect, he doesn't quite necessarily see it that way
Yeah, and the one thing that he does before we move any further through this particular promo
is he makes a very big song and dance about removing the winged eagle title
that he has been parading around with over recent weeks
back off the belt suspension unit that was suspending them above the ring
he has taken that back, I'm surprised not more of a big deal was made about that
as that was one of the stipulations made in the Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes ladder match
for tomorrow night
Well I was expecting Cody to come out and take his back
I'm not going to lie, he might be one of those Kevin's got his and my mind
Well I've Kevin made a signed contract, I'm not signing the contract
very much that's what I was expecting
I think that would be a reasonable thing to expect
but I also think that I'm not in 100% certain if Cody Rhodes was even at
he will have been in Indiana but just not necessarily at the Smackdown taping
within being at the Royal Rumble the next night
maybe he was having a night off before a big show potentially
Let's face it, we know he wasn't having a night off
he was probably doing a media appearance elsewhere
those guys don't get time off around one of the big four pay-per-views
but ask him for time off at Christmas and hospitality
you're not going to get any time off
No, this is it, but after taking the winged eagle title back
KO goes to storm out having taken his toys wanting to go home
to be interrupted by
again somebody
not a normal thing to see on Friday night Smackdown is
All-Zion Punk coming out to
Well, I mean coming out
he was just chilling out backstage when he heard someone use his name
so he might have been raiding catering for the donors
I mean we know somebody else's name that gets mentioned
and he appears as well
Not on this promotion though and we haven't quite taken finishes and factions
to a TNA episode just yet
I'm not sure how much more wrestling I can fit into my week
Not going to lie
There's a possibility there if you believe
There is definitely a possibility that if you believe he may just
make it an appearance of some kind
I already know you're having daggers stared into the back of your head there dude
No, she's
currently looking at a new neurodiversity app that she's found
so she's happy
Thank you for trying to throw me under that proverbial bust though my friend
I do appreciate that
That's not a problem at all, that's what I'm here for
But yeah, I mean what a pop that Punk came out to
I mean we used to punk getting a good pop
I'm going to not be able to say this very much if I have to keep going
But yeah, I think the fact that nobody was expecting him there
at a Smackdown show was just intensified the
shock and awe factor for the WWE Universe in attendance that evening
I think as we all know as wrestling fans as well
that when the Road to WrestleMania starts at the Royal Rumble
around that weekend, that last week before the Royal Rumble
all rules go out the window
Like everyone is showing up everywhere
Trying to piss people off, poke fights
plant seeds about what's going to happen if they win the Rumble
I'm going to have to come over here and then I'm going to mess with them
I'm going to mess with you and mess with that
It's just a head game in this last week
Let's face it, Punk has not been shy about his intentions
He's 100% got his eyes set on gold
Whether that's Gunther's gold or Cody Rhodes' gold
He's not really going to be too fussy
It feels like he's just going to flip a coin
and whichever side of a coin that lands on
one champion is going to get all of Punk all the way up to Mania
And he told Cody last week that he was coming for him
He wasn't going to stab him in the back and hide like everyone else
He was going to stab him in the front and say
look, if you win this match against Kevin Owens
I'm coming after your title
So obviously because Punk is a nice respectable guy
and we all know that he has everyone's feelings at heart
He decided to show the same courtesy to Kevin Owens
And the look on Kevin Owens' face was quite astounding
He did not know what to do with himself
Yeah, and this is when Kevin Owens sort of...
He toes a very...
He toes a line almost
because he sort of feels disrespected
by anybody and everybody that happens to breathe in his direction
and then he gives nothing out but disrespect
And this is what he seems to do with Punk at the moment
in just sort of...
I think KO is intrigued by the option of Owens vs Punk
and that being Punk's very first WrestleMania main event
which Kevin Owens takes great delight in pointing out
I mean not as much delight as CM Punk takes to point out
that he hasn't lost five title matches at WrestleMania
but someone else in the ring had also done that
And he also doesn't take great pride in pointing out
that CM Punk has not also lost to Logan Paul
Which got a nice little reaction from the crowd as well
because not only were they booing Kevin Owens
but they were laughing at him too because of that
And yeah, it'd be interesting to see
if at some point during the rumble there's a little bit of afters
between Kevin Owens and Logan Paul because of that
There's always going to be animosity between the two of them
It's whether the two of them are...
Something backstage as they kind of walk past each other
obviously we know Kevin Owens isn't going to be in the rumble
because he's in the main event
but Logan Paul's going to be in the same building
Well, it's still up in the air
I mean we've known wrestlers Paul Double Duty
and Royal Rumbles in the past
It's not outside the realms of possibility to do that
So let's not rule anything out just yet
But yeah, I mean Kevin Owens really trying to push Punk's buttons
Punk really knowing how to push Kevin Owens buttons
and yeah, it even brings up the fact that he's been manipulating
apparently one of... Kevin Owens has been manipulating
one of his very best friends in the world
who he stabs in the back at any given opportunity
Mr. Sami Zayn
Kevin Owens has been doing Sami Zayn dirty for 20 years
He ain't ever going to stop
No, because Sami keeps letting him get away with it
And yeah, this is where I get frustrated with Sami Zayn
but we're not going to talk about Sami Zayn just at the moment
because we're going to move on otherwise we're going to get really wrapped up
in this first segment of SmackDown and never make it to the end
So we went from in-ring to backstage with
as you've seen in our podcast plenty of times in the past
you will know that the Miz is not one of our favourite superstars to talk about
Ah, well, I'm going to correct myself slightly there
The Miz is not one of my favourite superstars to talk about normally
but this week the Miz did the one thing that I love seeing the Miz do
and let's take that nice shiny shoe of his
turn it sideways and stick it straight in his mouth
because while he's having this conversation with Nick Aldis
about the fact that he made friends with A-Town down under and then they got traded
and then he was trying to make friends with Andrade and say he could teach him so much
and Andrade just didn't realise the prowess that the Miz has
and just walked away and thinks it's a really poor move on Andrade's behalf
and one thing I love is when the Miz starts getting a bit mouthy
he turns around and says, if he was here I'd punch him right in his mouth
just to see Nick Aldis' face light up like a light bulb
and in fairness, we've all been there where we said something about somebody
and that person has been stood behind us
Instant karma hits us and yeah, this
we end up being treated to the fact that Andrade says in front of Nick Aldis
well, if you think you're that hard, come and get it
It's not me when I say that in front of my boss, I get my P45
but he manages to get a match out of it
Yes, but they're in the business of kicking asses
not in the business of people sending newspapers
No
So yeah, no, but Andrade challenges the Miz
the Miz quite reluctantly accepts not wanting to look like a bitch
and yeah, Nick Aldis stamps his seal of approval all over that match with amazing amount of glee
in that man's eyes
Which made me slightly happy knowing we've seen a lot from Andrade in the past
obviously he's been away wrestling and other promotions
and he's come back to smack down in the end
You know that we're going to get a decent quality match out of it from Andrade
all depends on how much sleep Miz has had
and if he's actually had Maurice traded with him so he's got a bit of back of them
Well, that seems to be the only path together with Derek
Yeah, but we've not seen her for a few weeks either since his move
So I'm not sure if she's officially under contract with WWE as it stands
I think she just makes one-off appearances and gets the additional payday for it
That wouldn't shock me because I don't think she's not definitely not active in ring as far as I'm aware
So she's not actively in the Indies or anything like that
I think she has pretty much full on retired from in ring competition
and just makes the odd appearance when and where is appropriate
But again, we don't like talking about the Miz so we're not going to talk about him anymore until a little bit later on in the card
Speaking of the card, we've met the very first match of the evening
The first match is a match between the fans' singles match with Jimmy Uso vs Carmelo
Mello never misses Hayes
I mean, Mello didn't miss it at the start of this match to be fair either
No, but if we roll this back just a little bit to anybody that's sort of new to smack down this week
We're off the back of a pre-match attack by Carmelo Hayes on Jimmy Uso last week
It is a case that Carmelo Hayes took some disrespect in Jimmy Uso, sort of brushing him aside last week
Attacked him on his way to the ring for his match last week
And yeah, Jimmy Uso ain't about to take that line down, is he?
No, he certainly don't, but he did try a sneak attack at the start of the match like Carmelo did to him
Like we said previously, and it did not work
He got caught out and kind of gave Carmelo a bit of an opportunity to kind of get a lead on him to be fair
He did
There's one detail that happened before even the first punch was thrown in this match though
And I'm not sure if anybody would have noticed it or possibly not many people will have noticed it
I missed it for sure, so crack on
So Jimmy Uso obviously on his way to the ring did a bit of a walkout promo hyping himself up
However, it wasn't Jimmy Uso that caught my eye
There was certain somebody else lurking around, really lurking in the background
And that was one Shinsuke Nakamura, I believe
Who I believe is currently a US, men's US champion?
I want to say
He took it off LA night
Yeah
Yeah, and yeah, he was very much lurking around in the background feeling
It felt like he was very interested in what Jimmy Uso was doing, just not enough to get physically involved
So I'm wondering if that may, I could be reading too far into it, but post Royal Rumble we may well see
Jimmy Uso take his first swing at a title potentially
Often
It's a very loose thread, it's a very sort of loose thread to pull at, but we've seen Stranger Things in WWE
We will claim it if it comes true, you heard it here
100%
Mostly seen here
Back to the in-ring action, yeah no, sort of
We got Carmelo Hayes did try to take full advantage of Jimmy Uso on the way out to the, on the early part of this match
But yeah, that all came undone with just one headbutt that Carmelo Hayes really underestimated how hard Jimmy Uso's head is
That was funny, like I was expecting Uso to hit the floor, obviously with a headbutt to the back of the head I think I would
But no, just to see Carmelo Hayes walk off holding his forehead, like what the fuck, it was a
Yeah
One of those, his facial expression played that move so well, if he hadn't got the facial expression bang on like he did
It would not have worked as well as it did
Oh, no, definitely not, but if there's one thing that Carmelo can do, it is sell
So, yeah, he sold
Now, one of the other bits and pieces that we see quite often in this match particularly
It's not even, I'm not even entirely sure it's this match, but we see
I believe it is an NFL star, Halliburton
No, his name is Tyrese Halliburton, he's not an NFL star, he is an NBA star, actually he is a two-time All-Star NBA star
He is the point guard for the Indiana Pacers
Who play in the arena that SmackDown was being filmed in
So he seems to play quite an active role in the entire episode, but we see him seem to grab the attention of specifically Carmelo Hayes
Who did, on his way out to the ring, a little attempt at a promo where he sort of goads Halliburton on his way to the ring
Yeah, so I think, and I believe the Indiana Pacers actually had the best January in the NBA this year
So, but obviously being point guard, Halliburton is one of the main point scorers
I think he missed a couple of easy ones over the previous weekend which was trying to lead to Carmelo against some cheap heat off him
Yeah, it always insults the local team for a bit of cheap local heat
But yeah, I mean Hayes is focused on Halliburton seems to allow Usu to gain some control in this match
And yeah, that really sort of, that started to spell the end for Carmelo Hayes really
I mean, it was a hard hitting match with some big swings, there was no little moves in this match
Every last motion they made was swinging for the fences
There's a few notes that I picked up of a few spots where there was one where Jey Usu got caught mid suicide dive
You know, he was running the ropes on the return to dive over and so he's on the return for the dive
And all of a sudden, Carmelo Hayes was on the floor outside the ring five seconds beforehand
It's just hitting with what looked like a JBL style clothesline, just straight across
And they were impressed with his recoverability with that one and then there was a few other ones that were just really well timed reversals
I think there was a pop-up power bomb at one point that was reversed into a DDT by Carmelo Hayes
And a few other quite big spots to refer
Yeah, so I seem to remember that vicious clothesline and I don't think it's the last one we see during this episode of SmackDown either
So you don't think it's the last one we see just in this match on its own to be fair?
No, I took a few notes of a few spots, I caught a few of the same ones that you did
I also got Uso hitting with a massive super kick to Carmelo Hayes at one point just really turned the tide
The jawbreaker one?
Oh, 100%
The other thing that I happen to note was a move that commentary called the first 48
The code breaker?
The code breaker area
I saw that, I quite like that, it's the first 48 is how they referred to it mid-air
But yeah, the fact that he managed to hit a move like that mid-air was quite nice
Just before he hit, Carmelo Hayes hit that
Yeah, Jey Uso hit what looked like a really interesting arm drag off the top rope into a diamond cutter
Well, I couldn't work out if it was a diamond cutter or a neck breaker style landing to it
But they're both using moves, we've seen these guys a lot in the last few weeks
They're both increasing their moveset quite a lot, we're not seeing the same sort of moves week in, week out
Which has been quite nice
Yeah, I mean definitely, I mean we've...
According to something that you've just said, we've seen both Uso brothers in this match
You've got to make sure you mention the right Uso, it's important
Yeah, no
Jey Uso is yeet, Jimmy Uso is not yeet
Yeah, one yeet on the street
Fucks
You know what I meant
But yeah, I mean to close this match out there was a brilliant closing sequence where Hayes hits with a huge diving cross body
Pre-celebrating during a cover
And yeah, Carmelo tries to get his own dirty pin in on Jimmy Uso
It fails and Jimmy Uso manages to get one of his own for the win
That seems to be the theme this week is the dirty pin
Yeah, and again, anybody that's not familiar with the term dirty pin, it may only be something that I sort of coined myself
But it's basically a pinfall that's used either extra leverage to be able to achieve the desired result
So this could either be feet on the rope to gain that bit of extra leverage against your opponent
Or even just grabbing a handful of tights to make it more difficult for the opponent to kick out
Doing anything you can to kind of underhand the win without the referee seeing
Yeah, pretty much, it's a classic heel move has been used for years and years and years
And will continue to be used for years and years and years to come
Now moving on from that match however
We had a little rumble VT that had a lot of statistics in it
I have made note of all of them word for word as they were mentioned on screen
But smack down your maths do not add up
Have you noticed some inconsistencies with their
I have, right, so the Royal Rumble as they stated is where 30 men and 30 women respectively jump into a ring in
Not all in one go, they go in one at a time, two to start off with, one follows after a certain amount of time until you have the 30 people
Everyone's got to be thrown over the top row to be eliminated, last one standing wins, gets a championship opportunity at WrestleMania
So there have been 1370 superstars that have entered Royal Rumbles since the first one in 1988 I believe it was
It's a little bit further down that I made that note
So 1988 was the first Royal Rumble because the first Royal Rumble was won by Hacksaw Jim Duggan who came in at number 13
He did, right, so out of that we have had 36 winners according to SmackDown which gives a 2.6% win chance on the Royal Rumble
But the next line says that they've had 35 winners, 22 of which have won a championship match at WrestleMania
Including, they specifically mentioned Bayley to start off with who entered at number 3 last year to win in a time of 1 hour, 3 minutes and a second
Another interesting statistic that I didn't know that Adam might have done was Bianca Belair is the only other woman to have entered the Rumble at number 3 and won
So she did that in 2021 I believe, she holds a Royal Rumble record herself as well
So interestingly in 2021 where Bianca Belair came in at number 3 to win, Edge was in at number 1 and won
But Edge did not go on to win his challenge at that year's WrestleMania
Who did he face at that year's WrestleMania?
Oh now you're asking
If you know who it was, send us an email, finishes and factions at gmail.com and tell us and we will read out some of the answers next week and fact check them too
100%
But yeah, I mean we could go through and I could reel off some other interesting facts such as, did you know that Batista holds his own Royal Rumble record as being the only person to win from the same spot twice at entering at number 28?
No I didn't
Which he did in 2014 entered at number 28 to win and in 2005 he entered at number 28 to win as well so yeah massive bits and pieces that went in from there
So from the Royal Rumble BT we went on to a Chelsea Green backstage promo about her doing the same as everyone else is going to do tomorrow night
She apparently is going to throw 29 other women over the top rope to win the Royal Rumble but I'm not entirely sure she's going to be the one to do it
No, realistically I don't see her being able to do it unless Piper Niven is going to be there to hold her hand throughout realistically it's just not going to happen is it?
Which is what happens in the next match to be fair?
It is, the other thing that I noticed about Chelsea Green was she was sporting her own war wounds from a match last week which was the tag team match she was in where she partnered with Niven to face Meachin and BFAB
The next match doesn't look too dissimilar from that realistically we're looking at very much the same sort of match as they had at that point
Which was the women's US Championship match which came next on the card with Chelsea Green as the defending champion facing off against Meachin both accompanied to the ring by their respective counterparts from last week's tag team match
And that was Piper Niven for Chelsea Green and BFAB for Meachin so we said here that Chelsea Green was the current holder of the title I believe she's had that for about 47-48 days as of recording this episode
Yes so with that she's also the inaugural winner of the women's US Championship which I think sort of lends itself to her current gimmick being a very sort of presidential role or taking on a very presidential theme about it
Although I haven't heard her mention anything about building walls just yet but we may see that yet who knows
Yeah we might see that in the Royal Rumble tomorrow when she needs Piper Niven to help or use her as a wall to help us survive
Yeah this is it. Now an important detail to mention because it does play into what happens in this match. Meachin doesn't just come to the ring with BFAB this evening she comes out with a kendo stick which is it's not a no DQ match
So if she were to use this it would end in a disqualification and as is the case when in a championship match in WWE champions have what's called the champions advantage which if they are, if a disqualification occurs they don't lose their title
They can only lose their title by pinfall or submission, countouts and DQs do not count. So having said that I mean I think Meachin tries to assert some dominance pretty early on with a bunch of quick covers just sort of saying yeah no this lasts as long as I want it to last
Yeah she came in and used the kendo stick as a bit of a, it's a bit of a oh my god she's got a kendo stick, that's going to work and then like I said there's quick pins gave her a bit of a dominance factor and from then she just kind of able to sit back and just sort of cruise at a higher level
I think for a majority of this match Meachin is fully in control
Oh 100%, don't get me wrong Chelsea Green was far from, far from defenceless in this match but she used quite a lot
She did just roll over but she did gas herself out reasonably quickly
Yeah very much so I mean she used a lot of what I've referred to in the past as chicken shit heel moves which is a lot of jumping out of the ring rather than facing the opponent I mean at one point during this match she's even running away from Meachin all over the arena to try and escape the beat and I think she knew was coming
She deserves it too
Oh 100%
Meachin pinned her clean a few times in different situations so she, as far as Chelsea Green's concerned her days are numbered and Meachin's wanting to stamp that ticket
Oh definitely and she comes close on a couple of occasions, it's interesting though that sort of Befarb especially doesn't really play much of a role in this match apart from being sort of moral support for Meachin although admittedly I don't think Meachin needed the moral support
No but then we didn't really see much of Piper Nevin either until the sort of the ending of the match, she was there as like a physical presence but she wasn't really being that intimidating I mean to be fair when you dressed up in a wrestling ring like a glorified moal cop then Jesus Christ
Yeah this is it and you should point out it's a bedazzled moal cop that she dresses up as, it's a ridiculous take on the Presidential Secret Service uniform realistically but
It's fine to have the commentators asking a funny question and they said to her every time she taps the microphone in the rear who is she actually talking to? Is Chelsea Greenstone friend of her?
This is true, I mean it does beg the question I mean they did hint I think it was last week or the week before that they were going to have to add more to the security detail for Chelsea Green so it did allude to the fact that they were going to bring somebody else in on this gimmick so could it be that she's talking to whoever this mystery edition is?
I mean possibly. But yeah I mean we're not going to talk about this match too heavily because a lot of the spots that we got in here were we've sort of already discussed inadvertently but ultimately Chelsea Green retains the championship via disqualification
as she basically attacks Mishin with her own kendo stick after running over to timekeepers retrieving it and then just going to town but this does nothing but to this does nothing really but in sense Mishin that she's been robbed of yet another opportunity
I kind of felt like I got robbed of the 15 minutes this match took as well you know. It wasn't a terribly inspired match I will be honest.
It was a great match but even with some of the bad matches you know you still walk away with a little bit of story right a little bit of something learned is a little bit of something gained but apart from kind of I've seen enough of Mishin versus Chelsea Green I kind of want to board a bit now.
It does seem to be getting quite. The way I look at this match and the way I look at the way the stories played out from years of experience watching WWE is they'll go down either the classic route where they'll say oh no Mishin's had her time now she has to start from the bottom
we'll have a few weeks of Mishin having one off matches with other talent on the roster basically building herself back up into a number one contendership role where she will inevitably go on to face Chelsea Green again on the grandest stage of them all.
Are they going to block them? I said the grandest stage of them all not that yeah no we'll have to go there. You have to kind of fight them as well. Yeah that's probably true.
Anyway they'll either do that all because BFAB didn't really play much of a role I'm willing to bet that it could end up being that instead of we're seeing Mishin versus Chelsea Green we could end up seeing a feud developed between BFAB and Mishin only on the back of BFAB being the next one to gain an opportunity against Chelsea Green.
I don't think BFAB will lift the title from Chelsea Green but it will feed into a feud between her and Mishin potentially.
Two ways of that. Yeah I mean that's a great way to run it to be fair and you can even bring in the fact that you know BFAB can turn around a bit like I had your back on all these matches I got my ass kicked on your behalf and what did you do? Nothing.
Yeah precisely it's just two ways that I see that the storyline playing out from here. You've got the classic route all we feed into a slightly different feud where it sort of winds its way back to being for the women's US title later on down the line a little bit.
But I think we'll have to wait and see how that one plays out.
Yeah so after we had Mishin winning with her and getting her a little bit of payback with that Kendo stick we moved into a backstage segment with Byron Saxton with Naomi and Bianca Belair who we saw last night have a, not last night,
but night before sorry, have a tag team total match on NXT.
Yeah so they had a tag team title match on Tuesday night with Jakara Jackson and Lash Legend being the Meta Girls which we covered in our previous episode with it being a championship match on the main event of NXT and yeah go back and listen to that one if you're interested.
But we also had a match on Monday night Raw as well so these guys at this point are going to be getting pretty tired.
Oh 100% and they've both still got an appearance in the women's rumble to make on Saturday night so this is going to be an interesting one for sure but yeah I mean it's basically a promo pointing out the fact that neither one of them are feeling not feeling confident going into
the Royal Rumble or go or into whomever it is that has the next shot at their championship straps.
So we've got an interesting theory about how Naomi Bianca Belair is going to play out because they're due for an implosion soon we thought we started to see some cracks forming a few weeks ago and it didn't really play out too much but there's been one name that the commentary team
is making a point of mentioning quite a lot over the last few weeks and that's it certainly is yeah and I've got a feeling I've seen some rumours that she's that she's potentially being cleared she's potentially been cleared for in ring
competition I've got a feeling that one or both of Naomi and Bianca Belair are likely to be surprised by Jade Cargill coming back and then one or the other or both are going to be eliminated by Jade Cargill herself
and because it was originally it was Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair that won the tag straps but Jade Cargill ended up getting injured she was put on the bench for a number of months and Naomi sort of stepped into the spotlight taking Cargill's place
and don't get me wrong she's done a fantastic job of maintaining the championships within the team but I just don't think Jade Cargill is going to take too well to it she's been known to be quite volatile in the past so
not going to see Jade Cargill joining that one in the free bird ruling any time soon. No I don't think that's going to be the way that goes somehow but yeah that's my theory on how their rumble is going to play out I've got a feeling that they're going to be entered into some kind of storyline that features Jade Cargill
I mean it could even be that Jade Cargill finds a mystery partner and ends up lifting the tag straps off of Naomi and Bianca Belair herself. So many ways that could play out
but I'm going to digress from that and mention something that's actually just a little bit funny a little bit and something that I quite like that WWE took the time to go out and do in Indiana Indianapolis in the front on the back of Royal Rumble being in that city on this over this weekend and that's they've gone about and changed a lot of the street signs.
Yeah I saw this I thought it was cool as hell. Oh 100% you know for a fact if we lived in Indianapolis right now your boy would be stealing John Cena Street.
Oh I'd go around and just steal all the street signs mother they'd be all but Indiana PD had busting into my apartment with them all on my bedroom wall and be like yeah I fucking did it and I'd do it again. Ain't nobody else taking these away from me.
And yeah I thought that was a really novel idea that it's just so simple and could quite easily be overlooked and it just yeah just a wonderfully subtle little nod to what was going on in that city that weekend and yeah loved it.
And we also then went to a VT teasing the return of Charlotte Flair and you'll excuse my lack of enthusiasm with this because.
The main of Rick's. She's making another return. I was gonna say I've just got no enthusiasm for Charlotte Flair in any way shape or form I just I'm not excited that she's coming back.
I think she should really avoid close up fucking camera angle at this rate because yeah it's if she's had work done I think she ought to get the builders back in and redo it.
Yeah I think her Madonna have gone to the same plastic surgeon.
I mean a dad Rick Flair is cracking on for what 85 90 years old somewhere around that region I would imagine.
He is looking lucky looking looks it and even he's prettier than she is so yeah.
Yeah about the Hall of Famer. As you mentioned him did you see that Rick Flair has his own energy drink out now.
It's called woo.
Of course it is. I have seen mentions in some wrestling publications online that Rick Flair seems to think he's got one more match left in him.
Personally I'm hoping it's a casket match because I think if he gets in the ring once more that's where he's ending up.
Well I think this is where punk he was referring to about the was it the old age raw rumble or something where you're going to get like Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan trying to toss each other out in their own in their own or something.
You know Jesus Christ.
I mean he's not wrong. I mean there's every possibility that the the universally booed Hulk Hogan ends up making an appearance in the men's rumble.
I mean it's I've certainly seen some some bits and pieces online that seem to think that he will make an appearance at some point during that rumble match and I think the biggest cheer of the night if that happens is going to be when he gets his dusty ass thrown over the top rope.
I'd like to say that if Hulk Hogan makes an appearance at this year's Royal Rumble I would nail gun myself to my desk.
But I'm pretty sure the odds of Hulk Hogan showing up are pretty high so that's not coming out. We're not doing that.
I was going to say if you're going to make that sort of a claim I'd like to point out that we the first bit of short form content is going to be watching you do that.
That staple gun like going out to desk. Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, so we went from a Charlotte Flair return VT into an in ring promo with Damien Priest.
Now I didn't realize this was a promo to start off with. I thought he was coming out for a fight and then he picked up the microphone.
Well, I suppose in essence when you think to what happened during this promo that I suppose he did come out for a fight.
He just wasn't aware that he was coming out for a fight to begin with.
Yes.
He came out full entrance, did his thing, I mean insane off the back of it.
But came down to the ring started talking about the fact that he confirmed he confirmed his rumble entry and talking about his history in WWE.
Well, basically just pointed out that he'd spent four years on Raw and he'd gone from nobody to the World Heavyweight Champion.
No, he's on SmackDown.
He's not really worried about making a name for himself or kind of having an impact.
He just wants championships and that starts tomorrow night in the rumble.
Yeah, I mean, we're better together championship than the grandest stage of the grandest stage of them all and he'd get his choice of which champion he wanted to go out and face.
And as much as Damien Priest versus Cody Rhodes is intriguing, if I had to pick an opponent if Damien Priest walks out of that match with his hand raised high,
I'll be honest, I'd be more likely to want to see him face Gunther.
I think Damien Priest versus Gunther would be a really interesting match.
They're both very stern professional wrestlers.
Like neither of them have got a clowny gimmick or they're not trying to make people laugh or sell merch or anything like that.
They're not going to wrestle, so for the two of them to go together would work quite well.
Yeah, it wouldn't make for like horrendously, like it wouldn't be made for a horrendously entertaining match.
It's not like if you had, for instance, Jey Uso versus LA Knight, that would be a very entertaining match to watch.
However, Damien Priest versus Gunther is going to be a brutal match to watch.
We already know how what Gunther is capable of with just a chop.
And we've seen what Damien Priest did to Fen Balor a few weeks ago on Raw.
He certainly did.
So after we've gone through and Damien Priest has got off his chest, what he needed to get off his chest,
we got to see what we're calling them.
Have we got like a nickname for these guys?
Because I know LA Knight likes to refer to them as the two cross-eyed halfwits, but I don't really think we can get away with using that.
That's fine. I don't think they're going to appear behind us at any time soon, so I'll go with the cross-eyed halfwits. That's fine by me.
We get to see the cross-eyed halfwits Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga.
You better not shout behind me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think you're going to hear Tamatonga before you see the fofio, so I think you're okay.
But oddly, the one thing that I took away from this entire promo segment was Jacob Fatou managed to cut a promo that was relatively understandable.
I think after that first time round when Solo went, fuck this, I'm going home. Right, I'm not doing this anymore.
And he had to try and fill that gap. I think someone's basically said to him, like, dude, the fuck was that?
Paul, you think right, you're asked. If you're going to work here, do it properly. If not, follow your brother on the door.
Yeah, this is it. I mean, if you're not going to cut a promo properly, we'll send you back to prison.
But he referenced himself in his promo.
He did, yeah. That was a very good point. It was a very difficult promo to understand, but it basically just came out with Jacob Fatou saying that.
He sees who Damien Priest is, he knows who Damien Priest is.
And the one line that he, I think he's tried stealing this from Bucketier at some point, he goes, but Jacob Fatou says that Damien Priest has done more than any of the other suckers in the locker room at the moment.
They both come from the streets, but the only difference was he was locked in a box.
So there was a few other kind of, he gets a little bit too overly descriptive sometimes when he gets on it on it.
No, to the point where he came out with the Jacob Fatou's favorite one at the moment is that he's all gas and no brakes.
Damien Priest won't be coming to the blue brand to make a name for himself because there's any two things that are going to happen. You're either going to lay down or him and Tamaton were going to beat you down.
Which, I mean, he does exactly as he says on the tin because...
You saw what he did to Braun Strowman last week, like you can go back and check out our episode of it.
Like, oh, no one's heard from Braun Strowman since.
No, it's sort of a shame because Braun Strowman hadn't long come back from frigging injury.
So I do sort of feel sorry for him in that sense.
But yeah, we're not going to rehash old bits. It's going to be a case that we'll carry on breaking down this face off between the Cross-eyed Halfwits and Damien Priest.
Damien Priest decides he's having a go, though, don't he? Basically, he taunts Jacob Fatou to the point where they both get...
They're both kind of circling. Priest takes his jacket off and they start.
We get a nice little bit of a brawl between the two before Tamatonge gets back up from a beautiful shot.
I was going to say, Tamatonge got sweet as a nut with a lovely kick from Damien Priest.
But yeah, eventually they do what the Cross-eyed Halfwits have always done and they've played that.
They've played the numbers game and it needs somebody to come out and play a white knight.
Who was going to be that guy that seems to be only one person who likes telling people they can't use their outdoor voices indoors?
Yeah.
The mega star, Mr LA Knight. Yeah.
Yeah, he comes running down the ring like a panzer tank.
And here in that music hit, when you... LA Knight has got one of those... He's not as over as the main man, Jey Uso is, but he's up there.
And if there was like a league of over, I reckon LA Knight would be top four.
Oh, most definitely.
That's been slightly disrespectful, but I wouldn't want to pin it. I think where you put those top four, in which order is down to personal preference.
But most of us will have the same top four.
Most likely, yes.
But yeah, I mean, he comes down, basically bails Priest out and...
Yeah, it's... We end that promo with a match announced later in the night.
LA Knight and Danian Priest tag teaming versus Fatu and Tamatonga.
He jumped the best spot of that promo.
Oh, did I?
So LA Knight comes running in. There is a point where one of the Samoan Scroats has picked up a steel chair from outside.
The announce table brought it into the ring.
LA Knight swings it and I'm pretty sure it's Jacob Fatu who just punches it, full swing, full power punch, and just... You just watch him just walk it off like nothing happened.
Yeah, fair enough. I remember seeing it and I think the only reason I probably didn't make a note of it was more to do with the fact that I was starting to run out of room on the page that I was writing on.
Please try not to start a new page until the next match.
Yeah, pretty much.
That's why I make my notes on Discord, brother.
And that's fair enough. You can type that quickly. I can't. It'd take me six hours to watch a two hour episode of SmackDown if I had to put it in Discord.
So yeah, no, we're sticking as we are until a better alternative comes along.
There you go.
But yeah, moving on from that match announcement, we went to a backstage promo where we saw Legardo Del Fantasma and the Motor City Machine Guns.
It was well looking forward. So it was pre-amplitized earlier on in the card that there was an eight man tag match coming up and obviously it was obvious these two teams are in that eight man tag match.
But when you get to see Motor City Machine Guns wrestle, it is phenomenal. I am become a big fan over the last month of these two guys.
And it's easy to see why they are as well regarded within the wrestling community as they are.
But I've got to admit, I misjudged this match, not on how good it was going to be or anything like that. It was more the setup.
I assumed, admittedly, when they said about an eight man tag, I didn't realize they were going to be having two tag teams tagging together.
Yeah, I was a bit confused by that.
It was going to be like a four way tag match.
Yeah, a four way tag team.
Yeah, which they have done previously.
They have done things like this before and that's how I assumed that was going to play out.
Although admittedly, it's not a disappointing result because it forced elements that were not realistically going to be going to be very good at working together.
I mean, mostly sort of Los Garza and the Motor City Machine Guns didn't really find any lasting synergy within their match, which was after this promo.
Where we saw pretty deadly team with DIY, the tag champs versus the Motor City Machine Guns teaming up with Los Garza.
And I mean, the promo beforehand was the Motor City Machine Guns basically saying, look, I think the best bet is to bury whatever hatchet we've got until the end of the match at which point normal service can resume because realistically we're going to need to work together.
And it's not a bad shout because we've seen over the last few weeks how DIY have really been calling the shots with pretty deadly, even though we've started to see some resentment boiling up with the pretty deadly lads moving forward with how they're being treated by DIY.
And yeah, I mean, who can blame them. But this match, this eight man tag match was sort of almost like a precursor to the tag team championship match to be held at Royal Rumble, which is a two out of three falls match with DIY the champs defending their championship against the Motor City Machine Guns,
which is one of the matches I'm actually really looking forward to on that card, just because, yeah, it's the Motor City Machine Guns. It's not it's a match type. We don't see an awful lot of in main roster competition.
Why are actually a veteran tag team as well. We've seen them in multiple other places doing what they do best. And they're very, very good at how they do it.
Yeah, I mean, they're balanced very, very well. It's Tomasso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano. I mean, Johnny Gargano is pretty, pretty light, pretty nimble, pretty even headed. Whereas you've got Tomasso Ciampa is very much the very much the opposite.
He's a very stout guy, very well built, and he's got a he's got a temper like a like a bull with a thorn in its ass. Really, it's a case that he is. It doesn't take a lot to set him off.
And yeah, I mean, you sort you see this sort of throughout this eight man tag match whenever champ is in the ring. He doesn't make considered calculated choices. It's all very sort of emotion driven, or at least that's the impression that I get from Tomasso Ciampa who
ironically has been mistaken for triple H on several different
There was a there was something on Facebook I saw after I watched the episode of SmackDown, and it was a video of them introducing the introduction first member of this year and for the Hall of Fame.
And as soon as I spotted that the first person I thought of was our truth, because of what he's turned that into. Absolutely hilarious.
See, I've recently seen an interview with our truth where the interviewer and I would name him but I can't pronounce his name. I know his first names Chris it's his last name that I sat that I seem to struggle with, because no matter which way I pronounce it it doesn't sound right.
But yeah, I've seen him do an interview where he's where Chris Van Vlee. Yeah, that's the one.
I've seen an interview with him where Chris interviews our truth about how our truth gets different wrestlers to break character.
And to listen to our truth talk about it, the guy puts no effort into it. It happens, regardless of the fact of whether he's trying to be serious or not.
So he's not putting any effort into breaking character, getting all the wrestlers to break character. He's doing it effortlessly and has been doing it effortlessly for years.
That's what he's ever got was Brock Lesnar.
Yeah, the guys are genius realistically. Just so many times where he's managed to get different wrestlers to break character is unreal.
My favourite time is when he was stood in the ring announcing what he was going to do at the Royal Rumble the one year.
And he just turns around and goes, yeah, I'm going to throw such and such over the top room. I'm talking to you, Paul Heyman.
He just saw Brock Lesnar's face and he's like, you fucking idiot. Yeah, just wasn't expecting it whatsoever.
And during that little promo, Paul Heyman's like, yeah, no, I'm not in the Royal Rumble.
But Brock Lesnar is. And he's like, oh, my bad. I'm sorry.
Our truth is one of the funniest. Like, I know he's he's used as a comedy factor now and not really much of an M ring usage.
But he's still great, like a great quality when it comes to material for things like that. He's hilarious.
Oh, yeah, 100%. But let's not get too caught up in talking about our truth is I think we get an opportunity later on to talk a little bit more about him.
So, yeah, the one thing about this match in particular that really bothered me and it massively bothered me,
especially off the back of what I said in our last episode about NXT, because NXT did a mini promo during the main event match.
And during that episode, I said that it was a case that they they could do it with an undercard match and it wouldn't be so much of a big deal.
And I stand by what I said, but SmackDown seemed to take it one step further where they put a full fucking movie trailer in the middle of this frigging match.
And honestly, I can't think what they were thinking when that when that happened. What the hell midway through a match and they put a frigging movie trailer in it.
Originally, they were just gonna like I was watching it and they forgot to mute.
They forgot to edit that bit out with sometimes a lot of episodes because I don't watch them live because I have family commitments and work commitments.
I just thought that's where we've had a lot of episodes where you've had like no sound at all. So it's like, I've had that.
But they forgot to edit this one out.
Oh, no, this was something that was introduced by the commentary team. Joe Tessatori told us the name of the movie.
And I purposely didn't make a note of it because it honestly bothered me so much.
And we said during the NXT episode that it just feels disrespectful to do things like that in the middle of a match.
I mean, in the middle of a main event is a definite no, no. But when you've got eight guys out in the ring,
killing themselves trying to get trying to get a decent matching and you're putting a movie trailer in the middle of their match, it's just,
if that were me and I'd found out that had happened during one of during a match that I was featured in.
I did the fucking roof.
I've been I've been pulled the best office so fast is fucking bearded spin.
But yeah, no, that's my rant over about the that fucking match or that fucking movie trailer because yeah, no, it really bothered me.
And this much bothered me entirely because I don't really think it was I think they could have tried to do what they did in a better way.
So it was it was really chaotic.
It was very chaotic and what made it even worse afterwards was when Los Garza basically 10 minutes old motorist that machine guns fuck themselves after they stopped agreeing on tags.
They were basically just it was in fighting between them on who was taking who why each person is being tagged.
The Los Garza wanted the wind for themselves rather than say machine gun getting any credit for it.
Instead, they kind of cut their nose off despite their face and left themselves dry.
But the turnaround point for that for that point was for me because I know, yeah, I mean, you couldn't not notice Los Garza taking their toys and fucking off home basically.
But the one thing that got me about that was was the fact that motor city machine guns, despite being half a team down, so we're in a for all intent and purpose.
They were in a two on one handicap match and they still came out of it with a W.
Yeah, they had a fantastic off like M to this match.
And one thing I did notice here that Chris Saban is incredible.
He did a few spinning DDTs that I was quite impressed with.
I mean, I can't remember the guy's first name.
So the one thing you'll come to learn about motor city machine guns and it's it's not really talked about an awful lot is that Chris Saban is the absolute workhorse of the duo.
And this is no disrespect to Alex Shelley because he works really hard, but Chris Saban goes out and gets his ass kicked week in week out night in night out match after match.
He is the punching bag of the duo.
Then Alex Shelley comes in with a hot tag gets motor city machine guns back in the match.
And then it's it's anybody's guess as to who ends up getting the W for them.
But it's a case that yeah, Chris Saban takes an absolute beating week in week out and it is it's almost it almost feels unfair.
I am got a clue why it always works out that way.
But every motor city machine guns match I've ever seen.
And that's not just the ones that they've done in WWE. It's the ones before that I watched them when they were in TNA.
I watched a few of their matches. I think they've been in AEW.
I think I'm sure I've seen them over there.
I've seen a few of their indie matches over the years and it's a case that it's always the same.
Chris Saban gets his ass kicked for 10, 20 minutes.
Alex Shelley comes in in the last five to six minutes, turns the match around and they walk out with a win.
And I just end up feeling so sorry for Chris Saban who must go home feeling sore as fuck.
But yeah, so I mean, what cost what got motor city machine guns the match more than anything else was a was.
Tomasso Ciampa's frustrations boiling over and sort of getting the better of him as he lands a massive kick on one of the members are pretty deadly and their team fall apart at the seams.
I mean, I must admit I enjoyed watching Tomasso Ciampa kick that guy in the face, but it's not the first time we've seen someone the last few weeks miss that style kick and hit the wrong person.
Sami Zayn sent it twice in two weeks himself.
Yeah, very true. It's not necessarily a high risk move, but if you're charging in full steam ahead with no control, you're not always going to hit your target.
And yeah, unfortunately, Ciampa missed his mark and just didn't seem very apologetic about the fact that he's just knocked out somebody that was supposed to be on his team.
But this sort of wraps up this sort of encapsulates the dynamic between DIY and pretty deadly.
Almost in that one kick is the DIY are on top and they'll use pretty deadly any way they can to work to maintain that lead.
Oh, yeah, exactly. And with that big boot from Tomasso Ciampa, it meant that Chris Saban could roll him up for the for the win on that one to get a nice little one over on the current tag champions.
I'll be interested after Royal Rumble to find out how the dynamic between Los Garza and Motor City machine guns alters off the back of obviously Los Garza just fucking off in the middle of a match and deciding they didn't want to play no more.
But that's something I think we may see on next week's SmackDown. We might see the fall out of that.
I'm hoping that will involve a match where they end up going against each other.
I mean, most likely, but we'll take a small break in between pro in between sort of promos here to to reel off a few more statistics, I think, because I know you will have honed in on these.
So I'm going to get in before you get a chance.
I've got a bit nervous that one of the cross one of the cross out half which might have been behind me then I'm not going to lie.
But if I got to my so champ, if I got Tamatongo, it means you got Jacob Fatou and I think you'd be more trouble than me.
So big, big cuddly teddy bear.
Yeah, I can hear your knees knocking from him.
That's my ass all falling out.
But yes, so this broadcast of SmackDown marked the 100th WWE broadcast from Indianapolis, which is a huge number of broadcasts, but that's not just SmackDowns.
That's Raw's, that's PLE's, that's everything that came out of Indianapolis.
This was the 100th time WWE have broadcast from that from that city and 20 of those have been episodes of SmackDown, the first one being in 2022.
Oh no, the last one being in 2022. Sorry.
Remember, I made a mistake in my note.
You said it was the 100th episode of WWE to come out of Indianapolis.
Can you tell me the first one?
Oh, I've got this right.
So the first episode was an episode of WWE Superstars from June 1987.
Wow, superstars used to be on used to be on Saturdays, I believe this was back in the day when PLE's used to take part place on a Sunday night.
I mean, don't be wrong, I'm glad they made the move to Saturday.
It makes it so much easier than having to get up and do things like school runs and go to work and Monday mornings feeling half dead out your ass because you've stayed up until five, six o'clock in the morning watching wrestling.
We've done it enough time, so that's the stupid point.
Oh, 100%. And we do it again in a heartbeat and that's what makes making this podcast so much fun is that we've been wrestling fans for the longest time and just being able to get to talk the amount of shit that we talk to one another to an audience is great stuff.
But one last statistic I've got and I'm surprised you didn't jump over this one is that
The Shield debuted at a Survivor Series in 2012 in Indianapolis as well.
So this was the very first time we saw The Shield being Dean Ambrose, Seth Freakin Rollins and the now tribal chief Roman Reigns.
I'm just going to throw that out there. You can fuck off that was 13 years ago. I feel old as hell now.
I mean, I feel old as hell every time I have to get out of bed. But yeah, no, that statistic makes me feel old as well.
So yeah, we're going to walk away from that statistic as quickly as we possibly can.
I'm going to borrow Hope Hogan's Zimaphraim to try and scoot off down the hallway.
But we went from those stats being given out by the commentary team to a backstage promo where we saw Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga walking through backstage.
Fatou seemed laser focused but Tamatonga got distracted.
Oh, but he got distracted by some gold.
He certainly did.
It wasn't just any gold. It was tag team gold.
It was DIY's tag team gold too.
That could be an interesting and interesting matchup.
I'm not going to lie to you watching Johnny Gargano and Tamasa Champer go against Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga for those tag titles.
I don't think they could be anywhere near as worried as they probably should be going into that match realistically.
I think from a fans perspective, I think that's the answer.
Both Johnny Gargano and Tamasa Champer can take damage and consistently take a high amount of abuse.
And that's exactly what they're going to get from the cross-eyed half-wits.
If that tag name takes, I swear to God.
One for the cock-eyed half.
But yeah, the camera stays with DIY as they confront pretty...
Well, they seem to get really annoyed pretty deadly for the DIY, the ones that lost the match.
Yeah, pretty much. They got a little bit tasty with the fact that Tamasa Champer kicked them in the face.
And then had the balls to go and be like, what should you do that for?
Yeah, I mean, it's the case that he also, pretty deadly at this point, I think, frustrations boil over.
Which has been a long time coming, if we're completely honest.
And say, yeah, no, any agreement we have to help you out in your match in Royal Rumble is out the fucking window, lads.
You are on your own.
Well deserved.
100%.
And yeah, we go from there to Arena Side, where Pat McAfee and Michael Cole are interviewing Tyrese Halliburton.
Talking about the Pacers game, talking about Cole and Cody Rhodes crowd surfing on the SmackDown pre-show.
That looked kind of fun to be fair. Someone was copping a fear of Michael Cole there.
Yeah, I mean, that of the two. Surely you'd go for Cody Rhodes over Michael Cole.
I'd soon have been in Donkey Punch, Michael Cole, quite frankly.
I'd rather be hoarding a beer.
And I don't drink him.
Yeah, fair enough. I can appreciate that.
Yeah, this went on a bit of a long run of different promos and VTs.
Because the next thing we get is a VT recap of everything that Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens have put each other through over the last few months in the build-up to
the ladder match at Royal Rumble.
If this feud does not win any slimy awards, I will be massively pissed.
This Kevin Owens, Cody Rhodes feud story-wise, in the way it's been executed, has been probably one of the best storylines for me.
And that's sort of 5, 10 years. It's been incredibly well done.
Oh, yeah, definitely. It's something that... Don't get me wrong, there's been moments of potential over exposure to a degree.
But yeah, it has been a fantastically played out little storyline that they've done for them.
And both Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes have played their parts to an absolute tee.
So no matter the result of the match for Royal Rumble, I think we've been treated to a phenomenal storyline that...
I mean, it's only really, to me, going to play out one way. I don't see Kevin Owens walking out of there with a legitimate championship, to be quite honest.
I don't think it will be the end of the story to be honest again.
I don't think it will be a surprise either of them walking out of there. One of them when I was a title, but I don't think either of them are going to walk out of the arena.
No, most likely not. Most likely not. So yeah, moving on. Where did we go from there?
Morgan against Naomi with Raquel Rodriguez accompanying her and EST accompanying Naomi?
Yes. So this was a women's singles match. And the third match on the bounce this week for the Tag Team Champions.
Lord knows how they're going to fare in tomorrow's Royal Rumble off the back of competing three nights out of six.
And they will be pooling matches up to now as well.
Oh, 100%. They have not been little throwaway matches. They have been some absolute wars.
But do you know what? Fair play to them both because Naomi gets off to a really strong start in this match.
And I actually struggled taking notes for this match and not because it was a bad match, but I mean, I'm always constantly distracted by Liv Morgan.
The woman's batshit crazy. I'm convinced that's part of the attraction, if I'm honest. But yeah, probably the less said about that the better.
We all know no attention for crazy. So some of the notes I got off this one, one of them was a comedy segment they had.
Naomi did a move on Liv Morgan in the corner, which basically just kind of did like a, what Rey Mysterio used to do,
where she jumps on and jump onto them in the corner and jumps up and down off the road.
And she basically bumps the bum off her face and Liv Morgan run off using the ref's t-shirt to rub her face clean, which I thought was highly hilarious.
Yeah, love that. I mean, it's something that it's one of Naomi's staple moves. I've seen her do it on a number of occasions and I mean, yeah.
One of the spots that I quite enjoyed actually came from Liv Morgan. It was like a top rope code breaker she hit from the, she hit to Naomi at one point during the match.
I thought that was absolutely exquisite, to be honest.
Yeah, I also made a note about very, very impressed by it.
But yeah, I got, as I say, one of the other notes I got was Naomi going for a split leg moonsault, but we got Raquel Rodriguez on the outside getting involved to,
getting involved to try and play the distraction, who's then put down by Bianca Ballet, but the moonsault ultimately misses.
Yeah, Liv Morgan moved out of the way in time for this one. There was a little bit of pushing and shoving in between that and the end of the match already, which just involved in Naomi countering another roll-up attempt with a roll-up attempt for the three-cam.
Yeah, and then after the match, I mean, it's what Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez do best.
Afters.
Yeah, they absolutely laid into the tag team champs and it ended with Rodriguez power-bombing Morgan onto a stacked-up tag team champions.
And yeah, I mean, that can't be comfortable for Liv Morgan, but it's sure as hell is not comfortable for whoever's on the bottom of that pile on.
I can believe that was Bianca Ballet at the bottom of that one as well.
Yeah, no, we'll wait for comment as to how comfortable that move is to take.
But yeah, we've referenced this next VT quite a few times during tonight's match. It was a VT recap of Saturday night's main event in San Antonio, Texas, where the match was Jacob Fattu versus a fresh from injury Braun Strowman.
And yeah, it just sort of...
It was 24 hours after the IR.
It just goes to absolutely highlight the amount of damage that Jacob Fattu did to an already injured Braun Strowman, realistically.
Yeah, and Braun Strowman is not really something you expect. When you look at Braun Strowman and Jacob Fattu and then you look at paper, like Fattu really shouldn't have been able to do what he did to the biggest SOV.
So it's very much intriguing to see how they pushed that from last week on to the next time we see the two of them.
Yeah, definitely. But going from that VT, we went into match five, a men's singles match, which featured Andrade versus the Miz.
Yeah, Mike at the miserable Mizanon.
And you know what, as much as we give the Miz shit on the podcast and everything else, it's a case that the Miz came out and did something that the Miz doesn't do very often.
He grew some balls and he came out and put on a pretty decent effort on his own.
He came out, put on a pretty decent match, fighting out of his element and he basically tried to fight a Lucha Libre match against Andrade, which is a brave choice to say the least.
But Miz kind of held his own for it, which surprised me a little bit. I'm not going to lie.
I thought Miz was on a one way road, he was spanking here and he definitely showed me out this week.
Most definitely. But I feel the ending to this match sort of let down the amount of good work that the Miz did because the match ends with Andrade hitting a discus back elbow.
We're not talking a finisher, this was just a straight move. I mean even the commentary team commented on the fact that Miz may be missing one or two teeth after this discus back elbow.
But Andrade picks up the win over the Miz via pinfall and maybe Indianapolis may be in need of some emergency dentists on hand for the Miz to get his jaw put right after Andrade finished him off.
But I didn't get an awful lot of notes from this match other than the victory and giving him the Miz props, which made me feel a little bit ill. I'm not going to lie.
It's not very often we'd like to give the Miz too much credit on this podcast. But credit where credit's due this week. He had a fairly decent match against Andrade. It was his first match on SmackDown in quite a while actually.
Yeah, it was. And honestly, just to make myself feel a little bit better, the Miz is a dick.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel better for that now. Right, we'll move on from the Miz. Sorry.
Miz is a spineless dick.
Yes, that definitely makes me feel better hearing that. We're going to move on from the Miz anyway.
Yeah, it's tiffy. Oh no, it's not quite.
No, you're jumping to tiffy time. It's not quite tiffy time just yet.
Yeah, we get to see a little backstage action with a little conversation between Damian Priest and Santos Escobar.
So Santos Escobar isn't something isn't somebody we see on his own very often anymore as he's normally wrapped up with the other members of Legardo del Fantasma.
But yeah, I think Santos was basically trying to lean into the fact that they both have a very similar cultural heritage, let's say.
I think maybe Escobar was trying to recruit Damian Priest into del fantasma, but Damian Priest pretty much let him know how that was going to go and it wasn't a positive way.
No, definitely not. And something else that Santos said that seems a bit of a throwaway comment, but I latched onto quite a lot is that Santos makes a comment that Dom had said how egotistical Damian Priest was.
Again, it seemed like it was a throwaway comment, but there was a definite dig to try and get under Priest's skin mentioning Dominic Mysterio, who's obviously been in Santos's ear at some point.
Well, it's either that or obviously Dom Mysterio gave Chad Gable a name. We've always speculated it was Alistair Black.
What I have seen on social media today that Alistair Black was actually a house show for another promotion yesterday when he was something there.
So it could be a fact that maybe one of the members of del fantasma is going to be used in that storyline instead and it's a way to bring one of them up further into the action on a single was run rather than maybe a tag team.
Eventually we can't rule anything out as I say the world of WWE is unpredictable at best. So yeah, we can't put anything past anybody at this stage.
Moving on from that bit is we see a reunion as such as Damian Priest comes across a beloved character of WWE. We've mentioned him earlier on in the podcast. It's our truth.
And Damian Priest, I'm not sure if he seemed happy to see truth, but he definitely gave us a lot of.
So our truth and Damian Priest have got a bit of a history together where our truth was basically trying to make himself part of the judgment day when Damian Priest was one of the main guys within the judgment day on Monday Night Raw.
It seems like a very long time since the two of them were in the same place at the same time and I think Damian Priest has been thankful for that. Our truth I think has missed winding Damian Priest up to be quite honest.
The way this finished I thought was hilarious where you've got truth stood there with his arm around Damian Priest and obviously a little bit after we see our truth we get to see LA Night as well.
He's got his arm around both of them. It's like, hey, we should form a team. I'm like, I'm not quite sure I could deal with that level of comic factor.
Do you know I wouldn't be mad if they teamed up together? I actually think it worked really well.
Our truth would just be too much for me to comprehend. I'd be laughing too often.
Well, this is it. You've got Damian Priest who's all business all the time. Nobody's going to mess with the team with Damian Priest as essentially the muscle.
For LA Night who is the mouthpiece, that guy can cut a promo for days.
And then you've got our truth. Our truth is going to be the...
If you were to put... So comparing this figurative team of LA Night, Damian Priest and our truth to compare it to another team that we've seen in WWE recently.
I'd probably put them more in the same category as a more serious version of the new day when the new day had Big E.
And they didn't suck.
Yeah, basically when they didn't suck. And the reason I say that is because our truth is going to end...
So if we're honest, LA Night and Damian Priest would be the ones going out and having matches.
Our truth would end up being a much funnier, much more likeable version of Xavier Woods.
I mean, H.E.C.
He'd be the third guy and just, yeah, it would just...
I agree. The comic factor in it would just be so... Yeah.
More than anybody would care to... More than anybody would be able to handle possibly.
Yeah, I think you wouldn't see many of their matches because you'd be trying to go to the bathroom to pee. You should be laughing too hard.
That's if you even made it that far. But yeah, you mentioned her just a few moments ago.
And yeah, we have a small backstage promo where it's... It's Diffie Time.
And Selena Vega as well, who's recently moved over from Monday Night Raw.
Yeah, so when she made her last appearance on this week's Monday Night Raw,
made her first appearance on Friday Night SmackDown and made one hell of an entrance.
I mean, I don't think it was going to be any secret.
Selena Vega has made quite a few appearances in Rumble matches beforehand,
but she has declared herself for this year's Rumble as well.
And basically said, yeah, Stratton, if I come out of this with my hand raised, I'm coming at you, bitch.
Pretty much, which was nice to see.
We've only seen Diffie defend that title once, if I remember correctly, and that was against Bayley?
Yes, spot on. She did her first title defence against Bayley, came out of it in a very convincing win over Bayley, actually.
And we haven't seen her defend it against Sintz.
So it's got to be getting close to a defence time. I think maybe we'll see it soon.
Yeah, so the possibility is that we'll see...
If we don't see her defend the title again soon on a weekly television episode,
we may well see her defend it at Elimination Chamber.
Now, as we mentioned, Elimination Chamber, it may well be a rather odd way of segueing into the next VT,
as the next VT was a recap of John Cena's farewell tour,
which I think this VT actually was longer than the appearances that John Cena has made in his farewell tour so far.
It would not surprise me. He might as well do what The Rock did at this point and just do the farewell tour via satellite.
Yeah, I will be honest. They're honestly in absolutely no danger of having John Cena be overexposed on his farewell tour,
so far since it all started.
Back at the debut of Raw on Netflix, he has made precisely one appearance,
and that was on that Raw where he declared himself for the Royal Rumble, and ain't nobody seen anything from him since.
Well, I find it really annoying as he came back on the first episode on Netflix and was like, you know,
I'm going to do this reunion tour, I'm going to be doing everything I can, I'm doing one last full year,
and then it disappeared. It's only actually doing 38 weeks because he's currently filming a movie in Hungary.
Which is fair enough, but as you say, he could at least make, we could have at least seen maybe a few more VT performances from him
or something like pre-recorded content, at least get his face on the television show, on the TV shows.
It's just, it feels like he's farewell tours a bit of a dud at the moment,
and I'm sort of hoping that once we've got Royal Rumble out the way that we'll start seeing him potentially a little bit more regularly after that,
especially on the run-up to WrestleMania, it's otherwise it's just going to be way too frustrating
for him to have had anything close to a farewell tour that John Cena should have had.
I think with Cena's farewell tour, I think it's very much like everyone is going to have a different opinion of what he should have,
what he shouldn't. I think all we'll know at the end of it is no matter what happens on this tour,
there are going to be more superstars that benefit at the just John Cena.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, he's a big name in the industry, he will always be a big name in the industry.
I know that he's pretty much guaranteed a spot in the Hall of Fame at some time soon after his retirement.
So it definitely won't be the last we ever see of him on a WWE screen when this farewell tour has ended.
I don't think he'll, I don't see him being inducted into the Hall of Fame on his farewell tour,
that would be very different to how WWE have done it in the past.
He's likely to be inducted possibly the year after or maybe even the year after that.
So we know he's ending up in that direction, it's just not entirely clear as to when that's going to happen just yet.
But enough of the farewell tour and the doom and gloom, we'll move swiftly on because we're getting towards the end of this card now.
We've got one more promo to talk about which is another segment with Pat McAfee and Michael Cole,
who make a brief mention of the Cena farewell tour we've just been talking about,
and then do an in-ring interview with Tiffany Stratton.
Yeah, she basically just comes out and says that, well Michael Cole basically says to her,
what's the big difference now with you in the last year, with how far you've come from being,
and no one to being the title holder for the women here.
She's basically just got the only difference between Tiffy then and Tiffy now is that everyone in the locker room knows that she's championship material,
where they didn't beforehand, but now she's shown them she is.
They better start taking note of it and giving her the respect she deserves as champion.
And I mean, I can't disagree with her. She has admittedly, as we've said, she's only had one title defence so far,
but it was a title defence against an absolute titan of a female superstar in Bayley,
who has had an absolute storied tenure within WWE and is a workhorse herself.
To have defended in such a convincing fashion against Bayley, it's no mean feat.
But I think everybody's interested now to find out who her next title defence is likely to be against,
because I think there's a lot of speculation for potentially Nia Jax,
who hasn't yet had a title rematch that she would be entitled to under WWE contract rule.
And somebody else who I think we may see a defend against actually comes out during this interview,
which is Candice LeRae. Nia Jax is growth basically that seems to appear every time Nia Jax comes about.
It's nice to see her out in the ring on her own.
Candice LeRae is pretty much like a war to Nia Jax at the moment.
But this war came out on her own on this week's SmackDown, which I mean, props to her.
She's not a very big woman at all. She's actually very slight.
I mean, I always thought it was just because she was stood next to Nia Jax that she looks small,
but no, she's small.
Yeah, no, not particularly massive from Candice LeRae,
but I think they say good things come in small packages.
It's just a shame that her promo was no good.
Yeah, I think the idea of having her partnered with Nia Jax at the minute is to try and help pull her,
fill in the gaps in where she falls short because I think Candice LeRae spent some time in NXT.
I'm not terribly familiar with her as a wrestler or a career,
but I'm almost positive she would have spent some time in NXT.
She would have had to have made quite an impression to have made it up into the main roster,
but has sort of got lost in the fray until she was partnered with Nia Jax to try and help pull her profile up a little bit.
Yeah, and I think that's pretty much what Nia's been doing with it, but it's not...
Yeah, I'm not really feeling Candice LeRae.
I'm struggling with her character profile.
I'm struggling with the way they've kind of been using her as a third wheel just to try and make everything feel like a space filler.
Well, speaking of space filler, she ended up declaring herself as taking up a space in the Royal Rumble tomorrow night as she declared herself for the Rumble.
That's not where I thought you were going.
Well, where I think you thought I was going is where I'm going next, because as Tiffany basically tries to intimidate LeRae,
we find out that all Candice LeRae really was was a bit of a Trojan horse,
as Nia Jax comes basically out of nowhere and gets absolutely steamrolled by Nia Jax, the irresistible force as she's known.
Yeah, well, she came flying in and hit poor Candice LeRae like she was the immovable object.
It was incredibly well timed, something I did not see coming.
And, yeah, Tiffany only just escaped.
Yeah, I mean, and she didn't escape for long as that segment sort of closes out having Nia Jax do the Nia later to strutten off the middle rope.
And, yeah, that can't be a pleasant move to take just because of the sheer mass of human being you're having dropped on your chest.
Yeah, no, that's it's pretty. I mean, I wouldn't want to take that sort of move. I'm not going to lie to you.
It would be fair. You definitely feel a little bit winded if you fucked that one up.
Yeah, most definitely. I'm going to keep moving us along just so that we can try and get this done without losing too much of the audience towards this at this end of this episode.
As we move on to the main event of the evening, the men's tag team match announced earlier in the night.
This was Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga versus Damien Priest and L. A. Knight. Yeah.
And I was looking forward to this one purely for the fact that L. A. Knight was in it and he's been getting into some serious fun with Fatou and Tonga.
So you knew it was going to go and be a decent match and well, we didn't have to wait long for it to kick off.
Yeah, I mean chaos erupted from pretty much the offset. And do you know what? On paper, looking at this match, I would be really interested in it.
I'd be really excited for it as well. The issue is that when I came to watch this match, I was doing so in between doing other things.
So it was very stop-start. I never really got to sit down and properly get into the match before as I made it through.
I did read some notes going through, but it's, yeah, I didn't really get an opportunity to really sort of immerse myself in this match, which is a bit of a shame because all the notes that I've got are telling me that this was a fantastic battle between the four gentlemen.
You see, I had the complete opposite effect. I got that sucked into this match that I did not make very many notes at all. And I really felt the full effect of this one.
I'm, like I said, I've been loving the L. A. Knight with the cock-eyed half-wits. The whole storyline there has been brilliant.
Damian Priest just adds in that extra little bit of something special, especially when it comes to, like, Jacob Fatty.
And what Damian Priest can bring in as well into a match definitely is something that SmackDown needed a little bit more of.
I haven't made a huge amount of notes and I haven't really noted too many big spots, because it was all very even. Even the commentary team said throughout it that we weren't going to get a lot of high-risk or too much purely for whoever was in that.
We did see Damian Priest at one point pay homage to the Undertaker with an old school.
But it was a variation on the old school as well.
The old school ends with a crossbody.
Yeah, so Undertaker's old school used to see him tightrope across the ropes and it was very much sort of an arm slam from the heavens which used to have Undertaker landing on his feet and his opponent landing on his back.
Which Damian Priest took a little bit further this time with, as you say, turning it into a bit of a crossbody.
I picked out a few other spots that I quite enjoyed.
There was an absolutely massive leaping elbow from LA Knight at one point during the match which, yeah, I mean he practically made it from one side of the mat to the other from the top turnbuckle which was a phenomenal athleticism from such a big guy to make it such a...
a long distance without a freaking jetpack on, quite frankly.
Fatou missed a Samoan Hippotak which you don't see very often, especially considering that same Hippotak was how he did so much damage to Braun Strowman in San Antonio.
And yeah, I think towards the latter part of this match Priest was absolutely dominating both Tonga and Fatou which you don't see very often.
You normally get the better of one and it's normally Tonga but Fatou as well, he managed to get the drop on him for a fair amount of this match.
I mean at one point, one of the big points of this match was Priest sort of lobbing Tonga over the announce desk.
Lance a super kick on Fatou who completely no sells the move and ends up being made to eat a face full of the announce desk and then the ring post to have him basically out cold.
Yeah, he was basically didn't sell the super kick but you're going to sell this and this and this one.
Now, I've been quite down on Tamatonga during this match because he's probably the smallest guy in there.
And by necessity will likely have the least impact but one bit that he had he was being lifted for a razor's edge by Damian Priest and ended up managing to turn that quite smoothly into a sort of sleeper hold.
It was an absolutely beautiful transition and credit to Tonga for that.
Yeah, no, it was definitely a reason they've worked out how to set that up perfectly.
I think it wasn't over the top but it gave us just enough of what we needed to progress with that storyline.
I think we're going to see more from LA Knight and the Cock-eyed Halfwits but I'm not sure if we'll see more from Damian Priest with them at the moment.
They may end up coming back to Priest versus Fatou after the end of night and whatever they've got going on.
Yeah, I think we'll see that as well but it'll be interesting to see how that one plays out moving forward.
So wrapping this match up we saw a couple of big clotheslines, one from LA Knight taking Fatou into Timekeepers and then Priest hitting an app, a John Bradshaw Leifield-esque clothesline from Hell in the middle of the ring.
I believe it was Tamer Tonga towards the end of that match with Priest hitting a south of heaven for a pinfall victory to win this match out.
And yeah, Priest coming into SmackDown in an absolutely huge way for this match.
Priest going to SmackDown was a huge signing for SmackDown and that opening match for Priest on SmackDown just shows his intentions.
Yeah, definitely. He's not there to make friends, he is there to kick ass and take names.
But this doesn't stop Jacob Fatou having a go at the end after he loses the match. I can't even call Jacob Fatou a sore loser at this point because it doesn't matter whether he wins or loses, he's going to try and do as much damage after the match as he did during the match.
The one thing I'm getting a little bit frustrated with with some of the bloodline members is that at the moment they all seem to be shouting their name a lot more.
Like, Jacob Fatou is suddenly at the end of every promo now just going Fatou! Yeah, I know who you are.
Well, it's better than what it used to do, which was Pray to Solo Sikoa, which was a bit of an odd move from him.
But yeah, I mean, I think I know the answer to this question from you, Rich, but do you have a match of the night?
Yeah, it's the LA night match, mate. Yeah, that's sort of where I thought you were going to go with that one. I'm not going to lie, I've been surprised if you'd come back to me with anything else.
We all know one match I wasn't going to come back to you with, and that was going to... we weren't going to say the Mrs match was match of the night. It was alright, but it's not match of the night.
No, definitely not. It's the first Miss match in a while that wasn't shite.
Yeah, it's the first Miss match that wasn't a Miss match. Yeah, I struggled to pick a match of the night for this one.
I'm looking back over my notes, looking back over the card that was played, and again, I think I'd be agreeing with you if I'd been able to sort of immerse myself in that match the way that I would have wanted to.
Yeah. And it's just that with the way that I watched it, I struggled to pick out an absolute favourite, if I'm honest.
So yeah, I'm going to leave that one undecided, but as always, to those listening, let us know what you thought the match of the night for that card was.
I'd love to hear your rumble predictions as well. If you've got any rumble predictions that we haven't mentioned over the course of the run up to the Royal Rumble, love to hear that too.
Yeah, no. You can email us at finishesandfactionsatgmail.com.
And I will be sorting out some of the other social media links in the next couple of days just to double check everything is working properly with those before I advertise them for you.
Right. Yes. I think that is all from me. Is that all from you?
I think the next time you will hear from us, we will be living it up, reviewing Royal Rumble.
From Indianapolis this weekend. So I will see you for the Royal Rumble. Thank you very much, Adam. See you soon.
See you soon, buddy.