Welcome to the ring, it's Rich and Adam Breaking down the fights with flair and passion
and we are back with the Smackdown from Washington DC's Capital One Arena with myself Rich, my
host Adam and a new episode of finishes and factions podcast.
So, what a Smackdown we've got, it's as Rich has already said Washington DC, the Capital One Arena and one of the biggest things that we know or that we're treated to to begin with is obviously the news that we have no Joe Tessitore this week on Smackdown.
So, we've got Vic Joseph from NXT filling in which I suppose sort of makes sense to a certain degree is they've said that Joe Tessitore is out on assignment I'm pretty sure it just made more sense that Vic fill in considering he's at vengeance day the day after so.
Yeah, definitely makes a lot more useful to have and obviously Joe is in either need of some time off or he just is not needed this week.
I mean he may well have been out on assignment or whatever that assignment may be but yeah he it yeah it's one of those. It's always worth mentioning because it's a change from the norm I mean we still had Wade Barrett on commentary and I mean him and Vic Joseph used to yeah used to announce on over on NXT together so.
Well, train together at one point as well.
Possibly.
I didn't look into that I didn't look into their history that deep.
I mean, I think it's a conversation that we were for.
And not a conversation sorry when Cody Rhodes and J. O. Sue had the match against Jacob for to and Tomatonga sorry.
mess up on up.
Yeah.
And the big news out of that realistically was so low so Co has returned which I'm honest I'll be honest I didn't see coming.
I mean I think it's a good thing that he's back at some point maybe but I don't know that a lot of the rumors that were circulating around with.
I mean it could have been a case that you just said fuck you and didn't come back but no we saw solo Sikovar and.
Yeah, it was.
And I think that's what we kind of what was going to happen with that and we did find out a little bit more about in the opening promo with with Cody Rhodes coming down to the ring and using his.
His favorite quote at the moment about what are we going to talk about.
And I think it's nice to see him kind of spending a lot of time in the ring and not just in a wrestling sort of aspect you do get to see a lot of him as an active champion with the microphone in his hand as well which is nice to see very talented on both.
Yeah, definitely.
It's so.
I think it's nice to see that that we already know that Cody Rhodes is opponent for elimination chamber in Toronto.
Next, I want to say next weekend.
Now.
Possibly weekend week first of March isn't it.
So it's not next weekend.
Here's the weekend after you quite right.
We already know that because of Jey Uso choosing to face Gunther at WrestleMania, that means that the winner of the elimination chamber faces Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania in Las Vegas.
It's going to be an interesting one. That's some big names in that elimination chamber.
And we're still got mortar to go into obviously Monday night Raw next week has Seth Rollins and Finn Balor fighting for the last spot in the men's elimination chamber, which will be definitely an interesting one to watch and one will recap probably on Tuesday for you guys to listen into.
Yeah, most definitely.
Richard might be worth but me mentioning just at the moment that it does sound like your sound is dipping in and out.
I don't know if that's just discord sort of not picking it up very well or if your mic's not for some reason picking you up very well.
Could possibly be where I'm trying to keep my voice as low as possible so I don't make too much noise with the time we're recording this.
My wife has decided it is definitely bad time so it might be a mixture of different things.
Still getting yellow on my side.
As long as it's not coming as long as it's making as long as we're making sure it's coming through on the recording. The last thing we want to do is have have it build that both of us are talking and all they can hear is me.
Well, yeah, I mean we've already had enough of that in the last four nights. So we better try and make sure we get up and running properly.
Well, yeah, I mean for somebody that says he doesn't like the sound of his own voice. I talk a lot.
But anyway, we found that out when he came in and interrupted Cody Rhodes when he was in the ring.
Oh, sorry, who's Drew McIntyre? I know who Drew McIntyre is.
It's on me.
I don't even know if that's PG.
Why?
Oh, so yeah, as we get to the point, we've got Cody Rhodes in the ring having a nice little conversation with the crowd.
Drew McIntyre decides he's going to come out and have a little conversation because he's pissed at the fact that Cody didn't announce him the same way he did everybody else when he was talking about the elimination chamber that's going on in Toronto, Canada.
So he, you know, obviously came out, gave himself a bit of a repertoire, told everyone what it is that he's accomplished.
And we all know what Drew McIntyre has accomplished. He likes to tell us week in, week out.
And yeah, we got through with the end of that one. Cody gave him another reintroduction and he didn't seem too happy with it again.
But again, it's Drew McIntyre and he likes to be a bitch about pretty much everything.
Yeah. And it's very sort of on brand for him at the moment, just to just sort of rehash the rehash history rather than talking about what he's going to do.
Despite the fact that since he came to SmackDown, he claims to have this new fresh attitude. It's met, it still looks exactly the same to me now as it did previously.
Six months ago, yeah.
So I'm not really seeing much of a difference apart from the fact that he sort of tries to smile more.
But that's about the extent of...
I mean, we get more smiles from Jacob Fatou than we do from Drew.
So, you know, you don't really see much smiling from Jacob at the moment as we saw him and Tamatonga also come down and have a little entrance or a little addition to the conversation that was going on in the first place.
And that was mainly just a bit of a build up with for the triple threat march that Jacob Fatou is in a little bit later on on the night for what could in theory be his qualifier into the elimination chamber.
I mean, the phrase that Jacob Fatou seems to like using just at the moment is being all gas, no brakes.
I don't know if he's hoping that catches on. I'm not entirely sure it will, but I applaud him for plugging away at it.
That's not the first time he's mentioned that phrase either.
No, this is it. And this is why I say is this is him trying to make it sort of his catchphrase.
And don't get me wrong, he's getting better at this whole thing.
We can understand what he's saying without Netflix having to fuck up the subtitles of Jacob Fatou's promos.
Yeah, I mean, the subtitles are always on when I watch it anyway, just to make sure that I'm hearing everything that I'm saying.
In fact, it's quite funny sometimes to watch the subtitles come up about 10, 15 seconds after what has actually been said has been said.
And then they're trying to figure out how to spell some of the words for the moves that they use.
And we seem to see this more in NXT events because of Corey Graves's penchant for using overtly technical terms for moves that we've seen hundreds of times before,
giving them Japanese names and trying to repackage them that way or just being a bit pedantic really.
But we're not here to talk about Cody Graves this evening.
Anyway, you renamed him as well.
Yeah, fuck it.
Corey Graves is being repackaged. He's now known as Cody Graves.
Well done Corey.
Look, I'm just taking a leaf out of Michael Cole's book and getting everybody's name wrong.
No, don't. So, you know, we've got at the moment, we've got a ring full of talented superstars.
We've got Cody Rhodes, we've got Drew McIntyre, Jacob Fatou, we've got Tamatonga.
And they're all doing their little thing, having a little conversation until it kind of diverts back to the big screen at the top of the ramp where we see a vehicle pulling into the underside of the stadium.
And again, we get to see Solo Sikawa pop up and kind of get out of the truck,
at which point you kind of see both Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga basically make a beeline to get the fuck out of the ring.
Because Jacob Fatou likes to say he's got some family business that needs sorting out with Solo Sikawa.
And there was a beautiful line from Cody, which it didn't feel like much
when he said it, but when you saw later on what happens, you can understand why he said it, the way he said it, and why it worked so well.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, he basically says, look, you can have the first word, but I'm fucking having this.
I'll have the last word. And yeah, thinking back on it, that has a lot of gravity to it, knowing what happens later on.
But at the time, it's just a line, it's just words. It doesn't mean anything.
Even though we know Cody to be sort of a man of his word, he will follow through on what he says he's going to do.
So obviously, the boys disappear off and split them into separate ways.
You see Tamatonga and Jacob Fatou walking around backstage looking for Solo.
I feel sorry for the stagehand at this point because you see Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga says to him, wear Solo.
And then the next thing you see is Fatou come in and flatten the pork.
Well, there was a part of me that was sort of hoping that poor guy's name was Stan.
Stan's don't do very well backstage at WWE events traditionally.
They don't. Sean Michaels liked a superkick one quite hard.
Yeah, pretty much.
It looks like he's definitely been a good guy.
But yeah, no, it was that poor guy got absolutely destroyed.
And he was lying on the floor and you know for a fact he was lying there thinking, fuck my life. Why did I volunteer to be that guy?
Well, did he volunteer or was he volunteered?
It could have been one way or the other.
That guy could have been the one guy that didn't chip into somebody's retirement fund or could have just been in turn.
And then he watched for his Hall of Fame induction so he got dropped like a bad habit.
Yeah, he really was. I mean, that guy got blasted into next and last week.
So that guy's this week's episode of Monday Night Raw before it's even there.
Yeah, pretty much.
But we then go from that sort of backstage promo we go to ringside where we see Wade Barrett is interviewing Trish Stratus after Trish made a solid performance in the Royal Rumble a few weeks ago.
Didn't really feel more like an interview to start off with it kind of felt like Wade Barrett was just talking at Trish Stratus for a little while.
It didn't really give him much of an opportunity to talk. But Wade Barrett does work a bit more than anything else.
It was a Valentine's Day episode of SmackDown so you can't blame Wade Barrett for trying to get it into the Hall of Famer.
I mean, us older wrestling fans, I mean, who hasn't at least thought about stratisfaction?
Yeah, I could agree.
Which is definitely an interesting choice of most people tried getting it through Lita.
The fact that Trish Stratus is second best to some of them is an interesting choice.
I think if we think back to some of the promos that were caught if what was said was to be believed, I think most people managed to get it through Lita.
But I'm sure there was a promo about Coach Party's welcome at some point.
But anyway, this little sort of ringside promo was basically confirming Trish's attendance at Elimination Chamber,
which will take place in her hometown of Toronto, Canada.
But like she said, is she watching it from a seat or a suite and we will find out when we get to Toronto what Trish is doing?
Or will we have to wait that long? That is the question.
Yeah, so we go from there into our first match of the evening.
It is at the first Elimination Chamber qualifier of the evening and it's a women's singles match,
which is Naomi vs Chelsea Green.
Oh God, yeah, no. I didn't even know where to go with this one.
It was obviously as normal, Chelsea Green came to the ring with Piper Nevin,
Naomi bought Aaron Bianca Belair, we're seeing the same couple of people come round every week at this point.
And my notes for this match are particularly massive.
All I'd like to throw in there for this match is for the quality of the competitor in the ring with both Chelsea Green and Naomi.
Obviously, Chelsea Green is a she's held NXT titles.
I think she's currently holding the United States title if I could be wrong.
She is currently the women's US title holder.
She has fashioned herself as a bit of a female president sort of role, hence the role of security guard that Piper Nevin seems to have taken on.
In previous weeks they keep teasing about the fact that they need to expand their security details,
so they're obviously looking to bring on extra people there.
Wade Barrett made a joke about he'd been approached and if she was to win this match, she'd be after a lot more money.
But we'll take him a little bit more than that to come out retirement, I think.
Yeah, and just yeah.
But I don't have a like I probably have a little bit more than you could sell for in terms of notes.
I mean, Naomi tries an early pin to start the match, which we don't see very often.
Very much a power move against the US title against the women's US title holder.
There was just mind games anyway to be fair.
Obviously both of these women are very accomplished superstars.
So and with the women's elimination chamber again, it is full of some very accomplished superstars.
So it's not necessarily the quality in the ring.
It's the quality of the mind games that you can play to help you with that.
Yeah, and they both had them going on today.
I mean, they both pulled out their classics.
It wasn't meant as like a particularly long match or anything like that.
It was a vessel to get one of these two women into the elimination chamber match for Toronto,
which I mean, it's certainly served that purpose.
One of the highlights of the match for me was Chelsea Green hitting a rough rider.
Yeah, that was definitely an interesting move.
Well, it was a move that was previously used by the man she's dating currently,
which is well, he's now known as Matt Cordano.
We knew him as Zack Ryder.
Zack Ryder to ice the Z.
Zack Ryder, woo woo.
But yeah, I mean, long and short of this match was that Naomi, like Bianca before the week before,
has qualified for the chamber. She walked out of there with a pinfall victory against Chelsea Green.
Now, the only other thing that...
I think they could moonsault.
Ah, see, I didn't go to quite that extent.
I mean, the only other thing that I noticed about this,
and I mentioned this only because something came out afterwards about it all,
is at one point Naomi's got Chelsea Green through the ropes
and looks to sort of rearrange her tights a little bit.
I genuinely thought she was trying to make her ask that Chelsea Green's arse look a little bit better.
It actually turns out that it was Naomi giving Chelsea a wedgie during a match.
And she, Chelsea Green after Friday Night SmackDown went off air,
released a presidential statement of sorts, banning wedgies in her ring.
I mean, what childish behaviour is that?
I really have to pull off a wedgie in the middle of a WWE ring,
but I'm not going to lie and you can probably hear, I'm sat here giggling like a bitch about it.
It's like a brilliant...
Oh, 100%. It's one of those things.
It was completely juvenile, but it's got to be on your retirement,
but it's got to be on every single superstar's retirement.
Well, it wasn't on the...
Retirement bingo card.
But yeah, I mean, the match was decent.
I'm not angry at the match I set.
There were some good spots in it.
It was a very technical match as you will find, like I said, with the calibre of wrestler that we've got in the ring
for this match, you knew you were going to see the basics done very, very well.
And these guys do do that.
You know, obviously, like they've both held gold over across different promotions,
whether it be, you know, NXT, SmackDown, Raw.
If any of these guys have done TNA or AEW, they've all held gold in different places.
For different amounts of time.
So we both know that we're going to get a good quality match, and the technical side of it was brilliant.
It wasn't one of those ones where we saw a lot of high flying moves purely for the fact that, like I said, it was a smaller match.
It was just to try and get one person over with the elimination chamber.
It kind of looks like they're going to follow the storyline with Bianca and Naomi going into the chamber at the same time,
whether that's going to be a help or a hindrance is going to be completely up to WWE.
And we will find that when I'm on the first of March.
Well, what we'll end up seeing is most likely Bianca and Naomi working together until they can't work together anymore,
essentially, because it's what happens in these sorts of matches.
I mean, it's a one on it's every woman for themselves sort of match.
It's not something they're going to be able to work together on for an overtly long amount of time.
And eventually that dynamic has to break down, but we've seen them in the Royal Rumble do it where they've worked together for as long as they possibly could.
Then it all sort of breaks down.
We've seen it with other tag teams in the past.
It's just the way it works out.
Yeah, probably going to see it at Vengeance Day as well when a town down under and they're much against Oberfamic.
And when it comes to, you know, sort of breaking down of relationships,
it leads us quite nicely into the next stage of this week's episode,
which was a recap on Kevin Owens attacking Sami Zayn and Sami Zayn posting a social media video,
basically just kind of explaining what happened to him,
the injuries that he's currently suffering from, you know, with his neck after what was a brutal package pile driver that Kevin Owens hit him with.
And it looks like we get a, what, it's more like an offering of a match.
There's a Sami Zayn's here basically saying, like, you know, I know it's a bit cliche, you know, Kevin's turned on me a few times.
I've turned on Kevin a few times.
We've been doing this for the last 20 years, you know, turning on each other, best friends one minute, not best friends the next minute.
So we've seen, you know, the breakdown between teams in the past is still working their way through, you know, sort of 10 years later into different things.
So the professional wrestling ring can definitely be a fickle environment to be in.
Well, most definitely.
And yeah, so we see Zayn obviously giving us a recap of his injuries, seeing some spinal compression, some nerve damage, things like that,
which is something we all mentioned about in a previous episode.
I mean, Zayn himself seems to be quite heated over some of KO's accusations, doesn't really sort of believe it.
But again, we've had this ride before where Kevin turns on Zayn, they all go at each other and it all gets a bit heated from there.
In the end, one of them walks out victorious, normally Kevin Owens and Zayn will forgive him.
But we'll see that when Zayn returns, I think.
Yeah, I think that's definitely something that we will see a lot of, whether we see it.
Well, we need to wait a little bit just to see what we do see in future with it coming up.
Yeah, definitely.
We went from that little sort of Sammy Zayn update promo to actually something.
I enjoy these announcements when they start coming out.
This is one bit of a race to WrestleMania I enjoy looking forward to.
The Hall of Fame class has always given us an opportunity to be able to kind of just recap some of these legends that we've missed in Ring.
And this, you know, for the second entry to this year's Hall of Fame.
I'm entirely sure if we will work it out closer to the time, I think we should probably do an extra Hall of Fame style episode just to try and, you know, add that into the repertoire for us because we, you know, both myself and Adam have spent a lot of time over the last 20 years watching some of these guys
and getting an opportunity to sit and watch them being inducted by fellow people that we've also kind of watched is going to be really interesting.
Obviously, we've had to go age already announced that he's being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year and that was done by the Undertaker and the announcement, not the induction.
And then keeping the link with the Undertaker, the second entry to this year's Hall of Fame class is Mrs Undertaker Michelle McCall.
Yeah, and me and Rich talked about this off stream is that one of the one of our favorite things to do is to try and predict who's going to end up inducting each member of the class into the Hall of Fame.
Because the tradition is is that they select somebody to give that initial speech to welcome them into the Hall of Fame.
And I think we I think it's pretty, well, we both said it was going to be Leila, didn't we, after Leigh Calls tag run with both Leila and Michelle McCall.
That's who I think would make the most sense from what I can remember of Michelle McCall's sort of tenure. I mean, it could just as easily be the Undertaker that induct her in again, it would make a lot of sense because it's a husband.
There's a definite link there.
I mean, Triple H, I think everybody's sort of expecting Sean Michaels to induct him into the Hall of Fame.
I mean, it's not a done deal. There's loads of people that could induct Triple H into the Hall of Fame.
We could see Kevin Nash return to induct him into the Hall of Fame as as we can see anyone that's ever been in either a tag team with him or a faction with him.
You open up, you've got so many members of DX that could also do it.
Yeah, this is a Dx themselves.
I mean, that could be a fitting tribute after they were inducted a few years ago. It'd be nice to see X Park and Road Dog and the rest of them come back for one night only tell a few people to suck it and induct him into the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, I mean, it's perfectly possible.
But yeah, maybe not necessarily an episode around the Hall of Fame, possibly some more short form content around it potentially something we could release in a certain social media platform potentially.
We have got different platforms that you can find us on now. We are now on Twitter as well, which is going to be nice and fun. You can follow us on the finishes and factions podcast, which is at Finn and FanPod.
Yeah, so but more to come out of the Hall of Fame this year. There's normally five spots in a class, I believe.
So we've got a couple more big people, big names coming.
We've got three or four announcements yet to come and we'll see those ramp up a little bit more as we get further along that road to WrestleMania. I wouldn't surprise me if we see another one announced by the time we're in Toronto in two weeks time.
I'd like to see Bray go into this year's Hall of Fame. I'm not going to lie to you. I think he deserves it with the run that you had the creativity you had and the fact that we lost him last year as well. It'd be interesting to see if they if they bring him in this year or whether they wait until next year.
But Bray Wyatt will definitely go into Hall of Fame.
I'd like to say they're probably going to wait until next year for it for Bray.
Much as it'd be nice to see him go in. I just don't think he's going to go in yet.
I mean, that's a fair shot. Like I said, it's the glory of the Hall of Fame. You never know what's coming until it comes.
Yeah, this is it. But enough Hall of Fame talk for now. Let's move on to the next section. I believe it would be matched two of them. Am I correct?
Yeah. Yeah, this was a men's tag team match between the Motor City machine guns and Los Garza.
Now, these two teams have got some history the last few weeks, especially, you know, there was an eight man tag match a few weeks back when Los Garza actually walked off and left Motor City machine guns to feel the pain from believe it was pretty deadly and DIY.
Yes.
Wow. Look at me getting in there. I didn't even have to research.
Oh, no. Yeah. Again, anyone would think I was a professional, you know.
Let's not go that far.
You're right. Okay. That's very...
I suppose you need to have 10,000 hours and something to be classed as professional or any episode 22. So, again, we've got about 20 hours in. Probably closer to 50.
But yeah, no, this was actually a really, really good match for Motor City machine guns. I really didn't feel like Los Garza got much of an opportunity to get into it.
Normally, they come into a match and they go, they're like a... I've got here in normally like a ball in a Chinese shop.
Everyone gets broken. Everyone gets like beaten.
And normally when Los Garza walk into somewhere, there is some damage being left behind. I didn't really feel like it was this time.
I mean, there was a few opportunities where you thought Los Garza may possibly sneak it.
I know there was one spot that I really enjoy that.
But you've seen Los Garza do a few times where you get one of them, and I can't remember the names of these guys off the top of my head.
I definitely couldn't tell you which one it was. You did it.
Catches one of them through a cross body. So you've got like he's holding him sort of like across his chest.
And then the second guy up on top of him, so he's kind of like in a powerbomb style position on top of his teammate being held by the enemy.
And then the second guy from Los Garza jumps onto the second rope and spinning head kicks the top guy in the face.
And they normally hit the floor like a big old sack of taes.
And I've seen it a few times. The setup for it is beautiful.
You always get that pucker little, is that foot just slaps and square across the face.
It's beautiful. It's a great move.
It is a really nice move.
It's just a nice move.
It's a nice move. I mean, the big thing out of this, out of the time that this time that they've done it is that they pulled that move off.
But the ref was caught completely out of position, could not start the count.
And it's all part of being a pro. These refs, they train to be refs.
It's not something that somebody just sort of walks into.
It's about having complete ring awareness as well as being able to manage getting sort of notes from the gorilla position and things like that,
as the refs are in constant communication with backstage.
And the refs nine times out of 10 will act as sort of conduits for the gorilla position to be able to say, oh, well, we're getting on for time now.
Let's wrap it up and all the rest of it.
The ref is not just there as a referee. There is a timekeeper as well and a bit of a messenger boy.
Yeah, unusually for this match's ref, she was caught completely out of position,
would not have been able to have a clear view of shoulders down or anything like that.
It's so unusual to see, but it's, that was the big thing that I got from this match.
I mean, there were a few other bits and pieces, but not really a massive amount.
I'm not sure if I got too into this match to make notes or whether there just wasn't a lot that I felt I could comment on that wasn't sort of standard fair for one of these matches.
It's a bit of an odd one.
I'm a huge fan of the Motor City machine guns.
Not that fond of Los Garza, but I mean, it's a Motor City machine words match.
It's one of them.
I think it could just be because obviously Motor City machine guns in this particular feud are more of a face team where Los Garza are definitely the heels in this.
And I don't think we're supposed to like Los Garza, but I don't think they have the ability within themselves to be a face tag team.
They definitely built in a hoop.
I don't dislike I don't dislike Los Garza in any way, shape or form.
It's not a dislike.
It's like, like, dislike situation.
It's just that I'm not.
Let's put it this way.
I'm not going to be the person running to the merch store going, I need a Los Garza t-shirt.
No, definitely not.
More chance of me buying one from the Motor City machine guns than there is from Los Garza.
This match ends with Motor City machine guns picking up a pinfall win off a skull and bones, which I know is a finishing move that finishing move that Rich has grown to particularly enjoy.
I had it so well timed as well.
Now considering up until WWE went to Netflix, I hadn't really seen much of Motor City machine guns.
I wasn't an avid watcher, like if it came up with my social media feed, I'd watch it, but I wasn't going looking for matches.
Now they're on Netflix and they're in the right place.
I can I've been absolutely loving my life and loving watching the Motor City machine guns.
I know you're a big fan of them from from TNA.
So I can definitely see where you are, why you are so into them are so into them.
They were a great team.
Great and Chris Saban is just incredible.
Yeah, I've seen I've seen Motor City machine guns through a few different promotions as they've been together for about 20 years.
They've they've they've run the ropes and it's a case that they've never failed to disappoint.
It's just this match.
I didn't I didn't get a massive amount for but because I didn't get a massive amount for it, we're not going to dwell on it too long.
I'm going to move through a few a few different bits and pieces that unusually I've actually got both my notes and riches notes in front of me as well as we do like to share this information.
It makes it easy for one of us to pick up where we may not necessarily have sort of picked something up during the match and it happens both ways.
There's a few bits here that I've got that don't appear to appear in riches notes here.
My notes are very strange.
I concentrate more on the matches.
I try and get as much detail from the matches as I possibly can where Adam tends to see everything and Adam's notes basically pick up a lot of the VT's a lot of the like the recaps a lot of the little bits that I don't necessarily think are worth mentioning.
And then it's not because I don't feel the worth mentioning.
I just know that they're not my specific cup of tea like I will watch.
Obviously I watch all the interviews and the recaps and stuff like that but nine times out of 10 Adam is the one who picks up the mini details where I just go for the matches and try and get as much detail as those because that is basically as that's the bread and butter of our program is breaking down the matches.
Obviously the VT's the little promos backstage bits the interviews and stuff less than you're feeling.
Yeah.
So.
Well we mentioned that we had after this match concluded we had a VT promo featuring Damian Priest ahead of his main event elimination chamber triple threat qualifier later on in the card where basically yeah he's just not here to make friends he's done playing as part of a team he's there very much as a lone wolf and he's there to.
I mean and if you look at what Damian Priest has accomplished the last four years on Raw he's done everything you can do with a team you know he let Judgement Day he's had a lot of different things over on Raw to do with involving other people.
Now he's finally realized when he's come to SmackDown actually it's Damian Priest needs to look after Damian Priest ass and fuck everyone else and thus it's going to be dangerous for these guys because he is a hell of a performer.
Yeah 100% I mean.
And I'm broken I already finished these guys fucking naughty.
Yes definitely but yeah no it's.
He's a really talented individual you don't need.
He doesn't necessarily need to be part of a team but it is nice for him to be able to show that sort of range within the within the ropes for it as some people work really well in teams not so much on their own and they end up getting branded tag team wrestlers and you've got people that are the other way around that can't really work a tag team match because of different reasons.
And this is what you've got people so boys recently a lot especially Gunther telling Jay that he's just one half of a tag team.
He's you know and I mean hopefully he's going to eat those words at WrestleMania.
But we do see it.
I think he will.
If Triple H and the writing team do not have Joe so with a WrestleMania they are wasting a pop and a half like there will not be a roof on the building in Las Vegas actually I'm pretty sure if Joe so wins Las Vegas is going to be missing off the map in America because it would have just been obliterated by yeets.
100% it'll be a case that there'll be people yeeting up and down the main street at the main strip of Las Vegas.
It's just going to be full of people showing you for hours.
Yeah, pretty much.
Nice little meeting with the increase though we've got to find out a little bit more in a backstage promo about what is going on with a Tomatonga Jacob Fattu with a search for solo so cool.
How can you miss a guy that big.
I mean the what made me sort of laugh about this part was you see sort of Jacob Fattu isn't necessarily looking.
He's just there to destroy whereas you've got Tomatonga who's checking through doorways and things like that going behind this this giant rage monster that seems to be just a monster that just wants to destroy anything that comes in his way.
Yeah.
And I mean they they certainly find.
Solo sort of seemingly waiting for them in the locker room and before I go any further through this promo it was pointed out to me on social media it was pointed out to me through social media that I mean before I'd even seen the episode there were memes of the fact that
Tamat, solo soco was dressed like one of the Backstreet Boys in his all white outfit and then somebody else I saw some somebody else point out the fact that in fact ignore the colour.
Solo soco was there wearing quite a thick what like a silver metal chain a turtle neck jumper and some some some mom jeans I think we getting some references to one of his family members before his family member was the people's champion.
Yes, pretty much it was a famous photo that floats around in the in the internet ether web.
The of one Dwayne the Rock Johnson in a turtle neck some mom jeans and and wasn't talking about struggle by any chance was he.
He wasn't know this was before he was the Rock. This was Dwayne Johnson taking what at the time would have been quite a really nice picture it's one of those pictures that at the time looks absolutely fantastic you look back at it afterwards and think.
Yeah, no.
And but time to help. No, no, it did not and and Dwayne will be one of the first people to ever meant to ever say that that photo did not age well but back to the promo itself I mean as I say solo seemingly sort of waiting for them in the locker room.
The conversation basically gives me made it still feel like solo still thinks he's in charge.
And I don't think he's not that guy anymore. Do you know what I mean like he's not the man.
He lost the respect of Fatou and Tonga realistically he's not and that's going to be a tough thing to get back.
I mean he left without a word he just fucked off and left them in the middle of the ring like his family at the end of the day like you don't do that to family and he did now he's going to either have to a work his ass off or get his ass beat down the same as everyone else else.
Yeah, this is it I mean, we have like everybody knows you're allowed to take time to yourself if you need that time to yourself you take that time.
But tell people that's what you're going to do because otherwise they're going to they're going to worry or you or in this case they're just going to think you fucked off and left them.
Especially if you're going to be in a position where you're still supposed to be representing the team the family the unit and you're in the mid you're in a position of waiting to be able to have your that say and then you just don't say a word and just fuck off.
It's not something that's ever going to work.
No it's not. It's not.
Fatou and Tonga have got nothing nothing to say to solo but solo has a lot to say to them. He's there trying to rally the troops and yeah I mean Fatou does his best solo so coer impression and just fucks off.
Just because he's grabbed his arm and obviously one of the famous things that solo so coer did at the height or or Jacob Fatou used to do at the height of solo so Coer's power was.
Hands in a praying position and proclaiming how much he loved solo.
So for that to be turned round on the interest like that if they push it into a photo versus solo match we're going to see if Fatou really is all gas and no breaks when it comes to that one.
Yeah this is it speaking of yeah.
Well no not speaking of yeah because we then go from that backstage into an in ring promo and shinsuke.
Shinsuke Nakamura come out this guy bores the tits up normally but I'm liking kind of where he's taking this dark Japanese sort of like warrior ask sort of character to it.
It would be a good thing to do if he was not the current presiding US champion.
He is a serving and supposedly defending US champion who has been relative.
He's been at tapings he's been in the background. I mean I've mentioned on a few occasions of episodes of I think both raw and Smackdown that shinsuke Nakamura has been present in the background of some promos backstage.
But we've not seen him and he comes out a lot of sort of I think WWE sort of expect a bigger crowd reaction where in actual fact there's no crowd reaction at all there is no pop.
I mean shinsuke Nakamura be LA night survivor series to win that US championship.
I can't really think of much since November where he's defended it. Obviously he has once or twice I think one of them was definitely against LA night when the two cross-eyed half wits interfered after that quality promo.
And this one's lived rent free in my head for a little while LA night through Jacob Fatou out of the building turn round and he wasn't going to use his he was he didn't want to use his inside voice right through his ass outside.
Now he's got a championship to win.
Yeah.
And I think that was the last time that we saw shinsuke Nakamura defend that United States championship.
Yeah, it was. And this is my point is that he was been very much an absentee US champion. He's not been there. He's not been present.
He's normally just the big titles where we get part time title holders shinsuke is taking that one up for one of the smaller titles.
This is the point is that even with the big title small title doesn't matter. They are title holders. They should be I'm not saying they should be on the show every week making themselves known but at least make it once a month.
I mean, when LA night was holding the title he did defend it weekend.
We've seen a lot of people over the course of the years with the United States championship defend that weekend week how I know at one point John Cena had the open challenge when he was holding it where anyone at any point during which I think it was raw he was on at the time could come and have a crack at that US title.
We just don't see it. Yeah, it'd be nice to see him wrestle a little bit more or give it to somebody who's actually going to use it in the right way.
If it's somebody relevant. Yeah, she's Nakamura is not relevant.
He comes out to the ring basically begging for a challenge saying oh yeah I've been I've been in the shadows I've been to try to take his character to this really dark place and I just yeah I'm not I'm afraid apart from the sort of initial
fanfare of Shinsuke Nakamura being bought up from NXT to the main roster a good couple of years ago. I just don't think he's he's not being in a position to to be a title holder because he's not his ability in the ring doesn't make it for me.
He's inability to cut a decent ass promo is not there for me. He debuted on the main roster in 2017 just after just after just before WrestleMania.
So it would have been the roar after WrestleMania I believe.
So in that time that he's been in WWE since you know 2017 held the United States Championship once or twice. He was in a money in the bank march but he's not really one much of those.
Believe you may have also held one of the heavyweight championships at some point as well because he did have a really big push and he got this really big push and he was he was relatively over with the WWE Universe.
He just never really landed for me and a lot of it is because and I'll be honest it's not it's not like a nasty thing about him. It's just I'm I'm not there for people that are incapable of cutting a promo that I can understand.
And for someone who has been in the US resting working eight years now his promo ability has not got any better.
I'm still struggling to kind of hear what he says now like I was when he first came up. Yeah, I'm more of a change in Jacob Fatou's promo style in six weeks.
Yeah, and I mean somebody that doesn't struggle to cut a promo that I can understand.
All right, I'll give you a fight. Yeah, you want you want a challenge if you find that he has been the only one that's written within this few months. You can tell he wants that title back and it's not just that.
It's a point of pride for LA night. I think that he was the US title holder and he enjoyed the prestige that came with that and and he served that title well.
He made that title relevant, which Shinsuke Nakamura has not done. And I'm not going to keep harping on at that because there's somebody else that we like harping on it.
Right, I'm as much as we hate this guy. Miz decides that he's going to come out and he's going to run his chops a little bit about, you know, actually, I want to go at the United States title. You know, I've held everything else.
Pretty sure he at some point he's had the US title, not 100% sure. Don't quote me on that. If I'm wrong, let me know. You can contact us on Twitter and email.
I believe the only title that the Miz may not have ever held before is possibly the World Heavyweight Championship. He's held the WWE Championship. He's certainly been into continental title holder.
Big John Cena for the WWE Championship. We hear that one quite a lot.
Yeah.
He's had the IC title more than any other superstar, I believe.
Not sure that statistic holds up in court, but he certainly held the IC title a lot. He's been US title. He's had US title runs as well.
He's had multiple tag team championships with multiple different partners. And yeah, so he's he is a very well decorated superstar.
We will not sort of begrudge him that at the very least. It's just in recent years. I don't think he's he's not had a push as such.
It's a case that he's not getting he's not having the Miz. He's there to further everybody else's stock. He's not there to push the Miz.
Yes. So the Miz is held the Intercontinental Championship eight times. He's had 21 championships in WWE.
So if you take these, the WWE Championship twice, the US title twice, nine tag team championships and eight intercontinental championships.
So I was slightly wrong with that. He Jericho holds the record for the most IC title reigns with nine. So Miz, if he was to win the Intercontinental Championship again, would draw with Miz.
And the Honky Tonk Man has the longest reign as the IC title at 454 days.
But for once, we're not the only one calling them is irrelevant.
Oh, 100%. And my stock in LA night went up in in the few seconds. It took those words to tumble from that man's lips.
It was a pleasure to stick one of his t-shirts into a basket on www.shop.com.
The Miz then starts sort of mocking night's promo about is promo within a promo about how it's okay for men to cry and things like that, which I said last week is a really important promo to cut.
I stand by that. I stand by that statement.
One thing one statement I'm going to make about this promo or at least this this small segment of the promo.
It's easy to see why the Miz does not have a very successful acting career.
Was watching him try to act cry.
That's painful.
One thing I will mention when it comes to the Miz, we haven't seen Marcy for a while. Marcy Maurice, sorry, you normally used to see her come out with him every time.
You know, don't seal him much off her anymore.
I'm not sure if she's out of contract or whether she's busy doing other things at the moment.
But yeah, we've not seen that Mrs.
He's worried if she comes out to the ring with him anymore, she might be becoming as irrelevant as her husband.
She wasn't particularly too relevant anyway, but you know, it's one of those.
But yeah, as we've said, he calls, he has called the Miz irrelevant and says that and sort of forgotten, even suggests that the Miz should start his own farewell tour.
I thought that was funny and I was not going to lie. I giggled, I laughed and then I went, fuck it, I'd buy tickets to that.
Just to make sure he goes.
But LA Knight also puts the Miz at the, like one of the top positions of the list of all time cry baby bitches up there with Drew McIncrier.
What a fucking big name.
Wasn't it LA Knight that pointed that one out as well?
Yeah, I'm a little bit disappointed he didn't sort of coin the phrase there and then just to further it on a little bit.
But we'll give him a pass because one mistake does not make the man.
He's a thanks-star that is LA Knight. Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, after we get LA Knight and Miz out there trying to see who's got the bigger cock and that's pretty much in theory what was going on here.
I don't know, I've got a big dick. No, my dick's bigger than yours. No, my dick's bigger than yours.
We had Nick Aldis come out and say, right boys, you want to see who's dick's bigger?
Then crack on. You get a match now. You two are going to have a match and the winner of this match becomes the number one contender for Shinsuke Nakamura's US title.
Which I think was a fair way of settling it to be fair.
Oh, most definitely. What's the phrase? Chat shit get banged in. That's pretty much what is about to happen.
And yeah, so we went straight from there into a men's singles match between LA Knight and the Miz.
This was the third match on the card and we had Nakamura out at ringside looking somewhere between high and bored.
I'm not 100% sure what space that man was occupying.
I've been notified that WWE no longer class marijuana or cannabis as a violation of its welfare policy.
So I'm going to go with the first one and say that Shinsuke Nakamura looks stoned out of his titties and he was quite happy and quite comfortable sat on the outside
not having to do very much while in said state.
But the match itself between LA Knight and the Miz. Not a bad match even though the Miz was part of it.
But it's as much as we sit here and we rib the Miz for being a knob.
He's not actually like if he was a bad wrestler, he would not be in WWE for as long as he's been.
And he definitely not have the accolades that he has.
He's done a lot within that industry. I'm sure this is a guy who used to have to get changed in the cupboard because no one liked him in the locker room.
No, he's a guy who's allowed to get changed in the locker room but no one on the internet likes him.
Well, yeah, I mean, like...
And the big thing that it shouldn't bother me, but
when you put... I mean, the Miz has never been the biggest guy in the locker room.
Fair play. Never really expected much out of him.
And he's gotten to heights that I don't think anybody ever expected him to. But...
The guy used to have at least some definition now.
I'm pretty sure I could stand next to him and look more physically impressive.
But I've also got to think as well that like Miz has been around for a long time.
No, I don't know about you, but when I was in my early 20s, I was reasonably jacked without having to do much.
Now I'm in my mid 30s.
The only definition you can kind of work out is, you know, where my stomach ends and the tits start.
You know, everyone's bodies go different ways. I don't even fucking go there with my nose, you prick.
There's some other parts of definition of you, if you could tell, that works out quite well as well.
You're an asshole.
Yeah, I can't know in five head.
Six in LA, you heard, mate. They're all you're talking about.
Yeah, I get that.
But yeah, it was a decent match considering there was a lot of, you know, a lot of positivity from both wrestlers.
And we got to see a little bit again, the technical stuff done well.
And you get the character and the charisma from LA Night.
You've got a little bit of charisma from Miz. I don't want to give him too many compliments. His head will get too big.
It'll be unbearable for the rest of the locker room.
So we're just going to have to, you know, nip that one in the bud before it starts.
But you expect more from the Miz.
And no, I'm not sure if he was told specifically, look, you're getting not squashed, but you're not really going to get an opportunity to do too much here.
You're just being used as Kanem Foto or, you know, not 100% sure, but you definitely tell when the match started that he wasn't really in it, if you get me.
Yeah, he didn't really get any sort of head of steam going at any point during this match.
He had small little breakout moments where it sort of, it was enough not to make it a squash match.
But I don't think if the Miz had walked out of this with a victory, it would have been a complete upset victory.
And I think even he would have been shocked at it as it stands.
LA Night predictably walked out with a pinfall victory after a blunt force trauma followed by a night's out.
Yeah.
I've been wanting to ask for a few weeks, but not seem like a complete fucking idiot.
And yeah, you've just answered my question without me even having to ask the question.
But yeah, no, it's quite a nice simple little move.
Don't be quite Moana at me.
Fuck.
Good old chicken legs.
And yeah, I mean, again, a solid match out in from LA Night, always the disappointment being the Miz.
And we went from that into a backstage promo where we saw Nia Jax and Candice Leray chatting when they're sort of approached by Alexa.
I'm loving having Alexa Bliss back by the way.
Oh, 100%.
And there is something about like WWE with Alexa Bliss and WWE without Alexa Bliss feel like two completely different programs.
When you have Alexa Bliss in the building, whether you only see her for 30 seconds in a VT or you get her in a match, you get everything she's got.
And, you know, she's kind of gone back to the gimmick she had before she went away and had a baby.
It's not quite the sister Abigale style thing that you see with doll and she's very dark and very.
I love it.
Well, they had the opportunity to be able to potentially look at repackaging Alexa Bliss on her return.
And they didn't really go down that route with her.
Instead, I think they're, I think they're sort of really sort of wiring in the fact of she's that this is her character now.
And I mean, this was all sort of summed up for me in the fact that towards the end of the promo, we saw quite familiar audio and visual distortion within the within the the actual promo itself.
Conversation between sort of Nia Jax, Candice Leray and Bliss wasn't a wasn't really of any real consequence, but it was there just to sort of put across that that distortion that we know is sort of synonymous with the
riots and and everything like that. And I mean, we've been suspiciously absent of the Wyatt Six since, I mean, well, since the beginning of the year, really, they were, they were told they were moved on back down, but we haven't seen them seen them,
which is I'm upset about it to be fair. I thought with the idea of the Wyatt Six, you know, carrying on Bray's memory within the the WWE, you know, we're having Bo Dallas as Uncle Howdy.
I was really, really looking forward to seeing more of them. But but then you look from the other point of view, who is there for the Wyatt Six to pick a fight with. There isn't anyone really at the moment.
So they had a program with carrying cross and things like that over on Raw. But then she say over and smack down as well.
No, I don't think he's still instead of carrying. I'm going to say carrying crosses still on Raw.
That's my dad on Raw. He's been there.
He's he's been sort of whispering sweet nothings in Sammy Zane's ears for the last couple of the last couple of weeks on Raw, trying to sort of get under the skin of the eternal underdog.
But yeah, we go from that backstage promo to a slightly different area of backstage where we see the Miz again, sort of limping backstage after his match.
And he's met by none other than the newly sink at the newly divorced on Drade, who basically goes up to him in a bit of a tongue in cheek, tongue in cheek moment of saying, if you ever want any, if you ever want any lessons, mate, I'm here for you.
That bit was interesting. The next bit made me laugh. Right. So obviously after he's had his little interaction with Andrade, you see he bumps into Carmelo Hayes.
No, not Carmelo. Yeah, it is Carmelo.
It is Carmelo Hayes. He bumps into Carmelo Hayes who basically tries to relate into the Miz like, honestly, what are these young guys all about?
And Miz is very well, yeah, let's team up, you know, Mello don't miss and Mello just kind of looked at him like the fuck you do.
Yeah, this just sort of personifies that the Miz is still sort of struggling to find his feet on Smackdown, hasn't really found anybody to align, sort of ally himself with or anything like that.
He shouldn't really need it, but he is one of those chicken shit characters that can't do it on his own and needs a couple of bitches to help him out.
Yeah, this is it. So but we go from we go from there basically into it's actually until they sort of get into the the wise and wherefores of this match.
It's all sort of.
It was a cold start to a match because we just see an entrance for our truth. I mean, our truth, we're always happy to see our truth.
It's we know that we will always be entertained when we see our truth.
But what's the truth coming out in his ring.
He comes out in his ring gear. He's coming out in a ring style entrance having fun with it, which we haven't seen certainly on Smackdown.
And I think it was mentioned later on in is this first singles match since 2019.
Right. So for a guy to still be involved within the company, not have a match for six to seven years is pretty mental.
And they mentioned that it was his first singles match on Smackdown since 2019.
Now he has been on Raw for a long time.
So I think that's where the differentiation is.
But even then it's been a while since he's competed in ring.
It certainly haven't seen him competing in ring since the Netflix era began.
The last match that our truth had on Raw, he defeated the Miz in October of last year.
So he's still sort of what four or five months removed from the last time he competed in ring.
Apparently Miz has packed our truth after a match with the authors of Pain.
And I mean, they've gone now. So it's definitely a big, big change.
Yeah, this is it. But we see our truth come out and then we're sort of taken into the into the story behind this.
So this match is sort of born of an incident earlier on sort of Hayes appearing to sort of have his his hair, his hair done, or at least it finished.
And Truth walks in sort of calm, Carmelo actually quite unanimously sort of apologizes to Truth for how he sort of came at Tazawa last week.
Truth gets confused because of basically Hayes keep Hayes keeps trying to use some or I can only assume is Carmelo Hayes's version of modern lingo to say that
Carmelo Hayes was referring to himself as the man and yeah, poor our truth mate.
Thought that Mello was trying to refer to himself as Tazawa and he's like, you're not Tazawa you're Carmelo Hayes.
Yes, I believe the exact phrasing that Carmelo Hayes was using was like, oh, I went after Tazawa because he doesn't realize that I'm him.
Meaning that I'm the man I'm the man I'm the one that should be respected and it's yeah, it causes a massive amount of massive amount of confusion between Truth and Truth and Hayes.
I mean, even so, Truth thinks he's still trying to impersonate Tazawa tells Hayes that he's the reason that toothpaste needs instructions.
What a way of calling someone stupid without actually calling someone stupid.
That was so well done.
I believe when I watched that through the first time because I did have to rewind it and watch it a few times just to make sure I got the phrasing right.
But the first time I watched that I was like, Daniel.
Daniel, did you run Simmons come in?
Oh yeah.
But yeah, so once we know that apparently Carmelo Hayes is the reason that toothpaste needs instructions, we go back into the match where Hayes tries starting the match before the bell.
And do you know what?
Our truth in this match showed why that he can sort of despite the fact that he doesn't compete very often and how old our truth is because our truth has been in WWE for about 10, 15 years.
I'd like to say, I mean, the guy's in his mid fifties, right? So he's been kicking around for a long, long time.
But he's just proven this week, this week on SmackDown that the man can still go.
And I'd like to see more of him as well to be fair. Like a guy who's a two time United States champion and a multiple time WWE 24 seven champion.
And that came, you know, that belt was floating around.
He also had a run with the WWF hardcore championship a few times as well.
Well, well, we mentioned the 24 seven championship.
I believe he is a 69 time 24 seven champion.
That doesn't really surprise me to be fair. That belt could be won anywhere, any how by anyone at any time.
And that was a that was actually a Vince McMahon concept, the 24 seven championship that was that surprised me a little bit.
I mean, he thought it was funny.
Look at where it went, considering Vince McMahon was also the idea behind the idea of the 205 live stuff as well.
And that also went down the shitter very quickly.
I think that was more in the execution rather than the idea.
The idea was brilliant, but it wasn't executed the way it could have done.
But a few things that we did get to see our truth execute very well this in this specific match where he paid homage to the man who's currently on his retirement tour.
John not that we've seen him as part of his tour yet, apart from the debut on Netflix.
Mr John Cena, the he hit Carmelo Hayes with an attempted five knuckle shuffle.
Yeah, no, I can't fully remember if he did manage to hit that five knuckle shuffle or whether it was counted.
But it was definitely nice to see the homage to John Cena himself with the attempt at least.
He set up beautifully for that five knuckle shuffle, but ended up sort of being intercepted by a superkick from Carmelo Hayes.
And I mean, truth even managed to get Carmelo Hayes up for an attitude adjustment at one point, but even that was interrupted.
And yeah, regrettably, I'd gone off quite nicely if he pulled it off.
Yeah, regrettably, Carmelo Hayes picked up the win for this one.
And yeah, it's just I'd have liked to have seen our truth pull off the win for it realistically just because it had been such a long time for him since he'd been in ring.
It would have been nice to see.
Yeah, definitely as much as we are definitely fans of the old school wrestlers, it is nice to see them given the younger guys that go over, so to speak.
And yeah, we haven't seen truth in a match for a while, but the fact that he's come into a match had decent match and then used it as an opportunity to help push Carmelo Hayes back into the spotlight on to end his current losing streaks.
He's lost his last few matches is Carmelo.
So I think Carmelo Hayes won his match last week against he won a match last week against the Kira Tzawa.
And is now on a two match win streak on SmackDown as he won obviously against our truth this week as well.
So he's definitely turning his fortunes around just not quite to not quite the way I would like to have seen him do it.
No, I'd probably definitely prefer to have had truth with that one.
We move on.
We went into a VT from the new VT from the Street Profits.
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys come back to be fair.
There has been we haven't really seen much of them at all since the Netflix era started.
I believe that is due to injury pre-Strengths debut.
I believe they were they were sidelined by Motor City Machine Guns.
It's a case that we've seen them at the Royal Rumble.
They interfered in DIYs match with the Motor City Machine Guns.
And then it's just in VT after VT.
And then we went from that VT into an interview with Byron Saxton backstage giving pretty deadly an opportunity to respond to the VT.
Yeah, pretty deadly came out.
They weren't that weren't feeling particularly concerned about it.
And they didn't really get very far through this interview before DIY coming looking to basically put pretty deadly back in their place as they've been taking advantage of pretty deadly's good nature over the last
Pretty deadly standing up for themselves though to be fair.
Yeah, and I mean it's certainly paying off for them as we find out that they've got a tag titles opportunity against DIY for for next week on SmackDown, which is great.
Love to see that.
It is nice to see hindsight.
I don't think we're going to see pretty deadly walking away with those straps.
But the fact they have an opportunity against DIY for the straps means that whatever they're doing is working for them.
And it seems to be there.
Not my favorite tag team to watch, but I won't turn off their matches.
I will watch them.
No, no, this is it.
And we went from there into another VT, but this was Kevin Owens responding to Sami Zayn's response, essentially, and sort of chaos.
Accepting Sami Zayn's challenge, but sort of putting one forward himself and saying, yeah, I'll see you at elimination chamber, which is not that far away.
No, and I think we're going to have this down as I think it's going to end up being an unsunctioned match, because a we've not had one of those for a while.
B if Sami Zayn is as injured as we are being made to believe he is could be a massive work.
If it is, then they've got me hooked left, right and single.
But again, we are going to see Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens go one on one at elimination chamber, whether that ends up.
Yeah, I mean, we never have a bad match out of them when we do see them go go at each other.
Kevin Owens tend to come out top more often than most.
Will that change?
Probably not.
Are we still going to watch the match?
Fucking right we are.
Oh, 100%.
Speaking of a match that we're going to watch that we were always going to watch is match five on the card is the women's WWE championship match where we see Nia Jax face off against current champion Hiffey Hiffany Stratton.
So Candice Leray came out with Nia Jax again, they are pretty much attached at the hip.
And I wasn't a big fan of Nia Jax for a long time, but she has started to grow on me now I'm watching her more regularly and we have seen a lot of her in WWE programming the last six weeks.
Yeah, definitely.
And I mean this match that we will point out Charlotte Flair was in attendance for this match as she had promised she was watching from backstage as this sort of very much would have defended would have influenced her decision as the women's Royal Rumble winner.
But we've said this many times we're not going to digress any further.
Yeah.
But this match starts as predictably as we would see with when you look at just the two individuals within the match Nia Jax big powerful woman against Tiffany Stratton who is the human equivalent to a Barbie doll.
Nia Jax steam rolls are basically is a power wrestler, obviously with Tiffey being a former US Olympic gymnast. She's all about agility and movement.
So it gives you the opportunity for a very good match because you're not getting the same two styles of wrestling put together. So you are going to see a lot of high flying stuff from Tiffey and a lot of like power bombs.
There's some of a backdrop that she does. Yeah.
And it's very sort of like Nia's moveset is very much based on the fact that she's a fucking unit.
And she uses that to her advantage and you can understand why I mean, as we all would.
But the one thing that Stratton does do which I'd love to see more people do against Nia Jax to force her to sort of plug this hole in her in her offense is she uses speed and agility to just basically try and outpace Jax rather than if you're going to try and go out with a power on power move, it's not going to work.
But if you go out there and try and try and use speed and agility to get around her 100% you're going to you're going to stand at least a chance of it.
But by doing that you put yourself at risk of gassing yourself out very quickly because unfortunately as we like, you know, Nia is a big girl but she can fucking move to what she needs to.
She's got some speed herself. So you've got me if you're going to try and avoid it you're going to just gassing yourself out far too quickly.
Yeah, but this is where you use your head you do it you do it smart.
You're not there to exhaust yourself you're not there to exhaust yourself you've got a it's all about moving at the last second, making sure that Nia Jax doesn't have a chance to respond with her own speed, which again I think Stratton does really well in the early part of this match.
Don't get me wrong. She doesn't do it perfectly. It's a case that I mean by all rights, Nia Jax should have really had this match won a lot sooner than then how it sort of plays out.
But should have done but.
So I'm going to add it to Tiffany Stratton who actually manages to deadlift Jax.
No, I'm pretty sure I would struggle to deadlift Jax to be quite honest. I've seen you move move a frigging fridge freezer so I'm pretty sure you'd have no issue but yeah me no chance.
I moved Adam into a house of his a few years ago and picked off with the standing fridge freezer you know to watch both Adam and Adam starts sort of jaw just drop like fuck as you go with the fridge.
Do you need a help? No, no, he's got it. He's fine.
Yeah, pretty much. But but yeah I mean the only reason that Stratton walks out retaining this retaining the belt for this match is that Candice Larray interferes blatantly in the match in full view of the ref.
And I honestly expected Nia Jax to go off the wall.
I mean, the right Candice Larray is just cost Nia Jax a title and I honestly generally think if Larray hadn't have interfered that Nia would have won it.
Well definitely had the opportunity to win it easier. So having that and I think we will see more in the future about how pissed Nia is it and what Candice did. But I mean what came after was that was the fun bit that was that was more noteworthy than the actual match itself.
Yeah, so after the match ends in a DQ victory for Tiffany Stratton retaining the championship, Jax and Larray just absolutely lay into it until actually Trish Stratus comes out of the crowd to come and help her.
This is the woman who entered the Royal Rumble last year in Ugg boots. It is and the same woman that entered the Royal Rumble this year at number 25 and she's starting to enter in ring competition a little bit more regularly than we've seen in the past.
So you're all the famous at the moment that you're starting to make more of an appearance and you know we've had a lot of Rey Mysterio in the ring recently and this guy's all of you know Hall of Fame and you don't really expect to see him too much.
You don't expect to see many of the Hall of Famers in the ring.
No, but in fairness Rey Mysterio is still an active wrestler. He's not retired, he's not hung his boot, he's not hung the mascot so he's not there as a spectator that suddenly gets involved like we see with Trish Stratus on this occasion.
But Stratus' involvement in this is over quite quickly as she gets royally flattened by Knight of Jax. Officials and refs are flooding the ring by this point to try and cool things off.
They try and get Jax out of the ring who decides to go and hit one last leg drop as sort of Jax and the Rey are making their way to the back. We see Charlotte Flair enter the arena who basically sets up a chair in the ring.
Right over the top of the tiffy.
To very much declare that.
Well done. I don't like Charlotte Flair at all. If you've listened to previous episodes of the podcast you wouldn't need her.
But when the skeleton of Charlotte Flair walked into the ring sat on that chair and kind of wake up tiffy, tiffy it's time to get up.
Oh by the way, I'll see you at WrestleMania bitch and just throw his the mic out like off you fuck. I'm here.
So we've had we've now got another match confirmed for WrestleMania. We know that the winner of the elimination chamber for the women this year is going to be facing Rhea at WrestleMania while Charlotte Flair and tiffy strutton are going to be going that way.
This is the thing is that in the women's matches they've made it very clear that before Charlotte Flair has decided to take it as won the Royal Rumble before and decided to go for the NXT women's championship instead.
So the so within the women's matches it was always made a possibility that she could do the same thing again and challenge for the NXT title instead.
We knew this wasn't going to be the thing for this time round. I could not see a actually challenging Julia for her title.
But why is this never been introduced as an option in the men's?
I mean, current NXT men's champion is over Femi. The guys are union and he can. He can but he's not a huge scope to chase when you've got.
Can you imagine Jey Uso in over Femi in a match?
It just doesn't know. Fair enough. I mean, it'd be like, I suppose to be like if you're a footballer playing in the Premier League, mid team, Premier League team, getting opportunities to face the top team or do you want to go against the team in the bottom of the league?
It's not. It's not really beneficial to go for the bottom team. Yes, you might get something out of it. But is it really worth having that if it's not being done?
You know, if you know that you've basically just picked on a lower level champion just to get your rocks off and get another notch on your Wikipedia page?
Well, it's not very often you'll hear me make a make a football reference here. But to sort of take the wind out of your sales on your analogy there, I believe in the last few in the last week or so, a in the FA Cup, a team that regularly circles relegation has recently knocked Liverpool out and.
Yeah, and then the other guy all went and slapped Millwall five on the week after. So yeah, but that's the glory of the FA Cup. That is one of those risks that does happen.
I will not lie. I have got 10 pound on Plymouth to beat Manchester City in the next round of the FA Cup to because that was worth a few quid.
Yeah, but again, not very often I'll make it make a reference. It's just because it happened to fit rather well in there that I did.
We move on from that match over into a GM office promo where we see sort of Nick Aldis has called Naomi and Bianca Belair in to his office because new evidence has come in an investigation into an attack on Jade Cargill, who was originally the tag team partner of Bianca Belair when those titles were won.
And Naomi sort of stepped in has done a very good job of stepping in while Cargill has been out on injury. And yeah, it's.
It plays this video for them that seems to show potentially Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez sort of hanging around where Cargill was assaulted. It's not entirely clear that that's who this is. It's a potential match.
But the tag champs take this at face value and have declared that they're sort of heading to Raw to deal with this themselves rather than letting WWE officials sort of take the lead on that one for it.
Yeah. And at which point, you know, when then both going, we're going to go to Raw and we're going to deal with this. It's going to be interesting. That's obviously was setting up there for quite an interesting match.
Yeah, definitely. But so we possibly got that on this week's Raw on next Raw coming up, which will be quite interesting to watch.
We've we've then got a backstage promo where we see sort of Byron Saxton interviewing Tiffany Stratton after she'd managed to peel herself off the mat.
Obviously upset over what had happened in terms of the match with Nia Jax and is then sort of approached by Trish Stratus again.
And this bit sort of makes me a bit sick to my stomach only because I've made it very clear I'm not a huge fan of iffy time. It feels a bit sickly sweet for me.
But they make it they go one step further is that it would appear if he and Trishy time.
But it's unclear what that means. So I read into it that at Elimination Chamber, we are was obviously is in Trish Stratus's hometown.
We are going to see a tag match that involves Tiffy and Trish Stratus Stratus, sorry, versus Nia Jax and Candice Larray.
This is what I that's what I've assumed is going to happen. However, it makes no mention of Nia Jax or Candice Larray. It's just about Trishy and Tiffy time.
They could. I mean, they've not given a massive amount. I feel like they feel I feel like they think they've given a lot of way with that promo.
Yeah, because we could just as easily see a match with Trish versus Tiffy.
Yeah, we could see Trish versus Tiffy in Toronto and either way, we're going to see Trish Stratus in ring in Toronto.
So we're going to get some stratisfaction out of it at least once.
Yes, most definitely.
And that's going to be a rather good one too.
Oh, 100%. We're then treated to a backstage promo for where we see.
I feel like I've missed something. I feel like I've missed something out here. There's something that so I feel like there was something mentioning.
There was something mentioned before this promo went out about Jey Uso and that's why it's relevant to then cut to Jimmy Uso.
They may have been doing sort of promotions for WrestleMania, the matches that have been put together.
I haven't made any note of it because apparently I didn't see fit that it needed a note made about it.
And it's a case that we then cut to a promo where we see Jimmy Uso watching on a monitor backstage, sort of fist pumping like, yeah, go on, Jey.
And that's where we see sort of Drew McIncrier sort of come in.
And these guys have been in, well, I say these guys, Drew has been very much been trying to get under Big Jim's skin.
He's very much out to try and sort of plant those poisonous seeds.
And he's trying to give Jimmy advice, which is just another way for really to sort of get on Jimmy's nerves.
And Drew even goes as far trying to invoke a reaction, making a passing comment about Jimmy's wife and how he married up,
which I mean, you don't bring a man's wife into it. It's not the way it's done.
But oh, 100%. I mean, as Jimmy leaves, Drew calls back to him saying, oh, all the best, Jey.
I mean, Jimmy and yeah, he eats foot for his troubles.
And it was a hell of a foot, too. I mean, oh, 100%.
We've seen those Uso boys hit some beautiful super kicks over the years.
That one just hit it on Drew McIncrier, automatically puts it in the top 10 super kicks done by Uso.
And we're treated at the very end of that to a no-yeet.
And then we go into the main event.
Been teased all night.
This is the men's triple threat match for a spot in the elimination chamber featuring Braun Strowman,
one big SOB versus Jacob Futtall and the Street King Damien Priest.
Now, I was a little bit confused with this one.
Every other elimination chamber match has been a one-on-one match.
For this reason, we've ended up with a triple threat match. So it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek for me.
They're just trying to throw too many people in and just kind of...
There's only so many spots in the elimination chamber.
So the fact they keep trying to hint that there's extra opportunities,
kind of, by bringing in a third person for this match.
I mean, I've said before that these elimination chamber qualifier matches are...
They could just say, oh yeah, well, in the elimination chamber match is ABCDEFNG.
And we'd take that. We would, because that's somewhat how it's been done previously.
And you're not wrong. I'm just double-checking back through my notebook to see if there...
I've got a feeling this isn't the only less-than-standard match type that we've had for the elimination chamber qualifiers.
But I'm not 100% certain on that until I've double-checked everything.
But as it goes, I think this was an excuse for Braun Strowman and Jacob Fatou to get back into it
without expecting anybody to go off injured.
And yeah, it's...
They could have done that with an Alvolvenday increased, I think, if that's the way they're going to do it.
But what you said...
They needed a way to be able to get released into the chamber match.
Yeah, it does.
Because that is essentially where this main event all boils down to.
I'd say spoiler alert, but we all knew where that was going by now.
But yeah, it was a case that...
Yeah, so I've just finished reviewing my notes.
You're quite right, it's the only sort of less-than-traditional match type we've had for an elimination chamber qualifier.
But they had who they wanted in the elimination chamber.
They knew that it wasn't either Braun Strowman or Jacob Fatou.
And yeah, they probably could have gotten away with just giving them both the ring for 10 minutes to get it out of their system and all the rest of it.
But they need to fill these spots as well.
I mean, we start off before this match even begins.
It's a backstage walkout for Braun Strowman who hasn't sort of...
It's been five years since his last championship and I think a lot of that has been down to the fact that he's spent a lot of time on the injury list.
And then obviously he spent a lot of time as part of the Wyatt family as well, which meant that he wasn't necessarily going to hold a singles title.
When they were in the Wyatt family, they were busy doing more for the tag division at that time.
Yeah, so I think there are swings and roundabouts with it.
Something else that's worth commenting on is the fact that Jacob Fatou came out to the ring on his own.
Yes, he did.
He did not come out with Tamatonga, which we have not seen a lot of.
And Tamatonga tends to be his voice of reason. It seems to be more like his handler.
So it was certainly going to be an interesting match knowing that there was no sort of voice of reason for Jacob Fatou to be out here.
And I mean, the priest came out just looking completely laser focused.
He was out there for a fight basically.
He knew what he knew the assignment. He knew what he was getting himself into.
And he came out prepared.
He certainly did.
You could see within the match how much research he'd done against Jacob Fatou and Braun Strowman,
also knowing that both of those two were going to try and rip each other to pieces.
Kind of made his life a little bit easier.
He couldn't, in theory, just kind of slid out from the ring and let those two go ham and come in and pick up the pieces of you.
Yeah. I mean, there's a few big spots in this match.
I was interested to find out during the opening seconds of this match.
You've got three big guys.
Taking any one of them out would have to be a priority for the other two.
But I wasn't 100% sure which two were going to focus on the other one.
I think we could have asked Braun Strowman and Jacob Fatou.
We're not going to be having any form of allegiances after Fatou put Strowman in the hospital in their singles match a few weeks ago.
So I think it was very obvious that it was either going to be Braun and Damien going against Jacob, or Damien and Jacob going against Braun.
We've seen Stranger Things, so I'm not going to...
I would never rule anything out as a possibility as it goes.
But in terms of this, we see sort of Strowman taken out of the match early,
which sort of leaves Fatou and Priest to duke it out between the two of them.
And I mean, at one stage Priest attempts an old school, as we've seen him do in previous weeks,
showing shades of the man that trained him, being one of the men that trained him, being the undertaker.
Attempting an old school stop by Strowman, who comes out from the outside, up onto the apron, catching him in what looks like a chokeslam attempt,
which is then foiled by Fatou.
Priest makes the jump, but gets caught by Fatou, who then just hits a big Samoan drop.
I mean, the sequence itself, even just talking about it, seems like there's a lot of moving parts,
so it's really well choreographed between the three gents in the ring.
I would not want to have been trying to practice this one,
I'll just try and make sure it went off without a hitch.
And this sort of sets the tone for the match, in my opinion, because there's a lot of bits and pieces here,
where you're seeing really complex choreographed sequences between quite often all three of them,
trying to keep them all relevant within the match.
I think when you start adding too many people into a match, one-on-one matches, you don't have the issue.
When you go for triple threats, fatal four ways, you tend to find one person just isn't there, a wholeheartedly.
We've seen it a lot recently with the women, with this lorraine,
she always feels like a bit of a spare part in a lot of the matches that she's part of this time round.
We're starting to get that feeling that Strowman was the spare part in this match,
and they were really just trying to highlight Damian Priest and Jason Parton a little bit more.
Yeah, and I find in the main roster this doesn't happen as often,
as they do seem to put a little bit more time into making sure that each person gets their shit in, if you like.
But yeah, it can still happen, and it's frustrating when it happens.
I can imagine it's frustrating in the overall end product for the person that's left feeling left on the outside looking in, so to speak.
I can imagine myself feeling quite frustrated in that sort of setup for it.
But yeah, I mean some fantastic power moves, which we'd expect from any one of these three superstars,
but I mean Braun Strowman ends up pulling off a super, I've characterised it as a super power bomb with a stacked superplex at the same time.
So we've seen the other two gents set up for a superplex on one of the corner posts.
Strowman comes in, turns it into a power bomb that then takes out the guy that was up on the ropes anyway.
It's just that these moves are getting more regular and they are insane to watch, because it just shows, it puts over the phenomenal strength of the person on the bottom of this weird looking totem pole.
But when Braun Strowman is the bottom of that totem pole, the guy, like we've seen this dude just lift ambulances up and flip them over for fun.
I mean this guy has pulled down on top of superstars parts of the set before now, and I mean he's just taken a rope, pulled this massive 15-20 foot high structure down on top of people during a match.
Absolutely insane that the strength, ability and agility that Braun Strowman has for a guy that is outside.
Completely not relevant at all, but slightly just in there I suppose.
When you see these big guys hit some of these moves that you look at, like I remember watching Eric Rowan a few years hit in the Huracan Rana and you look at him and go,
oh fuck have you just done that? You were like seven foot tall and you just made that, spun around that guy like he was a rag doll.
It's very, very impressive sometimes.
Yeah definitely.
You don't see it very often but when you do do it you would definitely start to go, oh fuck.
No I am not. No, I'm very much the same.
Like yeah, any of these big power moves it's okay if they're used sparingly.
You start seeing them too often and it then gets to a point where you're expected.
It's no longer impressive because it's done too regularly.
Yeah definitely.
But yeah I mean, a clear pair.
Some of the other big power moves is that like Priest ends up flatlining Fatu onto the announcer's desk.
You then see Strowman coming, charge Priest, clean over said announcer's desk for Strowman to choke slam Fatu onto the desk which still doesn't give way.
So they're really sort of laying into this.
The old man guy that hit that table and the table's not budged.
Where they've spent so long telling us it's a reinforced announce table.
You can kind of see how reinforced that table is when you've got people of that sort of weight-sized stature being thrown at it and into it.
And it's just kind of like, yeah, I'm still a renounce table.
So we see shortly after that happening sort of Fatu set that sort of lays up Strowman with a chair around his neck.
Obviously looking to do some really sort of permanent damage here.
So you're taking some steps from all ego, Ethan, Paige by any chance?
It would certainly seem that way.
But there's a short reversal from Strowman where basically Strowman ends up reversing it on Fatu.
The only reason Fatu isn't permanently paralysed is because we actually see an unexpected interference.
Yeah, some open strike from Solo Sakao, who comes in Spike Strowman.
We then get Cody Rhodes to come in shortly afterwards to sort of confront Solo.
Oh yeah, hitting with a beautiful crossroads on the outside of the ring.
And what I found funny and I've seen it on social media since actually Solo Sakao is trying to hide his belly,
he's trying to pull his top down, gets hit with a crossroads and then he's lying on the floor trying to make sure that his gut's still not hanging out.
Yeah, and in all of this sort of chaos we see priest wins via a pinfall after a South of Heaven on Braun Strowman.
It's absolute chaos in the ring, but essentially priest earns one of the penultimate spot in there.
One spot left in the UN's elimination chamber and that is filled on, well will be filled on Monday Night Raw
when a Seth frickin' Rollins steps into the ring against Finn Balor for one more time.
For the final slot in the men's elimination chamber.
Yeah, and the smackdown closes with priest and Cody just showing some real respect to one another,
which I always say it's always nice to see.
I would much rather see that show of sportsmanship and respect at the end of matches rather than sort of the overuse of one person stabbing the other person in the back sort of thing.
It's so much nicer to see, especially when you think that there's so much back stabbing that goes on outside of the ring as it goes,
even just in real life, I think a bit more respect all round is the order of the day in some cases.
I know, I could fully agree with that.
Fully agree with that.
But yeah, I think that brings us to the end of, certainly the end of this week's smackdown,
and brings us to the close of finishes and factions does smackdown this week.
We will be back so very shortly as one night on from smackdown we see NXT does vengeance day.
One of their bigger sort of PLEs of the year, sort of massive history behind it,
and it's a stacked card really looking forward to seeing this.
Anything that you needed to lay in there Rich, or are we?
I mean, apart from, I think if we go through, I don't really want to try and pick a match of the week this week.
Not many of them really jumped out too much for me.
I think if I had to, not for the quality of the match, but just because of who's in it,
I'd probably pick the R truth, come out of haze, just because I got to see truth back in a ring,
in a ring capacity rather than just holding a microphone.
But generally, it's been a decent episode of Smackdown this week, and there's not too many gripes that I can think of.
I mean, I've seen two of my most hated wrestlers in one show, so bring it on.
Yeah, this is it. But yeah, no, I'd probably pick the R truth match as well.
The only thing that sort of lets it down for me is the end result.
I would have much rather seen R truth win that match.
It would have served no purpose for story, but I just feel like he needed a win, realistically.
But if they're not going to do anything with it, I suppose it makes no sense on the grand scheme of it.
But still, I like seeing R truth in the ring.
And it's good to know they haven't ruled him out of in-ring competition altogether.
Yeah, definitely.
What I think that being said and done, I think we're all said and done.
Yeah, I would say so as well.
So yeah, I'm going to thank everyone for listening to us chat shit for the last hour or so.
And yeah, hopefully you've enjoyed this episode of the podcast.
Recommend it to your friends, family, strangers in the street.
If they look like a wrestling fan, then point them in our direction.
Let's see if we can't grow this podcast as something resembling a following or something along those lines.
And yeah, I mean...
If you guys keep listening to us, I think that's the easiest way for us to take that is we'll keep going and hopefully more of you will enjoy it.
Yes, 100%.
But as I said, we'll be back for Finishes and Factions Does Vengeance Day.
And yeah, looking forward to this card, something chronic.
But yeah, until then, I've been Adam.
I'm Rich and we've been Finishes and Factions. Peace out. Peace.