Welcome to the ring, it's rich and atom.
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion.
Tag teams grappling belts are clashing.
Finishes and factions catching action.
Welcome back everybody to a new episode of finishes and factions does smackdown this week.
We're live from the smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana with myself rich and as always my co-host Adam.
Adam, welcome in.
Thanks a lot buddy, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good. I'm good.
Excited to make my way through this episode of smackdown.
Well, why don't we just dive straight in.
So we started off this week's smackdown with a backstage promo with Cody Rhodes and Nick Aldous.
And this was from the news that sort of broke just before this came out on social media just before about maybe 24 hours before the...
The episode premiered and it was a case that Nick Aldous is telling Rhodes that he's pulled from the advertised six man tag which was supposed to be the main event for this evening.
Because we have in attendance the final boss, the Rock.
It wasn't named as such like that to start off with Nick Aldous kind of told Cody, you know, there's a reason you've been pulled out if you smell what I'm cooking.
Not again.
And I think everybody else apart from sort of die hard rock fans which don't get me wrong, back in his heyday 100% a rock fan.
100% and I like some of the stuff he's done since.
We're talking about a guy who's not really had a proper run with the company in 11 years.
This is a guy who shows up occasionally.
You know, yes, he did a little bit around WrestleMania last year, but I don't think he can go anymore.
You know, I think a lot of what we're seeing from him is Mike action.
Apart from like the few spots that we saw him do at Mania last year.
I'm really surprised to see if he could go again.
I just hope they don't ruin a main event by throwing him in there.
We've got obviously waiting till later on in the card to find out what it is that he wants to talk to them about.
But it's a case that WWE threw the rule book out the window with this one sort of because not to my memory at least.
I can't remember the last time that they dropped something in this late.
You find out that an advertised six man tag match that was being advertised last week.
So this is essentially like going to a gig for your favorite band to find out your favorite band.
They're playing your favorite songs when you get there, even though they promised in the promotional ads that they did.
They're not playing the songs that they want.
They're not playing what everybody went there to watch.
I mean, the Rock still has massive pulling power.
But they've thrown out one of the golden rules of promotion.
You don't change the main event.
No.
You could tell and we'll get into this a little bit later on.
From the entire episode, it just felt as though it had been thrown off this week because Rock was there.
Even from the very start, obviously with the opening promo,
you told you would be changing this because Rock's here and it's very much Rock ain't that much anymore.
It'd be a little bit different if he was returning for a run and there was some mitigating circumstances around it.
Just to have the Rock come out and just talk to us, which a theory is always we're really going to get.
I think just seemed a little bit of a let down.
Ultimately, to paraphrase one of mine and Rich's favourite comedians,
the Rock has behaved like the big dick in the locker room.
It's just thrown everything else off.
It's thrown everything else off and there's just no real call for it.
But again, we'll get into this properly later on in the episode.
We then go from that promo straight into match number one.
Which is Jimmy Uso and Drew McIncrier.
Sorry, that name is going to stick now until he stops being a bitch.
That name's going to stick even afterwards.
I'm sorry, that was a crowd-funded nickname and it's just purely apt.
It really is.
And it's nice to see that a few other people have used it as well.
Oh yeah, I mean you're not going to not use it are you?
It's a no-brainer at the end of the day.
We know that McIncrier and Uso have had some heat over the last week or two.
So culminating last week in Drew getting his ass handed to him backstage by Big Jim after he made some passing remarks about Jim's wife.
Well yeah, I'm not going to lie.
If someone made a passing remark about my wife and I had the ability to pop a superkick by Big Jim, I think they've done the same thing.
You're probably more likely to throw a hip-hop at this point, I would imagine.
Plus a back and a knee to go with it.
But yeah, this was...
Big Jim started this off, I mean cut the tiniest of tiny promos to begin with.
That seems to be their thing at the moment with the bloodline members because you'll get like Jacob Fatou and Tamatonga like to cut little mini promos as they're walking out to the ring.
You don't really get it much from Jay because he's too busy eating but it is something we're seeing a lot more of the bloodline members are cutting things on the way to the ring which is actually quite a nice little change to be fair.
Yeah, it keeps things that... it changes them enough that it keeps things fresh but not enough that it completely alienates the audience.
They've hit a really good...
It's a really subtle change.
Which was something this match was not ever going to be, was subtle.
You knew that as soon as Jimmy and Drew got into this they were going straight back into where they were last time and that was with a kick to the face.
Yeah, so Jimmy and Drew were faced each other 38 times but never in singles competition which is insane.
They found that really strange statistic as well that they've been in the ring with each other 38 times but never gone mono on mono.
Yeah, so this was the first time one on one but they've obviously got each... they're obviously going to have each other really well scouted.
I mean Drew starts off with like using his size as Drew is prone to do it.
I mean if I had that kind of size I'd be using it as well.
So it's tactically a sound decision to make but I noted an Alabama slam into the steps for Big Jim.
Yeah, I had that written down which kind of... I then followed it up with the fact that we headed into a commercial break just after that was happening.
But that was... that kind of showed us how much McIntyre was going to use his intent and his physical edge to really make sure that Big Jim did not want to get up.
And as normal from every Uso that we see he fights back with a lot more resilience.
You know there was a few lovely timed moves that he popped off. I've made note here of that he caught McIntyre leaping from the ropes with a well timed super kick
but he followed it up with a bounce off the ropes himself into a spear which got him... kind of got him a... I think it was a two count.
Then it was kind of... there was a lot of reversals and a lot of sort of head games within this game, within this match.
Sorry I've got a little bit like Iran that after a dodged double stomp attempt and what turned into a neck break
you end up seeing Drew McIntyre just use a kip up and then sort of go into his claymore kick set up which was... like we said before that guy is a big guy.
He's got a big foot and a big boot and I would not want to be on the receiving end of that claymore kick.
But as he tried to get into it he got met with another super kick.
You see a lot of people especially on social media, Tom Mann and say you know the Uso's are... there are only a couple of trick ponies.
They can super kick, they can Samoan drop and they can run around like headless chickens.
I actually think since they've kind of split the Uso's up and they've given them both a bit of a singles run
we are starting to see a lot more variety to what both Jimmy and Jake can do in the ring without each other.
It's for so long being the tag team they are, they have relied on one another to be there and now it's just their ass they've got to look after.
Yeah and they'll always be brothers, they'll always look out for one another but at the end of the day it's massive that they've both been given this push
to see what they can do on a singles basis that they can survive on their own.
Because realistically we've seen it time and time again, it only takes one tiny little mistake to end a career.
And if they were purely tag team wrestlers, if one of them makes one of these tiny little mistakes ends their career
it also inadvertently ends the other's career as well and they have no control over that.
No they don't.
I would imagine it's completely terrifying.
And to come from a family of so many professional wrestlers in this industry, that is one thing you don't want to do is kill an opportunity to
can you imagine sitting around at the table and Thanksgiving and being the guy that got the Usos tossed from WWE
when you've got the Rock, Roman Reigns, Rikishi, you know, Nia Jax, Jacob Fattu, Tamatonga, So-so-co, all these guys all sat around the table for family dinner
and you two are the two fuck ups and the black sheep at the family.
That's a lie. Being any kind of enemy of that family and sitting around their dinner table is going to be an intimidating feat when you've got people like
the Rock and Roman Reigns, Rikishi, So-so-coa, Jacob Fattu.
There's a lot of finishing moves there.
Tamatonga's being mad, but...
Well Tamatonga's, they're all family, aren't they?
Yeah.
You know, get a little bit of Zillaphatu in there.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's members of the quote-unquote bloodline that haven't even made it into WWE yet.
There are constant rumors that they will, as long as it's done in the right way I suppose, but there were a few bits in this match that I wanted to mention as well,
just sort of bringing it back round again.
Big Jim did actually quite a nice little whisper in the wind, which normally we only see, I believe, if I get this right, it was a patented move from Matt Hardy.
Whisper in the wind was, yes.
I'm not quite sure how they're going to get away with him doing that or whether he can kind of, you know, pay in homage, I suppose, from one tag team wrestler to what is probably going to go down in history as one of the,
one half of the best tag team in professional wrestling ever with the Hardy Boys.
I think we're getting to that point now where you can get away with paying homage to those sort of wrestlers.
Yeah, this is it.
But ultimately this match, Jimmy comes out on top, reverses another Alabama slam.
I mean, we point out quite a lot on this tag team, on this, well, yeah, I suppose we are a tag team to a degree, but on this podcast, it's a case that we are constantly seeing patterns in moves that they seem to use a lot.
I'm glad you mentioned this because this was going to get brought up by me at some point throughout the course of the night as well.
Well, since the Royal Rumble, since the Alabama, since Kevin Owens got Alabama slammed through a ladder, it seems to be the move of choice recently.
Yeah, they've kind of left the sunset flip behind and moved on to the Alabama slam, which has been interesting.
And obviously, of course, we've seen a few other moves that we didn't think we'd be seeing any time soon.
It wasn't this week, but didn't we see someone last week drop a muscle buster?
Yes, we did.
And I can't remember who I want to say it was Jordan Grace.
For some reason, Jordan Grace is in my head.
But yeah, no, I know we said at the time it was banned in TNA for whatever reason, and we hadn't seen it in WWE for a long time.
So that was definitely an interesting one to see there.
This is it.
But obviously, you guys are you guys listening have the ability to go back and listen to previous podcast episodes.
We implore you to do so.
And by all means, the entire breakdown of every match and promo from every program that WWE has done since its Netflix launch Netflix launch.
Sorry, all on the finishes and factions YouTube and the finishes and factions Spotify.
Yeah, 100% but wrapping this match up at least.
Or rolling this one up at least.
Well, yeah, it reverses the Alabama slam into a roll of pin for the three count.
And Drew being Drew, there's a reason he's called Mack and Cryer.
He went off crying like a bitch.
Well, he ends up just sort of decking Uso.
And that's the only way I could put it is it also got completely decked.
After the bow after the bell and drew crying about the fact that the loss doesn't mean anything that his loss doesn't do anything to diminish his chances in the elimination chamber coming up short coming up shortly.
And then sort of officials having to come out and save Jimmy from what could have been a potential career ending injury.
As Drew prepares a claim to claim or kick Jim Jimmy's head into the ring post.
That's not just a career and that could be a life and if done correctly.
Yeah, we've we've seen before with too many blows to the head within this industry can do.
Ranging, you know, from seeing people like Corey Graves having to retire from in ring competition to, you know, more extreme issues with the likes of Chris Benoit, I suppose.
I thought you were just going to leave it there.
I didn't think I didn't know whether you were going to name and shame.
I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to or not as I did it.
I think, you know, after seeing the guys, the band who wrote his entry music after 20 odd years have gone actually fuck you were taking our song back.
I think it's time to for me personally just to kind of go, you know, he was still a big part of WWE for a long time.
And I'm going to quote an interview actually with Kurt Angle, and it was like he said that he felt that some of his best matches in the WWE were against Chris Benoit.
So by completely burying the fact that Chris Benoit was there, you're taking away some of his best matches.
So, yeah, unfortunately, there's not much we can do about the outcome and both Daniel and Nancy didn't have a choice on what happened there.
But I think you've kind of got to leave it go. It's been a while now.
Yeah, you've got to as much as sometimes it can be difficult to separate what happens in the ring to what happens outside the ring.
I think we've got to get to that point now, not putting Benoit up on a pedestal as such.
But we've got to at least acknowledge the fact that what he did was wrong.
We're not in any way endorsing the fact that what he did was wrong.
It's, yeah, as we said, Daniel and Nancy had no choice in that.
You've got to think that that happened in June 2007. We're almost almost 18 years this year since that happened.
I personally think 18 years is long enough before we can start mentioning a name again.
Yeah, and I'd like to believe that it's while it was an absolutely tragic event, it's helped us and the profession.
It's helped us as it shone a light on what could happen if things are left alone that shouldn't be left alone.
There was a lot of talk at the time that he'd obviously taken one too many blows to the head and there were lots of different things going on with him mentally,
which obviously led to those tragic events.
And it's a case that, yeah, I think if Chris Benoit were still alive today, if that hadn't happened,
he'd be able to get much more effective help for what was going on and it could have been prevented now.
But maybe we wouldn't have that help available if that hadn't happened because it was such a high profile event.
But yeah, we'll wrap that up.
Yeah, I'm sure our social media will blow up on that one.
But we're also told at the very end of this match that the advertised six man tag that was supposed to be the main event is converted into a two on two tag match,
which you'll see Braun Strowman and Damian Priest versus Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatou.
Yeah, so we had a little bit of a recap from the elimination chamber and then we got into a little backstage thing where we see Solo arrive,
get out of his truck and he runs straight into Jacob and Tamatonga.
And he was trying to explain to them like, you know, last week was an accident.
Obviously, there was an incident in the ring where Solo ended up spiking, I believe it was Jacob Fatou, rather than his intended target.
So they were basically just trying to work out, you know, yeah, to get it was an accident.
If it happens again, there's some serious trouble.
And Solo Sikoa basically said he was going to sit ringside for Jacob and Tamatonga's match later on this evening.
And he actually was told, well, no, that's not how this is working.
You know, me and Tamatonga, we've been running smack down, you know, you're going to get your ass in the ring, bitch.
And you're going to show us, you know, you're going to start working off the disrespect that you showed us by walking away.
And there's a lot of distrust between Jacob Fatou and Solo Sikoa.
And I can sort of understand why.
Well, it's easy to understand the psychology behind it.
I think this is building for a WrestleMania match between the two of them.
I think at WrestleMania, whether it be night one or night two, I can't tell you.
I think we are going to have a match between Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatou for not necessarily for the Ula Fala because Fatou doesn't,
Solo doesn't hold it anymore after losing it to Raymond Reigns.
It wasn't the Royal Rumble.
It was a previous PLE, which name I can't remember off the top of my head.
Can you remember where we looked? Which PLE that was?
Which PLE what was? Sorry.
The Fatou, not Fatou, sorry, the Roman beat Solo for the Ula Fala.
It wasn't a PLE at all. It was the Netflix debut of Raw.
Oh, there we go. I completely switched up with him.
That's where Roman Reigns became the de facto tribal chief, OTC.
And yeah, Roman Reigns has been curiously MIA since.
They're apart from a Rumble appearance.
Yeah, and obviously injuries, I'm going to use injuries in inverted commas.
Injuries he sustained at the Royal Rumble event has sort of kept him off.
We know we won't necessarily see Roman Reigns until after Elimination Chamber
is the feeling that we're getting.
Yeah, so this continued from there into a VT about the final boss.
And then another VT about the members of the men's Elimination Chamber,
basically who's in there and what they did to get there.
I'm going to break continuity a little bit here and say that obviously later on,
we have a similar VT promo for the women's match.
And there's a sort of symmetry here that I've sort of only realised
after I watched that second promo for the women's is that during this promo,
obviously we get to see small snippets of every entrance journey into the Royal Rumble,
into the Elimination Chamber.
We did.
And Waite Barrett made a really curious comment afterwards
saying about the fact that there are five of the biggest egos in the WWE
and the Scottish Warrior.
And the symmetry I'm going to point out is that in that promo for the women's Elimination Chamber match,
it's five former world champions and Waite Barrett.
That's a good point.
It's a very weird sort of symmetry and I'm not sure if that is,
I don't believe it was intended that way and is it purely by coincidence
that it was intended that way or is it built into,
like we've got five big egos and the Scottish Warrior.
Is that them subtly nodding towards the fact that Drew could end up winning the Elimination Chamber again?
And similarly, the women's Elimination Chamber,
are we going to see this massive push that I've been talking about for Roxanne Perez
out of NXT and into the main main match?
I don't personally think they can move her from NXT and give her a WrestleMania match straight away.
Because if she wins the Elimination Chamber, she's going to the main event of WrestleMania against Rhea,
which do not get me wrong, will be one hell of a match.
But I don't think it's her time just yet.
I think we're going to see someone else win it.
I think with the women's, it is going to be one of either,
well, it's either going to be one of four, I think.
It's going to be either Alexa Bliss, Liv Morgan, Naomi or Bianca Bella.
I don't think Roxanne Perez has got the experience to go to the main event of WrestleMania at the moment.
I think Bayley has done a little bit too much work recently to the point where she could just be a tidier self-help
in the build up to WrestleMania, which is probably not a good idea.
Obviously, we've seen some cracks between Bianca Bella and Naomi over the last few weeks.
We think that's down to Jane Cargill and her attack.
And then obviously, Liv Morgan was part of that with Raquel Rodriguez.
They're trying to push onto us.
But Judgement Day could probably do with having some of their members pushed a little bit
to try and kind of stack up with the gold that Finn Balor wants them to have.
See, I've got a feeling that nothing, in my experience, nothing is done by WWE by accident.
No.
There are no accidents when it comes to WWE.
It is a case that we are, it's my understanding that we're going to have,
it's going to be more of a, there's still more to come.
It's odd that they have had that little bit of symmetry where they are painting both Drew McIncroyer
and Roxanne Perez as some sort of underdog in their respective elimination chamber matches.
I've just, there's too much coincidence there for me.
But I could be completely wrong and I could be left with complete egg on my face
when it comes to elimination chamber on March 1st.
What we'll do from here is we'll move away from this conjecture and theorise in
because this is what essentially pads out our, can sometimes pad out our podcast.
And we'll go from there to another promo where instead we're backstage.
It's earlier in the day which sees Carmelo Hayes being sort of waylaid by one of our personal favourites on the podcast, R-Truth.
Yeah, so R-Truth is, it starts off when you're thinking, you know, they're busy talking about who's him
and what not that we're going to end up with a repeat of last week's confusion
with Truth and Carmelo Hayes with Tazawa.
But actually that's not the way it goes.
And we end up with Miz popping up his smug little face and kind of,
he's busy talking about a match and everyone's a little bit confused about kind of like what's going on.
And then he kind of says to Carmelo Hayes, you know, see, like, you know,
me and you have got this match tonight.
You know, Mello, don't miss and kind of looks at Truth and kind of goes,
well, you know, who's your tag partner at which point Truth kind of goes,
yeah, I'll find someone.
And I'm not going to lie, if I was kicking around backstage, I'd tag a match with our Truth,
you know, you're going to get some laughs out of it.
Which brings us then into the next match, which is the Miz and Carmelo Hayes versus Truth
and his mystery partner.
And we get to see Truth come out into the arena.
I remember if he did the same as he did last week where he was doing his own entry music
and thinking may have just come out to his entry music.
And he came out, he was very sort of got the crowd involved, but cut it really short.
And obviously teasing the fact that in the promo beforehand that he's got a Louisiana
legend to work to tag with this week.
But it's not a Louisiana legend at all.
I was trying to do all the famous.
Aiming on this as his tag partner this evening is L. A. Night.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, at the time I was trying to Google all the famous from Louisiana just to try
and see if I could work out who it could possibly have been.
And just that interest.
So there are two that Google throughout me.
One of them was a guy called Ernie Ladd who I've never heard of, but apparently he was
6'9 and weighed in at 320 pounds and his signature move was taping his thumb, no,
tapping his thumb to his opponent's throat.
And the other gentleman that we were thrown together was our man from commentary, Booker T.
So Ernie Ladd would definitely not have been as it unfortunately passed away on March 10th,
2007, which is why you won't have sort of heard very much about him.
He's very much a territories guy and things like that.
And Booker T could have been a potential.
I mean, we do know that Booker T still gets in the ring because a few weeks ago in his
own promotion, he had a match against Zillafatu, which is another member of the bloodline that
we've not seen in WWE at all.
Yeah, this is it.
And but unfortunately, neither of these legends were stepping between the ropes for very different
reasons. And we were treated to LA Night instead, who is a very confused and seemingly
enraged way Barrett informed us originally from Maryland and it's called LA Night.
He moved to Hollywood.
Right. Which which kind of answers a few little questions there, I suppose if anyone didn't
know why LA Night was known as LA Night, yeah, then it was quite an interesting one.
No, this much.
Again, we can understand where the confusion might have come in for truth here.
Obviously, Louisiana, its initial breakdown is LA.
It's it does make sense.
I can sort of understand his confusion.
He's definitely a bit of an idiot.
Regardless of that, I mean, we know LA Night can come come out and put on a good match.
We saw last week that our truth can come out and more than hold his own.
Carmelo Hayes has been getting a big push in singles competitions over the last few weeks.
I've taken some big names.
And I mean, the only one that we're overly fond of is the Miz.
And then the Miz and Carmelo Hayes have had or was it then that had a decent match last week?
No, truth had a match against Hayes last week.
Miz had a half decent match last week against LA Night, didn't they?
For the number one contender for the US title from Shinsuke Nakamura.
And to be fair, on paper, it's not a bad match.
You know, like you said, we've all seen these guys pull off and have some amazing matches.
As much as we try not to give Miz too much credit because his ego is bigger than his wiener is anyway.
But, yeah.
No, I guess it's a good comparison, I'm sure.
No, and the only reason that came up in my head then is because I watched a New Day promo this morning on social media.
And it was the rap battle between New Day and the Usus.
And he got Kofi going, oh, well, where's your weenie dude? And it's like, what's a weenie dude?
It's like, when your belly hangs out more than your weenie.
Oh, fuck sake, I need to stay off social media in the mornings.
But the match itself was, it was a decent match and it was a very entertaining,
entertaining match as we know we're going to get from all of these, all of these superstars involved.
I mean, something that was only a seven minute match.
I don't know why I made no other fact it was only a seven minute match.
But it wasn't a long match, but you had some incredible spots within that match.
Oh, definitely.
I mean, we got quite early on our truth started counting car mal, started counting a pin for car on car mellow haze,
even though we hadn't technically got him pinned.
I'm not I'm still not 100% sure if truth is doing this to try and get a rise out of car mellow haze.
Or if he's doing it because he genuinely believes that's what he's supposed to be doing.
The guy is a complete enigma and I'm not mad at the fact that I don't understand why he does what he does.
I'm just glad that he does what he does.
Right.
And the fact he does what it does, you kind of think, oh, it's our truth.
It's going to have that comedy factor to it.
And I guess it does.
But the guy can still wrestle.
It's not like he's just coming out there to make a mockery of the fact that he's got a year left on his contract
and he's just taking a piss and trying to get his appearances in for his money.
He can still go.
And we see that with the lobby last week in his match this week in his match as well.
They're both sort of like decent length matches for a guy who's not really had a lot of matches.
He does seem to be definitely big part of a lot of them.
Yeah, it's not one of those very sits out for most of it.
And that's his tag to partner do all the work.
Don't get me wrong. L.A. Knight doesn't need an excuse to try and, you know, show who's the bigger magister between the him and Miz.
And when he finally gets into the ring, he pops Miz with a hell of a flying clothesline followed by a pretty naughty elbow drop.
Yeah, this is it.
And I mean, we've obviously seen over the last, well, last few years really is that one of our truth.
One of our truth wrestling heroes is none other than the farewell tour himself, John Cena.
And he's been doing his best to do his best to pay homage to his hero as much as he possibly can.
And in fairness, he pulls off an impressive five knuckle shuffle and STF you in that in that little sort of homage to John Cena.
Yeah, it's for once he actually manages to pull it because he did try it last week and he didn't quite manage to get it off.
He got it counted.
So now he's managed to finally pop it and even went for an attitude adjustment as well, which again, this time got counted.
But yeah, it's just waiting for the money to come to jump in the ring.
I know we won't be able to see him hit that five knuckle shuffle, but we'll be able to see him be here.
Yeah, this is it.
It's going to happen sooner or later, but yeah.
But this match as entertaining as it was obviously had to come to an end.
And it is a case that due to an outside interference by our current US title holder, Shinsuke Nakamura, who comes out of the crowd to attack LA Night,
ends up handing the win, hands up, ends up handing a win to Mello Dome Miz.
Miz actually managed to get the win on this one. Mello Hayes was kind of out on the outside.
But yeah, Miz managed to hit up a skull crushing finale as Hayes came back in to manage to hit the first 48.
But a lot of the work done for this was done by Miz.
Yeah, which is a nice change really as the Miz is there normally just to either take the fall for the defeat or suck the glory for a win that was gotten by somebody else.
She's actually managed to pull his weight this particular week and we might see it a little bit more.
And I think we're going to see a lot more of Miz. They're definitely building this Mello Dome Miz thing up.
Now they've got a win under their belt as well. We could have another funny tagged team in the division.
It was obviously only a few months ago. You had the Miz and our truth were tag partners. So it was a strange one.
Yeah, very much so. But yeah, we'll move on from there and we went straight into a VT promo for everybody's favourite together for the whole...
Tiffy time!
Oh, see I've got down on my list that it's a Charlotte Flair promo now.
It started off with Tiffy Stratten walking through the backstage area and she didn't say anything.
And then you go into a Charlotte Flair recap of her coming back for the Royal Rumble, then biding her time coming into the ring after Tiffy had been absolutely obliterated by Nia Jax
and the Candice Leray to then pull up a chair and kind of go, you know what bitch, I'm coming for your title.
And then we kind of go back into the ring where Tiffy's come out from where we see her before to kind of basically talk about what's going on with her at the moment.
She feels that since she's become the women's world champion that everyone's really obsessed with her.
And then last week she basically got Nia beat until Candice interfered and at Elimination Chamber both Tiffy and Trish Stratus who is making an embering appearance in her hometown.
They're going to basically make sure that Nia Jax doesn't get anywhere.
But she doesn't really want to spend too much time talking about Nia and Candice Leray, she wants to more have a little chat about Charlotte Flair.
And basically she goes again back over the recap of Charlotte standing over and kind of picking her and it's kind of actually her saying,
by Charlotte doing that she kind of made my dreams come true.
And in that moment she realized that you know, no one, the rumors about Charlotte are flair and definitely true and that no one loves to kick a girl when she's down like Charlotte.
So Charlotte's kind of coming out of her and Tiffy's not going to go the way she wants it to go.
Tiffy doesn't want Charlotte Flair's legacy, you know, she's welcome to her legacy.
It's all about how Tiffy just wants to make sure that she's got that number one spot in women's WWE.
And at the moment that's where she is. She stood on top right next to Rhea, obviously on different brands but they both hold the major titles.
And yeah, we're going to see how it goes. Unfortunately though, we do get an intro from Nia Jax who comes out to the ring with Candice Leray saying it's cute how Tiffy thought she was going to win last week.
And Candice throwing out there that she wouldn't actually be standing where she is if Trish Strauss hadn't come in and saved her ass.
And basically Nia telling Tiffy, you're not going to make it to WrestleMania.
Like I'm going to kick your ass and get my title back before Mania gets here and your big main event against Charlotte's not actually going to be a thing.
Was it going to be me versus Charlotte for their WrestleMania?
Yeah, and yeah, this was always going to work out this way.
I am going to hit pause on this part of the card as we do seem to have missed something that I'd...
Ordinarily, I wouldn't normally sort of draw attention to it.
The only reason I'm sort of drawing attention to it now is more so to do with the fact that she is a bit of an unsung hero, I think, and needs it.
And the fact that they've gone out of their way to try and shine a bit more of a light on her, I think is worth taking a bit of time to be able to sort of appreciate that.
So before the mellow don't miss match, we did actually see a small VT promo for Zelina Vega.
We did, I forgot about that.
Who has been cropping up quite a lot.
Sort of sizing up champions as it seems.
Very much sort of trying to figure out which champion she wants to go for, which one's going to be worth, which ones she thinks she can feasibly take on, I suppose.
And yeah, it seems that she's setting her sights high on a women's title there for it.
But yeah, well, as I said, Zelina Vega is one of those I think has been vastly underutilized.
She was moved over to SmackDown and we've seen her make a few promo appearances, but nothing in ring as of yet.
But we'll get there.
But yeah, this Tiffany Candice and Nia Jack situation has been massively taking off.
Yeah, it has been. And I think it's not like WWE had known for throwing spanners into work.
I think at some point this WrestleMania match between Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair is going to end up being a fable for it.
Yeah, we could certainly see that.
It's a case that this goes from quite a long promo into the match that was advertised, which was Tiffany Stratton versus Candice LaRae.
I've got to admit, as much as we've seen Candice LaRae with Nia Jax a lot recently, it's going to be interesting to find out how Candice LaRae sort of breaks free of Nia.
I've got a feeling it's going to happen in somewhat similar fashion to how Tiffany Stratton did exactly the same thing.
Well, yeah, definitely. There's going to end up being a cash out of some kind coming very soon.
There's been checks written and we're just waiting for the receipts to come.
Yeah, 100% because Nia Jax is not known, particularly a buyer in ring persona at least to be known to treat her friends well.
It's kind of a case that they are there at her convenience.
And there's nobody that's going to outshine her because as soon as they do outshine her, it's a case that they're left in Nia Jax's dust, so to speak.
Well, yeah, definitely. And it's going to be an interesting to see how that works to be fair.
Yeah, definitely. But we go from that match or from that promo into the match itself.
After the attack on Tiffany Stratton, we sort of go to a bit of a commercial break. We then join the match in progress.
And yeah, it's...
Join the match in progress and sort of see that Tiffany Stratton has sort of found herself on the back foot after that attack and is sort of struggling to find her way back.
But almost as soon as Tiffany Stratton seems to find her foot footing in the match, we see Charlotte Flair make an appearance.
She was meant to be on commentary, so she comes down and joins the Wade Barrett and Joe Tessatori.
Yeah.
Yeah, down on commentary for the remainder of this match. Basically just adding stakes as she observes her future WrestleMania opponent.
Yeah, very much so.
More of a story builder having Charlotte there than anything that was going to take part or interfere with this match.
Yeah. And I mean, she spends a majority of her time on commentary, sort of doing what Charlotte Flair does best. She talks about herself.
Well, she is the daughter of the great Ric Flair and he is also incredibly good at doing that.
So you'd be surprised.
The difference is he made his career doing that. Charlotte Flair, while she has made a career out of doing something very similar, it's very much been riding Daddy's coattails.
Yes, definitely so.
And while she is a talented individual and I will never take that away from her, it's just a case that I don't know, maybe she should have tried.
Maybe she shouldn't have come in using the Flair name to have garnered the position that she's ended up in.
I just feel like she utilised that a little bit too much to get into the position that she's in and now that she's there, she's treated more or less like wrestling royalty, which to be fair,
Ric Flair has done the work to do.
It's just a case that I don't feel that Charlotte Flair has done equal amount to deserve the standing she has, if that makes any sense.
Oh, it certainly does.
Where the two women in the ring for this match have definitely put down the work they needed to to both get themselves to the position where they need to be, which is kind of pushing towards that main event of WrestleMania in the build-up.
Yeah, 100%.
Yes, we may not see Nia Jax and Candice Leray there at the moment, like I said, I think this is going to end up in a fatal four way between Tiffy, Nia, Candice and Charlotte.
There's a possibility for that and that could be how we see Candice Leray break free of Nia Jax's shadow.
I'm not going to be angry at it if that's what happens because quite honestly, I think that's what needs to happen.
Yeah, we've seen a lot of Candice Leray in Nia's pocket. I don't think Nia really needs her there.
It's just more of building up for Candice Leray to be fair.
Yeah, this is it.
But we see some nice spots in this match. Well, we see a very nice spot at one point during this match as we are aware.
And we'll draw light on the fact that I believe it was during this match and Rich will be able to back me up on this that we end up seeing a little bit more of Tiffany Stratton than we probably should have done.
Yeah, that was definitely a wardrobe malfunction there. There's been a fair few of them within the women's division the last month.
So, yeah, unfortunately, she ended up having to take a bit of time out of her match to go and cover herself back up, which was not something we were expecting to have to do with that one at all.
And it's not a complaint either.
All we will say is Ludwig Kaiser is a lucky man.
Yeah, I think that's the best way to agree with that one as well.
Yeah. But we see the WWE's favourite move in here as well as Stratton does manage to hit an Alabama slam to Leray on the actual barricade in an attempt to sort of taunt Charlotte here.
Yeah, which was an interesting one, but it is again, you know, they are covering their bases and making sure that the moves they want added into it or added into it and that Alabama slammer definitely seems to be this week's move of the week.
Yeah, definitely.
So, yeah, I mean, it's a case that don't get me wrong, despite every effort possible, Stratton does walk out of this with a win and gets basically fucked over by Nia Jax again is that she gets attacked from behind after the bell.
Which we've sort of come to expect from Nia Jax now. It's a case that as soon as something doesn't go away, I mean, I'm pretty sure that even had it gone her way, she still would have attacked Tiffany from behind.
It would have been it still would have ended up in in that attack. But one thing we didn't expect to see as much here was was coming out to coming out again to try and save Tiffany, but being just completely outmuscled by Nia Jax,
which I think is something we're going to see quite a lot of when we get to elimination chamber. I do not think Trish Stratton is going to get it as easy as you think she is.
And I think we're going to end up coming out of this with a shock result, actually.
What, you don't think Nia Jax is going to cakewalk this summer?
I think we're going to get to a point where I don't think they're going to bring Trish Stratton back in their hometown and have her lose.
Where the way that building at the moment says that Nia and Candice Leray should walk that match.
I think it's going to be a very close match and I think it's going to finish in a sneaky roller.
Which isn't a favourite way for matches to end with yourself. We found that over the course of doing this podcast, it's not a clean way of doing it, but unfortunately when you're against an opponent like Nia Jax, there may be no other option.
No, of course not.
The only other thing to mention after the beat down and the match that they had, it was very much a case that Charlotte Flair makes a rather...
I think she was going for composed, elegant and sort of no wasted movement when it came to this entrance, but I genuinely thought she'd shit herself.
Yeah, I think that's something we could both agree on there to be fair. She did not look like she was comfortable with this arrangement and how she was getting into the ring.
No. And we've seen over the last few appearances of Charlotte Flair that she seems to be...
She's not necessarily dressing appropriate for a woman of her age. And it feels like a dangerous comment to make, as whatever she feels she is comfortable in is what she should wear.
It's just, I don't think it's having the desired effect that she wants it to.
No, I think you should probably agree with that.
And yeah, Charlotte Flair enters the ring to basically mock the champion who's just been left laid out in the middle of the ring.
Yeah, so we go from there into a backstage promo as well, where we see Cody Rhodes being flagged down by Damian Priest.
Now, obviously in the original arrangement for this card, it was supposed to be Cody Rhodes, Damian Priest and...
Cody Rhodes, Damian Priest and Braun Strowman versus Hammer Tonga, Jacob Fatou and Solo Sokoa.
Yes, and it's changed.
It has changed quite drastically, obviously, because we've had the introduction of the final boss.
And basically Priest as curious as everybody else, like does Cody know what it is that he's being pulled into the ring for rather than being in a match, being in a promo for it?
Yeah, we find out Cody's just as clueless as the rest of us, really.
And it's interesting how he uses the line, well, it's Royal Rumble, it's a WrestleMania season, what do you think he's here for?
Yeah, I sort of copped onto that as well, but then they start going over a little bit of their shared history.
I thought actually it was a very friendly, like in WWE because it is a combat entertainment sport, we see a lot of confrontation with these backstage promos,
but this, for a nice change between Damian Priest and Cody Rhodes, was actually a very sort of, I found it to be a very respectful promo.
It was like they were talking like, well, like me and you do, we're not constantly gearing up for a fight with one another, it's a case that we're, while we give each other shit,
it's a case that we're just generally very respectful of one another and talking a friendly manner, and that's the impression I got from this promo with these two guys right here.
Yeah, and it's nice to see that when they're not in the ring against each other, some of these guys do have a lot of respect for each other backstage and now in the world.
Obviously we know it's all scripted, it's story based entertainment, but there are sometimes, you know, there's some real heat between these guys, you know, and it's not just a conversation or a storyline.
Pumpkin Rollins is a prime example of that, but these guys, yeah, they look like they go on really well to be fair.
Yeah, and obviously they were talking about the fact that just last WrestleMania, they both walked out as champion and unfortunately for Damian Priest,
he's not managed to run for Coley Road and is now instead competing for Coley Road, it could be competing against Coley Road for his championship.
Which can be an interesting way of finishing it off.
Oh, 100%. So yeah, we're then sort of Coley Road leaves and Braun Strowman enters, sort of Coley is replaced by Braun, which sort of the block doesn't match the whole, so to speak.
It's replacing what is a very impressive guy by Coley Road's standards to be an absolute monster of a man in Braun Strowman.
Well, he is the biggest SOB in professional wrestling.
He is, the laws of equivalent exchange do not apply to this situation, unfortunately, but there again, it's a very friendly exchange between the two, which you'd sort of hope for considering they're in a tag match together later on for the main event.
And they have some sort of like friendly banter, they competed against one another and the elimination chamber qualifier, which Damian Priest, Damian Priest ended up coming out as the victor for.
And then they're just sort of solidifying a game plan for the tag match later on.
So nothing out of the ordinary there for it. It was just a just a nice exchange between two guys really.
Yeah, which was definitely nice to see because it's not something you see a lot of these days.
No, definitely not.
And then we go into some facts from New Orleans, WWE and New Orleans.
I mean, this was the 13th Smackdown in New Orleans, held in New Orleans in total.
And New Orleans has been lucky enough to host not one but two WrestleMania's being WrestleMania 30 and WrestleMania 34.
Also, as we will get to a little bit later be the host of WrestleMania 41, which we get to see a little bit later in the seven states of WrestleMania 30 was the one where Brock Lesnar ended the undertakers WrestleMania streak.
As Adam was saying off podcast, he still hasn't fully watched that match.
Because I haven't watched any of that match. I refuse to believe it's true. If I don't watch it, it's not real.
I mean, I can fully get behind that.
So other matches were included within that. We had John Cena versus Bray Wyatt, where John Cena came out on top.
The shield defeated Kane and the New Age Outlaws. And Daniel Bryan, I believe, did double duty in that match, did double duty in that WrestleMania as he had a triple threat match versus Randy Orton and Batista where he came out on top with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
And then went on later on to face Triple H and won that one as well.
Which, yeah, I think he may be the only person to win two matches at WrestleMania.
I'm not sure that's true.
In the same WrestleMania.
Even so, I'm not sure that's technically true. Oh, no, actually, no, you could be right there. I'm searching through just my memory at this point.
Yeah. No, you could be right there. And then WrestleMania 34. What did you have for WrestleMania 34?
WrestleMania 34 was where Brock Lesnar again defeated Roman Reigns to retain the Universal title.
Yeah, we did. We saw that one. It was also where AJ Styles retained the WWE Championship when he faced Shinsuke Nakamura.
And what else do we have here?
The Undertaker defeated John Cena at this WrestleMania as well.
And Charlotte Flair defeated Asuka.
That's a name we don't see much of anymore.
But that's purely because she's having some personal issues outside of WWE.
Yeah, she's been involved in some rather nasty stalking cases, I think recently.
Yeah, so I went back and just did a quick bit of research. Yokozuna competed in twice in one night at WrestleMania 10.
Bret the Hitman Heart also did it in WrestleMania 10.
The million dollar man performed double duties.
Macho Man, Randy Savage also at the same WrestleMania.
This is IV, so I'm guessing this was WrestleMania 4.
Hulk Hogan did it at WrestleMania 9.
Greg the Hammer Valentine also did it at WrestleMania 9.
Yokozuna did it at 9 and 10.
Don Muraco did it at 9.
Kane did it at 24.
And then the one man gang did it at WrestleMania 9 as well.
So WrestleMania 9 had a lot of...
Well, actually WrestleMania 4 had a lot of people pulling double duties back then to bulk the card out a little bit more.
So was that just people that have performed double duties at WrestleMania?
Yeah, I couldn't find a list of ones that have had wins on both double duties.
I was going to say because I know we've had...
I wasn't at WrestleMania in mind.
I was thinking of Elimination Chamber.
John Cena had obviously done double duty at Elimination Chamber where he defended his championship in the chamber
and then went on to lose it to Batista.
That wasn't good.
But that again was at an Elimination Chamber, not a WrestleMania.
The other bit of history from WWE in New Orleans was that they hosted the...
New Orleans hosted the 2001 Royal Rumble which was one of...
which was one of Stone Cold Steve Austin's Royal Rumble wins.
It was. I'm not sure if it's one of his back-to-back wins.
When he did it twice in a row, didn't he?
Yes.
I'm not 100% sure either.
That one stumped me a little bit, I'll be honest.
Well, yeah, no, definitely.
But we got to learn quite a bit about the history of WWE in New Orleans
and then we went into the VT about the women's Elimination Chamber match
which basically just kind of backed up who was in that match and why they were there.
Yeah, and we talked quite a lot about that earlier in the episode
so we're not going to sort of go back over all ground or anything like that
just because time is of the essence.
We also went into a backstage promo from there
where we saw Byron Saxton interviewing the current WWE women's tag team champions Naomi and Bianca Belair.
Where this was just sort of a...
It's...
I mean, we call them promos.
They are promos but this one was a promo-promo.
It wasn't there to further a storyline of any kind or anything like that
or at least it wasn't in my view.
It's very much a case that...
We had... they were there to discuss the Cargill footage
which was revealed last week on SmackDown.
Plugging being on Raw on Monday
and plugging the singles match that they've got versus Liv Morgan
which was the next match on the card.
Not before.
We were treated to yet another VT.
Which was an Alexa Bliss promo.
Somebody we haven't heard of quite at all, in fact,
since she qualified for the Elimination Chamber a few weeks ago.
Yeah, so her qualification for the Elimination Chamber was definitely...
It was the first time we'd seen her since the Royal Rumble.
She had the entire wrestling world in the palm of a hand for the Royal Rumble
because a lot of us didn't think that we were going to see her again.
There were some contract issues being posted on social media
but Basie said that in three days before the rumble
she removed everything wrestling related from her social medias.
It looked like the contract negotiations had kind of fallen away.
Obviously Alexa Bliss went off to have her baby.
She's been out for the last two years.
So there was a lot of...
I think they were building it with contract negotiations
the fact that she owed them time and she wanted more money on a new contract.
I'm not sure how they worked out but yeah,
to get Alexa Bliss back at the Royal Rumble was incredible and that popped when.
And then we had just an equally big pop when she had a match for the Elimination Qualifier.
It could be, I think Alexa Bliss is an outsider to win the Elimination Chamber
but we never know what is going to happen.
They're probably still going to be working out what they're doing
up to about five minutes before the women go out there for that match.
Yeah, quite possibly.
It's perfectly possible that they may not have any real plan
for Alexa Bliss.
It could literally come down to the wire.
Do you want to control yours?
This match on paper was going to be a really, really good match
and it was a match that I was looking forward to.
So when Naomi's music hits and obviously her and Bianca Belair walk down to the ring
it wasn't a tag match but you always get one with the other when they're having singles matches.
They jump up on the ring, they're doing their standard entry, they're posing and then boom!
It felt like a Randy Orton might as well that just ended the room
because Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez just blitzed them straight off
like no bell, no, it's just a straight up ambush.
You've got Liv Morgan going straight for Bianca Belair's knees
while Rodriguez has an opportunity to plant her with the Tiana bomb.
We don't normally see a lot of what Raquel Rodriguez can do
even in the matches that she's had recently.
She seemed very flat footed, very kind of like out of her depth and not really sure what to do.
This beat down from the two of them, she looked a lot stronger than we've seen her recently.
So it was nice to see kind of what was...
It was an interesting interaction.
Social media afterwards basically just turned around and went,
you know, because Rock was there they had to try and make some extra space somewhere
because we all know what he's like for going over his time.
And it was definitely an interesting one that they chose this out of all the matches to go,
you know what, I'm not doing anymore.
Yeah, it's a bit disappointing in fact that they just sort of turned this into a bit of a...
This is where they decided to recoup the time.
Yeah.
It shouldn't have been a case that...
Well, as we said right at the beginning of the episode,
it should never have been a case that they were...
that they dropped this in at the last minute.
It should have been planned, it should have been timed out and it just wasn't.
This sort of, this blatant way that they cut short this match,
which could have been an absolute bomb burner of a match.
It could have been the match of the night.
Yeah, and it just felt, it felt really flat the fact that they decided,
no, this is where we're going to cut time from and this is who we're going to take time from
for the final boss to come in and do whatever the fuck it is he's going to do.
And yeah, the matches put down as a no contest
and chanting about...
They, Raquel and Liv walk out, chattering about winning the tag straps off them,
which I mean, it does put momentum on Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez's side,
they've managed to do this, but it just, for the purposes of the episode,
it just fell really flat for me.
I wish they'd taken another group, I really do.
Yeah, I can completely agree with that.
We're then treated to a VT promo outside the arena where we see a...
No, it's sad the fact that I know this, but it's a Ford F-150 pickup.
One of the top of the line models is pulling up signifying,
I've assumed this is signifying the arrival of the Rock himself.
I'm sort of jealous of the vehicle, I'd fucking have one myself if I could.
But that VT sort of speaks for itself.
The final boss is here, he's coming.
Then we go backstage where we see Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez
getting ripped a new one by Nick Alders,
who obviously isn't happy about the way that match went.
Well, he kicks him out of the building, doesn't he?
It tells him to go.
Yeah, and they do what we always thought they were going to do.
They laugh at his face if anyway.
Yeah, which is...
It would piss me off if I was the boss, I'm not going to lie, but...
Oh yeah, this is it.
But we then have Chelsea Green and Piper Niven
and what behind Alders to basically try and lay claim to Naomi
and Naomi and Beller's elimination chamber spots.
Yeah, I don't know where they even thought they were going to try and get those slots from,
but they've just obviously lost their own matches, they couldn't get in another way.
Well, it's not all of the loss for them.
They are going to Toronto, but they'll be on the Friday night smackdown before elimination chamber.
And it seems like Nick Alders is going to be taking out some frustration
when he pencils that match in.
But we're not giving any other details, but then again, neither is Chelsea Green.
She has no idea who she's facing, what kind of match she's in.
And yeah, in fairness, I think Chelsea Green probably could do with being taken down a peg or two.
So it's whatever it is that Nick Alders has got in mind, I'm sure is going to be well worth it.
A nice fat loss to Piper Niven could always go in quite nicely.
Oh, that would be an interesting one.
Yeah, a nice big fat L from Piper Niven.
But I don't think...
I think it's going to be one another. That would be an unexpected one for the books.
But then we go to...
I'm sorry, but this may as well have been the main event of the night.
They may as well have closed the show on this, not because it was any good,
but because of the amount of oomph they put behind it when they were promoting it
and the amount of appeal this has given to the show.
This was the in-ring promo of the final boss.
And normal fanfare applies.
His back video, however, was tidy.
They've extended his fucking entry again.
Like, it gets longer and longer and longer every time Rock comes back.
Yeah, it's a case... His back video was showing images of Bourbon Street,
probably one of the most famous streets in New Orleans.
And yeah, it's a case that just the entrance on it, so...
It just... Yeah.
I mean, this whole thing kind of wound me up a little bit.
Yes, we got to see the Rock, but did we really need to see him for that long
for the little amount of information he gave us?
Probably not. I mean, big bombshell announcement.
Rock was stood in the ring for 20 minutes, and all we got out of it
was the announcement that WrestleMania is going to be in New Orleans next year.
Yeah, so that was the bombshell announcement that New Orleans is going to play host to WrestleMania 42.
Which means that New Orleans has had three more WrestleMania's than the UK ever has,
but I think it reads somewhere that the UK is unlikely to get a WrestleMania anytime soon,
even though they teased the hell out of it about 18 months ago.
Yeah, I would sell everything I owned, including my brand new car for a ticket to WrestleMania.
In the UK, you'd get it once, maybe every 20, 30 years, if they ever did do it.
But WrestleMania in the UK would be absolutely fantastic,
and I would make sure... Yeah, I'd probably even sell the children to make sure I could get there.
And I left my kids. But that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Yeah, this is it. It's a case that...
This promo sort of made... It made my head hurt. It made my head hurt a lot.
Because it was so off the cuff, and it showed a hell of a lot of...
In my opinion, it showed a hell of a lot of ring rust, essentially, for the Rock.
And it wasn't even as though he was competing in the ring for it to be ring rust.
It was just... It was so obviously unplanned, so obviously unrehearsed in any way, shape or form.
There was no fluidity to it. There was very little direction in it.
They knew where they wanted to go, and it just seemed like a mishmash of everything.
Because we have... The Rock comes out, as Rich said, it was an excruciatingly long intro.
And he does all of his normal bits, he's... Finally!
And starts gushing over. New Orleans getting WrestleMania 42.
And we actually start seeing some heel bits and pieces from The Rock in this as well.
And it just... It just...
He goes from complimenting the crowd to insulting them in seconds, and then back to being their best friend again.
There was one little section where they were singing. Obviously The Rock, and then he comes out and goes,
it's a nice duet, you hear The Rock, and then you've got a bunch of Ember at STD, written, Trader Trash.
And you're like, what? That came out of nowhere?
Yeah, it's... There's no build-up to it. He has come out.
Obviously he's given a huge gift to the city of New Orleans in playing the host of WrestleMania next year.
But then goes to insult, trying to insult as many of them in a short space of time as he possibly can.
It just makes no sense whatsoever.
But calls out the person he really wanted to speak to.
Mr Rhodes.
Which would be American nightmare Cody Rhodes. Thankfully his entrance wasn't anywhere near as long as The Rock's.
Right, I mean, it's not far short of it. They are slowly catching up.
Oh yeah, 100%.
I've got loads of notes for what was said during this promo.
But if we boil it all down and condense it all down to what it actually comes out to,
because there was a lot of... There was a lot of fuck about fluff and platitudes in this promo,
where I think if The Rock had come out and said, yeah, New Orleans is getting...
He could have done his 20-minute-long intro and then boiled it down to the facts of what it is that he wanted.
And we could have still had the Liv Morgan Naomi match in plenty of time.
Yes, I think Rock was being incredibly selfish taking up the time he did for the information that he gave us.
Yeah, because essentially it sounds... He's done it in a very roundabout sort of way, which isn't The Rock's style at all.
Rock is very direct. He's very... This is what I want. This is how I'm going to get it.
Get out of my way or get in line. That is the way we've always known The Rock to be.
Whereas he starts talking about the fact that last year's WrestleMania should have realistically been
the Rock vs Roman Reigns for the WWE title. That was what they wanted.
That was supposedly what the WWE Universe wanted, and it was Cody Rhodes' fault that they didn't get it.
But Cody Rhodes is The Rock's friend. They're very good friends. Their family are friends.
And it's almost as if Rock is asking Cody Rhodes to give up the WWE Championship.
Just vacate the title. And even goes as far as to ask Cody Rhodes for his soul at one point.
Are they trying to paint The Rock as the devil at this point? Is that where they're going with it?
There could be 101 different ways they do decide to go with it, but I'm just really hoping that out of all of this,
we don't get that The Rock forced on us in ring competition.
I've said this a few times. I really think normally when you see someone come back on the road to WrestleMania
of the Statute of Rock, and we saw it a lot with Cena as well, and I hate to say it because I love the guy,
but he'd come back at WrestleMania or Royal Rumble and make a play for a title somewhere.
I just don't think it's needed these days, but you've got enough quality in the roster at the moment
without having to try and incorporate too much more into it.
Yeah, it's... I still don't know where to go with what to make of what's going on,
but essentially The Rock has asked Cody Rhodes to be the Rock's champion.
He doesn't want him to be the WWE's champion, he doesn't want him to be the WWE Universe champion,
he wants him to be the Rock's champion, which I think is a sneaky day of basically saying,
I want you to give me what I want, and what I want is Cody Rhodes' soul and a match between him and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
Yeah, which is... he does point at the title and say he doesn't want that, he wants Cody's soul,
but The Rock doesn't have anything to gain from that.
Cody doesn't really have anything to gain from giving it to him.
The Rock reckons he can take him up a notch, but I don't think he can.
No, I think The Rock is sort of overestimating himself.
There is a lot that that man can do, and there is a lot that that man has achieved in his lifetime,
and he is an incredibly impressive individual for many different reasons.
But I don't think he's got the clout behind him to be able to take Cody Rhodes to this next level that he's saying he will.
Yeah, there's a lot of... the promo left a lot more questions than answers for the amount of time that it took to get there,
and I've even put in my notes like what the actual fuck.
I genuinely don't know what to make of it.
Hopefully we get more information in the WWE programming episodes to come before Elimination Chamber, where Cody Rhodes has to give.
The decision on The Rock's question, but I think the real question is what is The Rock?
What is it The Rock is actually asking?
As he's asking for Cody Rhodes' soul, he looked like at one point he was asking for the WWE Championship,
then he was talking about a match with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
It just, yeah, completely boggled my mind.
And after this promo ends, literally the screen just fades to black.
Yeah.
We fade to black on a picture of Cody Rhodes' face who just looks completely dumbfounded.
And I think that's how everybody else felt as well.
I've seen reports online who call the entire exchange awkward.
And you can see why they're saying that, because Cody looks really pissed off at the fact that he's being pulled out of what was going to be a hell of a six man tag match.
To stand in the ring, holding his title, talking to the People's Champion.
And it just, it did feel awkward and very kind of unneeded.
The Rock could have done what he did within five minutes and like you said,
but you could have had that Alexa Bliss Naomi match.
We wouldn't have had to feel like the next match was also impacted by the fact that I think Rock just took too long.
Yeah.
So the screen faded to black and we came back up and the screen then came back up a few seconds later with DIY's entrance for match five of the night,
which was the men's WWE Tag Team Championship match and DIY and pretty deadly.
And once again, we kind of see them cutting a promo mid entrance from the DIY doing it this time, basically saying that it's more to Masa Champa promising to crush pretty deadlies title hopes and dreams with Johnny Gargano mocking the whole disco,
disco ball gimmick, which is just your standard heel heat.
Like, you know, it's an old school way of gaining heat just by, you know, taking the piss to be fair.
And then but saying that we've seen a different side to pretty deadly the last couple of weeks.
They've actually managed to grow themselves a set of Cajones.
They found the people strudel in their shorts and they've they've actually come in and they hit the ring pretty hot this time and get the match underway before the ref can even gain control of what's what's going on.
Yeah, this is it.
And they're fed up of being picked on like DIY of basically just been bullying pretty deadly the last few weeks into being their bitches and I think pretty deadly have generally just had enough which I don't blame them to be fair.
I mean, they haven't had a thank you at all for the help they have had DIY of the nothing but cause issues within the dynamic that they had of, you know, tag team champion and tag team champions bitch or bitches.
Yeah.
And we mentioned before obviously this match feels as though it was very much cut short because of the in ring promo beforehand but at least this one was cut short and it made sense to what had gone on.
Yes.
To this point it didn't feel like they hadn't been given an appropriate amount of time to try and get further the story a little bit.
I mean, they said.
Yeah.
DIY team match.
It was it was shaping up to be a really good match and it was a shame to have the running come in.
It felt like it was earlier than it maybe should that it maybe they could have let the match string out for a couple more minutes.
Yes.
Before the run in as we saw street profits again.
Yeah, street profits of running from the crowd and Montes Ford and Angel Angel Dawkins.
Yeah.
We've seen them as a they've what we haven't seen them have a match during the Netflix era, but we've seen them come in and lay absolute waste at the last couple of weeks and they've done it again by coming pretty much out of nowhere and just beating the absolute shit out of DIY and pretty deadly.
And all of a sudden, nowhere, you you see the motor city machine guns decide to run in Chris Saban and Alex Shelley run out, presumably to try and either even the odds in the ring or to try and make a bold claim of their own and yeah, it didn't work out for them.
Street profits turned it into a massacre, leaving both motor city machine guns, DIY and pretty deadly all laid out on the floor pretty much fucked.
They weren't doing anything else that day.
And it kind of just finishes off with them kind of looking around with no music, you know, the segment finished very much how it started. It was very bang.
We're open. Boom. We're done. That's it.
But just a part and any difference was there was just a pile of bodies in the ring rather than four men looking to get busy, I suppose.
Yeah, I mean, motor city machine guns came out because street profits interfered in their tag team title match at Royal Rumble, their two out of three falls match it was corrupted by the street profits and DIY retain now.
To me, it made more sense strategically for the street profits to allow possibly the match to have played out because I think we could have seen a title change hands with pretty deadly this evening on this particular event, but it's a case that
still coming. I think that title change is still coming. We know after this match that it's not done. There's going to be more matches between DIY and pretty deadly trying to finish off what's been started, whether these matches also get interfered in by the street
profits or whether we end up seeing another match between the street profits and DIY. Again, we could have an eight man tag match up here where a title changes hands but whether it goes to pretty deadly or one of the other teams would be an
interesting interesting one. There's obviously Chris Saban and Alex Shelley of Motor City Machine Guns. They've they've been on a bit of an incredible run recently in the tag team division and they've had some great matches.
And they haven't held WWE gold yet. So it'd be nice to see if they can get their hands on that.
Well, that's not strictly true. Motor City Machine Guns did have a run with the tag team titles and we're actually beaten by DIY to
It wasn't a tremendously long run but they didn't think they had gold just yet. Well, I'd stand corrected. But yeah, no, this this this is basically just kind of building I think into given the street profits
and a bit of a needed push before their their in ring return, which I'm guessing is not going to be too far away purely for how often we're seeing them now.
No, this is it. It's building suspense. I've got a feeling that we'll see. It's either going to be we could see a tag title match for the street profits next week's Smackdown or possibly even the Smackdown that
follows elimination chamber. It's it's right. It is coming. It just hasn't made it there just yet. But yeah, so DIY retain their titles because of street profits interference.
And as you say, yeah, everybody ends up getting laid out by the street profits. They are looking so fucking dominant right now.
I think we've got a heel profits coming back as well. The way that they're working this in. It's definitely a heel profits. Yeah, 100%. We've got to wait until we've got to wait and find out how this is all going to sort of play out from here.
But we then treated to a small VT about WWE history. I made a mention of this earlier on where on the 21st of February 2010, it was elimination chamber and John Cena retained the WWE championship in the chamber itself, but then loses it the same night to
Batista. Animal. And then it's sort of followed by a VT about John Cena's journey to the chamber, which I mean was ridiculously short.
To be honest, it's not really had a journey. He kind of came back and announced that he was going to be in the elimination chamber and then it was like, oh, wait, shit, what rumbles first? Yeah, I'll be in a royal rumble too.
Yeah. That was pretty much it. I mean, Cena's walking into that chamber match having won three chamber matches before himself. So he knows what it takes to win in the chamber.
It's whether he's going to have the it's whether he's he's going to have the reserves to be able to do it.
I'm I'm not sure how this whole John Cena retirement tour is going to work. Obviously, he when he first came on to the Netflix debut, it was very much like, you know, I'm not here to take anything from anyone.
I'm just here to give back to the company that's given me so much. And then a week or so later, it was kind of like it was Royal Rumble. And he was like, oh, actually, you know, I'm going to get the 17th title.
And I'm going to I'm going to do this just so I can shake the hand of the guy who wins 18. And it was kind of like, dude, you've been doing this for 23 years.
Like, if it's taking you this long to get 17. And yeah, you've had some some moments where you've been away from the company and some part time runs and stuff like that.
But I don't think we'll see anyone be 18 or be 17 for a long time.
I'm surprised they're going to let them actually I didn't think they'd let Cena beat flares record because of who rig Flair is the loud mouth. I thought you just kick off about it. But obviously they've got a they've got the OK from from him that he's OK with it, so to speak, to to let it happen.
But whether we see it elimination chamber or WrestleMania, obviously it's it's it'd be interesting to see how they work it in if they do decide to work it in.
I think they I don't think they can afford not I think I don't think they can afford not to allow Cena that last title run bearing in mind how prolific he's been in WWE for the last 20 odd years.
It's a case that they can't really afford not to give him not to afford him that the chance at one last title run doesn't have to be a long run. It just has to be a run.
He literally just has to get his hands on that title, whether it be for you give it to him at WrestleMania and strip off him the next night on the roar after he would not care.
I don't think many of the fans would either to be fair as long as he got his hands on that title. I'd be happy.
Yeah, precisely.
But someone who's not happy at the moment though is our next VT, which was a response from Kevin Owens to Sami Zayn about their unsanctioned match at elimination chamber.
Yeah, now this just elevates the elevates this particular feud between the pair.
So well, entirely new level.
The fact that Kevin starts bringing in Sami's family into it kind of going, you know, I'm going to beat you that badly that how are you going to pay for your house in your cars and your food and stuff like you know how to work again.
I think Kevin is overbuilding himself here. I'm not going to lie to you. I think this build up from Kevin and how cocky he's been, especially with the whole Cody Rhodes story beforehand with the winged angel championship, which is funny enough has disappeared since he lost to Cody at Royal Rumble.
It was put back into it was put back into retirement.
It wasn't supposed to be for one night only one day and then it made quite a decent storyline of it. So they left it go.
But yeah, there wasn't much here that Kevin said that we didn't know he was going to say.
It was pretty much just building the rest of this story for the unsunctioned much, which basically means that when when they go to elimination chamber, they're going to try and beat each other within a four skins distance of their lives and we're going to sit and enjoy watching them do it.
Yeah, pretty much.
But yeah, it's a case that we've got to wait until elimination chamber to find out how that all sort of plays out.
And that's what I feel like all we seem to be doing at the moment is waiting for everything has been building for elimination chamber every match that we've had every pro moments all been setting up for elimination chamber.
So I can't wait to I just want to get elimination chamber over and done with I want to see like the start of this this build for WrestleMania.
Obviously we've got some matches already that we know we're going to have that.
You know, we're between Charlotte Flair and Tiffany Stratton. You've got Jey so good.
But this is where we're after elimination chamber. This is where the card starts to fill out a little bit.
And so many little sort of things that have been teased the last few weeks that we've not had finished that I think that's where we're going to start finishing these things.
And I think the I see titles can be the one where we we start seeing that build up a little bit more intensive, intensively in the next couple of weeks after elimination chamber.
Yeah, definitely. It's a case that it's going to happen with going to see the WrestleMania card filling up a little bit more.
Obviously after elimination chamber will have to at least two more matches set.
And it will just be a case that we play the rest of it out from there.
But yeah, we it is the nature of the beast that we've got to be we've got to be
We've just got to wait by the rest of you.
Patience is not something that we have.
Yeah, no, of course not.
But yeah, it's a case that we've as wrestling fans in general, we've got to be patient to find out exactly what it is.
Is going to happen next. We don't have a way another way around it. It's the way that it's always worked.
It's the way that it always will work.
And we will get there.
We will get there, but we are we are constantly waiting for one thing or another.
Yeah, and the one thing that we've been waiting for all night was supposed to be a six man tag match instead because of old Dwayne's ability to yabber on it got dropped down into just a standard tag match between Braun Strowman and Damien Priest versus Jacob Farrar.
And solo so coa for our main event of the evening and I'm not going to write you.
This this wasn't as good as a four man tag as it would have been as a six man.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a bad match.
I mean, with the level of talent that we had in this match, it was going to be pretty impossible to deliver a bad match in my opinion.
Yeah.
But yeah, I wasn't I'm not mad at the matches. It's come out.
Obviously, we can also miss what we never had in terms of the six man tag that we were supposed to have.
But ultimately, it could have been so much worse.
It could have been.
And there were some half decent spots in this match.
So without even a match starting when the match was going to be a six man tag,
and without even a match starting when they were all in the ring and you can just see the priest in Stroman one side,
Fatou and Sokoa the other side and they just staring at each other.
Like it is the ultimate stare down between those four people and whether they were waiting for a fuse to tick or for the referee to be like,
go, you know, like the videos you see on TikTok where you've got a guy doing something sketchy and it's just dead.
And that was pretty much what it felt like you were waiting for them to do it.
And then when it did start getting hot and it got hot from the start,
we ended up with Fatou and Priest starting the match,
which I thought we were going to get a little bit of brawn and Jacob to start off with or Damien and solo.
But no, we got Priest and Fatou starting off and.
No, we didn't.
The start of this match was Priest and Sokoa.
Jacob Fatou took a back seat.
Mine had so wrong. I've not had a good one this game.
But yeah, it's still, I mean, the match itself was solid.
We had some fantastic champions in with this match.
And yeah, I mean, there's a few different spots that I can bring up here.
I felt personally that solo Sokoa was focusing more on repairing the relationship between him and Fatou than he was on the match itself.
I just don't think he was all, he was all in on this match.
Solo Sokoa was definitely not all gas and no breaks.
Yeah, definitely not.
Whereas whenever Fatou sets in the ring, he is 100% focusing on his opponents.
Anything else is secondary to the win when it comes to Fatou.
But this is one of the first matches where we've seen Fatou genuinely struggle to take on opponents.
I mean, if he normally him and Tamatonga, we see a lot of no selling from Jacob Fatou and things like that.
It's a case that it all seems to work out for him in the end.
Well, there was there was one no sell from Damian Priest, which I was a little bit concerned about.
Jacob hit him in the, it kicked him in the head and Priest just laughed it off.
And then Priest did it to basically kick Fatou in the head and then Fatou did the same thing.
And you're like, all right, boys, come on.
Like don't ruin the match too much by pissing around.
Yeah, I mean, the ending to this match was the all important part in my opinion.
It was the best part.
The sequences that led to that ending were phenomenal.
I mean, we see obviously solo seco a Jacob Fatou came out accompanied by Tamatonga.
We knew that he was going to be involved in some way in this match.
Obviously, originally he was supposed to be a main combatant in the match,
but it didn't really sort of pan out because of the whole match.
No, the whole match was a bit weird.
You know, we got to see again, sort of like the hip running from Jacob Fatou into Braun Strowman.
It looked like it could have ended up being another sort of severe beat down like the one that put Strowman in hospital a few weeks ago.
And then sort of like we went into a commercial break at one point.
And when we came back from that, Jacob Fatou was basically just a one man wrecking crew.
He was hitting super kicks, moon salts.
He was doing everything he could to get that crowd sort of buzzing while he was there.
And at the same time, you've got Tamatonga, you know, on ringside trying to play enforcer as well.
And it just doesn't help. I think the three of them need to have a good sit down and try and converse about what's going on.
Is at the moment now you've bought the color back into it.
Tonga looks like the spare dick in a locker room.
Just to use that quote again, he literally like, yeah, Tamatonga these days looks like the spare dick in a porn studio.
And it may as well not be there for a lot of it.
Yeah, he's not as central as he was. And I mean, the main star out of the two of them was always Fatou.
Yes, Fatou is the big he's big man on campus out of the two of them.
And Tonga is has been sort of as assumed the role as bait a male out of the two.
I don't know what they've done with Jacob Fatou and I'm not going to lie to you when they first introduced his character.
I was a little bit like, oh, fuck off.
Like the guy can't work and Mike is wrestling ability looks very limited.
And in what seven weeks we've been doing this podcast now.
Like he's come a long way.
Like you can actually cut a promo now without John Cena having to stand in the ring and rip him in you want about it.
Yeah, and we've seen some real character development with him realistically.
Really come a long way with that character and just I think him in general has come a long way from where he was running the independent circuit to jumping into the big leagues,
which is pretty much, you know, you don't get much bigger on professional wrestling than WWE.
Oh, definitely not.
Yeah, you don't get sell out crowds that a AEW shows like WWE crowds go Tony Khan just gets it gets lawsuits instead.
Pretty much.
But anyway, yeah, let's talk about this ending because I've got it down here.
So Tonga distracts priest who slaps Tonga down like a bitch.
Yes.
Priest then gets hung up by Fatou on another on another rope and so coa gets a two count.
Now, while so Coa has got him down, he sets up for that Samoan spike, which is we know has been devastating in the past.
Has been.
But that's in fact did by what looks like the setup for a choke slam.
My priest.
That's safe of heaven.
Well, yeah, safe of heaven, I suppose.
But then he has to break that hold to fend off Fatou.
Is this where Fatou kicks so Coa in the mouth?
Right.
Yeah.
After a quick back elbow to so Coa, priest then has to dodge a superkick which lands square on so Coa's jaw from Fatou and Fatou just shows no remorse whatsoever.
He was like, yeah, bitch, you have this coming.
And then, yeah, it's a case that we see priests throw Fatou to the floor, then ends up sort of turning so as to Coa inside out inside the ring as we see the Strowman Express charging around the ring to then just blow through Fatou and Tonga like they were like.
Farts and a wind, mate, like a fire wind.
He launched and clean over the announced position.
I mean, even the announced even the announced team pretty much like what the fuck.
You could have killed me throwing Jacob Fatou.
I mean, you know what I mean?
Oh, 100%.
But what is all going on on the outside? Yeah, priest hits that south of heaven choke slam on so this a coa after so those kind of distracted by watching Fatou and Tonga, Tom Tom absolutely railed.
Like, yeah, they they got hit harder than Bonnie blue did that night.
And yeah, and once Damian Priest had hit that south of heaven for the three count, that was pretty much game over and done with and Braun Strowman and Damian Priest walked away from this one with a victory.
Yeah.
And it didn't just bring us to the close of that match.
It brought us to the close of Smackdown and what I what I I'm not going to call it fucked up because it wasn't fucked up.
Fucked up as such. It just.
Yeah, what a confusing.
Smat down this way.
It really didn't get it.
Yeah, it was it was the matches are great to watch.
There was a lot of great VT's obviously we've learned a lot of little bit more history about the WWE, which, you know, is even as a long time fan.
And there were some things that I didn't know or couldn't remember.
So it was but yeah, I think rock saying yesterday that he was going to be at Smackdown today just made it.
They made them kind of feel like they shit themselves a little bit and they felt like they had to give rock enough space to warrant who he is.
Where in reality, you know, he's not what he used to be.
He's just a face that shows up occasionally.
Is it a face that shows up in this place?
Yeah, face that runs the place.
But yeah, as it goes, I'm out of notes and I think we may well be running short.
So yeah, I'm going to thank you Adam for joining me on this episode of finishes and factions to Smackdown.
And I will catch you in the next episode of witches finishes and factions does Monday night raw.
Yeah, 100% see you all soon folks.
Yeah, later.