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.
Hello there and welcome to finishes and factions does Friday night Smackdown.
This was the final weekly episodic television television show from before we hit elimination chamber.
We find ourselves in the Scotiabank arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
And as ever, my name's Adam and with me is my ever faithful co-host Rich.
Rich, how's it going?
It's all good mate, yeah.
Yeah, I'm all good mate, I'm all good.
Good.
So yeah, Friday night Smackdown.
Yeah, and it started with a bit of a bang to be fair.
We jumped right into it with a recap VT about WrestleMania's announcement of next year's
WrestleMania being in New Orleans and then it carried on into the rock with his calling out of Cody Rhodes to basically find out that he doesn't want the championship belt.
He wants Cody's soul and that we'd find out a little bit more from Cody about that a little bit later on before they meet at elimination chamber tomorrow night.
Yeah, this is it.
So and after this little sort of VT is run its course, we then see a clip of or I'm assuming it was live footage of Cody Rhodes sort of walking backstage where he is.
Guided to his very own personal locker room.
It's a little bit taken back by this didn't it until he gets told it was a courtesy of the final boss.
So we kind of was getting a little taste of things to come if he chooses to accept the Rock's offer and give the Rock his soul.
Yeah, I mean is it is a personal locker room really worth a really worth your soul or.
I mean, I'm sure the personal locker room is probably one of the smaller of the things that is is coming for Cody if he decides to accept Rock's offer.
I mean, we know how generous Rock can be.
Yeah, this is true.
We also know how vindictive he can be.
Oh, yeah.
But that man has enough money to be as petty as he wants to be and really not care.
So, you know, I mean, if I had that sort of money, I'd probably be really at pay as well and not give too many fucks.
I'm not going to lie.
In fairness, you don't need that amount of money to be petty.
No, you're not wrong.
I don't need that amount of money to be petty.
I certainly don't need that amount of money to give zero fucks.
Yes, this is true.
Right. We went from there to was it in ring promo?
Yeah, we got to see Trish Stratus come into the ring to have a little conversation with the Toronto crowd.
Obviously, it's her home crowd.
She is a Hall of Famer and she's getting a little bit of crowd working.
I'm guessing before her match tomorrow night with Tiffy Stratton against Nia Jax and Candice Lorette.
Yeah. And I very much got the impression that this was she was a lot more relaxed than we see some people that are in that are on these TV shows week in week out.
But she does mention really highlighted.
It was only ever really highlighted to when she did this promo and it was a case that I saw how relaxed she was thinking back to even
later on when there are other promos being cut, you can sort of see how tense everybody is.
Yeah. Whereas I think if she was any more relaxed, she'd have been asleep.
Well, she hasn't really got anything to lose.
Is she like she's already a Hall of Famer.
They can't take away the fact that she's a seven time WWE Women's Champion.
And, you know, she's in her hometown, so they're not going to give her too much.
They're going to give her plenty of leeway anyway.
And she's doing never favor, I suppose.
Like I wouldn't have said 25 years after she debuted on WWE TV that we still see Trish Stratus coming into the ring and making appearances and having matches.
Yeah. And in fairness, despite the fact that she's had 25 years in the 25 years of WWE involvement to more or lesser degrees.
Obviously, a lot of that has been out of the ring more recently, but she's still being involved within the business quite a lot.
Yeah. And it can't just be me that thought, do you know what?
Actually, considering she's knocking on for 50 years old, she don't look half odd still.
I suppose what happens when you get Sun, sea and sand? I mean, she spent a lot of her time out in California at the moment, didn't she?
So that's the one place where you can find all three of those.
That is very true.
Yeah. She basically comes out, gives herself a, well, I find it quite fitting actually, she give Lily and Garcia a thanks for her introduction.
And she made a reference about, you know, what year is this?
You know, the Rocks back. I'm in the ring and you've got Lily and Garcia on announcement.
Like, this is pretty cool.
I didn't look too much into when the last time that happened was, but I'm guessing you probably got a good sort of 10 to 15 years on it.
Well, yeah, this is it. It's, um, yeah, it's all, it's, uh, it's, it is a bit odd.
It's, it feels like a bit of a blast from the past because as she mentioned, it's Lily and Garcia announcing.
Trish Stratus is in the ring and Rocks getting into it as well.
It's, we could have, we may as well be back in the fucking attitude era.
Well, yeah. And she did, I find it quite interesting and quite, quite a nice little sort of touch from Trish as well.
And she pointed out to the young woman in the crowd that actually her dad probably had a poster of her on the wall.
And the dad said, like, yeah, it's the really big one. And she's like, I know which one you're talking about.
And she was able to even quote which one it was.
She was. So, I mean, yeah, I think I probably had that same poster. I'm sure you did it one pointless.
I, um, I, I, I, I, yeah, pretty much.
Um, and yeah, I just got a very sort of general sense of genuine gratitude for being able to have a career as long as that.
Because there are wrestlers in the industry that don't make it to WWE that don't have a career even half that.
Yeah, no, of course.
I mean, I agree. I'd be more than grateful to take a career off in that sort of business if I was sort of 10 years younger.
Yeah, you and me both.
Yeah, I do the, the Maverick Logan Paul and buy my way in.
I give Vince McMahon a big old bag of fuck all because that's what I had about 10 years ago.
So that's pretty much what I've got now. So big old bag of fuck all. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
Um, didn't just get to see Trish stratus out at this, uh, well, and Lillian Garcia in this opportunity. We actually had a few special guests come out with this one as well.
We've got, uh, say special guests. We got to see Tiffy Stratton for some Tiffy time. Um, I did like the custom jerseys they had on.
I thought that was kind of cool.
Yeah, I haven't had the goal to have a look to see how quickly they went on eBay.
Right. They've either gone on eBay or they've gone straight and someone's slap tank.
Oh yeah, it's one or the other.
Let me just have a little look. Trish, Stratus, Toronto, Blue Top.
There's lots of trading cards with Trish Stratus on eBay in America at the moment.
There is a photograph of them from behind in the two tops last night from Smackdown, but there isn't the tops as of yet.
Oh, fair enough. In fairness, I've got to be the one to point it out. I'm convinced that Tiffy Stratton's outfit, that Tiffy Stratton's ring gear gets smaller every week.
Yeah. Yeah, I would, I would agree with that.
There, I mean, there's every wonder that woman had had has had at least one wardrobe malfunction in the time that she's been champion of WWE Women's Champion.
Yeah, it's every wonder she's not having one every week.
I mean, a natural Netflix would be too impressed with that. I'm not going to lie.
I'm surprised they've not gotten in trouble for as many as they've had recently.
They just up the up the rating for it and just be like, yeah, okay, we've up the rating.
You let your kids watch it. Go for it. Go for it.
Yeah, pretty much.
But no, so yeah, we got to see a bit of Tiffy Time talking about again, they came out talking about their match tomorrow night.
And I must admit, I turned off a little bit when Tiffy Stratton come out. I'm getting a little bit bored of her.
I'm not sure if it's her voice or like the gimmick that she's going with.
But yeah, her being Women's Champion is getting very thin very quickly with me.
Or just the amount of how much we're seeing her, which is weird because there's, you know, we get interrupted by a third person or third and a fourth person to be fair,
who seems to also be getting shoved down our throats quite a lot at the moment, which is Chelsea Green with Piper Navin.
And yeah, they they come out more or less to basically, well, it's more or less an opportunity for Chelsea Green to run her chops.
I mean, she's very good at doing that. She is very good at cutting a promo.
But yeah, she all we're getting from Chelsea Green at the moment is a lot of running a mouth and not a lot of boots to arses.
No, and this is sort of demonstrated perfectly within this because she comes out, runs her chops, despite being Canadian herself.
She decides to run down Canada.
I mean, you know, it's come to something when you've got a Canadian running down Canada.
I mean, it's a great heel move.
Like, oh, 100% I imagine going as a Canadian just oh yeah, and rip the fuck out of the Canadians.
And yeah, it's great, great heel material.
It is. But I can imagine she wanted to crawl out of her skin afterwards.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure they gave her a hot shower somewhere.
You can't get away from that. That's on Netflix.
But yeah, it's a case that she comes out, runs her chops, runs down everything she could possibly get her get sort of work into the conversation.
And then the minute that Trish, Tiffany Stratton actually suggests that they go into a match tonight.
She tries to run.
I'm busy. I'm busy. Well, she was supposed to have a match tonight anyway, wasn't she?
Because she was told by the general manager that she yes, she wasn't going to elimination chamber, but she was still going to Toronto and she had a match against a mystery opponent.
Or an unknown opponent at that time.
So she was supposed to have had a match.
And this was what we were going to get was then that sort of sort of like her and Trish maybe or you have the the full way of them like in a tag match.
I mean, we've obviously had that.
I mean, Trish Stratton sort of issues the challenge to Nick Aldous is like, if you if Nick, if you're a fan of this idea, send a ref down.
And about two seconds later, we have a ref running towards the ring and it's like, oh, shit, this is happening.
We open the opening match of this SmackDown card was almost like an inadvertent champion versus champion match.
Because obviously, Chelsea Green is the current women's US title holder.
And Tiffany Stratton's got the women's SmackDown title.
So we had a champion versus champion match to open SmackDown, which was don't get me wrong, it's a blinding way to open to open any episode of anything on paper.
This match was better than it actually was, I feel.
Well, it's worth mentioning because we'll come to it eventually anyway, that this this episode of SmackDown wasn't it.
It certainly doesn't seem like it was as it was originally planned.
Yeah.
So a lot of things that have been advertised to happen this week did not happen.
And that is because they reworked some stuff for the Universal, you know, for the United States title, sorry, due to I believe you said it now being vacated since, didn't you?
Due to Shinsuke Nakamura's brother dying.
So there's a rumor floating around.
I don't know how true it is because I don't think WWE have officially confirmed it yet.
But there is a rumor going around that there has been a title vacated within WWE.
And the the overwhelming consensus is that it makes sense because of Shinsuke Nakamura losing his brother in the last week.
And having to take some time out.
It's a case that he may well have vacated the title because it hasn't we've we've commented on it in the past.
It hasn't been seen an awful lot up until recently.
No, it's been a lot of matches building up for a shot at Shinsuke, but we've not really seen Shinsuke until he appeared.
Was it last week on SmackDown?
Yeah, so he's made some appearances in the last few weeks.
And a few TV's and stuff like that.
Yeah, but not really not had him with any sort of in ring action, which to be honest, I'm not that upset about as I'm not a huge Shinsuke Nakamura fan.
Even when he was at the height of his hype, it was a case that I just didn't see the appeal.
Yeah, I've always found it quite boring to be fair.
His matches are normally the ones that I used to go and put the catalog.
Yeah, there's just this.
There's very little.
There's very little to like about the guy.
And that's not dislike him in a heel sort of way.
There's just nothing to like.
There's not a lot for me to like about substance to his character at all.
No.
And yeah, it's a case that.
Yeah, it just it didn't work.
Yeah.
So because of the rework they've done on the episode, some matches were very.
Last minute.
Very.
Yeah, there was a lot of you could tell things were being changed as it was going on.
And, you know, after I would explain a little bit more sort of how they do it a little bit later into the episode, because we've still got this Tiffy Stratton Chelsea Green match to finish.
Discussing.
And they did point out during the commentary did at some point during this match that they had 14,252 in attendance at the Scotiah Centre.
This evening for Smackdown, which means they and I think they pushed it a standing room only, didn't they?
So I don't remember them mentioning about standing room only.
That's the one.
But no, this one was definitely the regavers and numbers.
They must be very close to being sold out if not sold out.
Yeah, very much so.
But yeah, so when the ref came down to the ring, made the match official, we then seem to have gone to an ad break.
We came back from the ad break to see Chelsea Green in control.
I really hate it.
Cut the ad breaks out and we lose half of the match.
Really bugs me.
Well, at one point they were doing it where the Americans would go to an ad break.
We would lose commentary but keep the picture.
Which I enjoy.
They've stopped doing that now.
They have and it's annoying because we end up coming back from ad breaks and it's like, oh, what happened to the start of the match?
And then they try and put in a really like poorly timed, oh, why you're on the ad break?
This is what we saw.
And you're like, well, great, you could have showed me that three minutes ago when I came back from the ad break,
not now when I've forgotten there was an ad break.
Yeah. And I'm going to be honest, I've got a theory that the Americans are probably the reason why we stopped getting that.
I think there are some people online that have flapped their guns about the fact that, oh, when the Americans go for an ad break,
we can still see what's going on so we don't miss anything.
And they've kicked off.
The acts have kicked off essentially saying that it's not fair that we have to suffer ad breaks because it's on cable TV or it's on a station.
It's being broadcast on a station that requires ad breaks and things like that that we miss out and everybody else doesn't.
Because the WWE is an American based corporation.
It is a case that they will adhere to their home audience.
Exactly. I wouldn't blame them.
One did the same thing.
Oh, no, precisely.
I mean, any business person worth assault is going to, you're going to appeal to your core audience,
which in this case is the American audience.
So it makes complete sense.
It's just really annoying for us because we had a taste of what it could be like and now it's been stashed away.
So yeah, we're a little bit bitter about it, but we're not going to say.
Bit like Chelsea Green's elimination chamber appearance.
It was teased and then it got snatched away.
Yeah, it was teased and then snatched away for very good reason.
Oh, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, what did you make of the match itself?
I mean, I've sort of progressed away from it.
I've got the fact it was quite a, you know, it was a very well balanced, very athletic, technically wrestled match with, you know, some really nice sort of high spots within the match.
I don't think they got enough time really before, you know, to actually have the match before the next stage of it came in where obviously they were interfered by Candice Leray and Nia Jax.
Which I'm getting fed up with seeing those two as well to be fair.
Like just let them have a match, like interfere every so often.
Fine.
It does not need to be every time Tiffy goes near the ring that we need to see Nia and Candice Leray.
Well, the unfortunate thing for Nia Jax is that I struggle to remember a time when she wasn't a heel character.
Yeah.
The entire reason she remained relevant is because she's a bully.
Pretty much.
I kind of see think of a heel Nia Jax, of a face Nia Jax to be fair.
No.
No, and even just like, yeah, she's always been a heel and she's always been the bully heel.
And it always means that she interferes in matches and she sort of asserts herself where necessarily she wouldn't have been cast in that role at that point.
Don't get me wrong.
I get the process behind it, but every match, like, come on.
You might as well just join.
Kind of feels like she's jealous that these people are getting more matches than she is.
So she's having to interject herself into those situations.
That is a lot of Nia Jax's stick in general, really, is that she's, it comes, it's born of a lot of jealousy because the, for lack of a way of putting it, the prettier people get more opportunities.
More opportunities than she seems to, even though from a physical standpoint, she's very dominant.
She's, she is reasonably talented.
Yeah, but it's a case that just nobody ever seems to look away.
So there is an element of jealousy in it.
Yeah, I suppose.
But yeah, I mean, there was a few hot.
As you say, it's the match sort of, I'm assuming it ends in a no contest.
The only reason that I'm assuming no contest is because I put it down as a DQ finish, but
Well, the only reason I didn't put it down as a DQ fit is that normally if it's a DQ, it's announced as DQ with the winner announced.
But that wasn't the case.
No, so I put this down as a no contest and in fairness, despite the fact that Candice Leray and Nia Jax were the ones that ran in by the time this match ended or by the time this little running ended, they were the ones that were on the back foot.
Yeah, they basically, they ran in, they tried causing their, well, they did start beating down on Trish Stratus who was ringside.
Was she ringside for the match?
Was she in the crowd?
She was, yeah.
Yeah, she was ringside.
No, she was ringside.
They started beating her down, but they still managed.
Yeah, they basically, they got their ass handed to them on a plate and they disappeared.
They got their asses handed to them by a nearly 50 year old woman in four inch heeled boots.
Yeah.
In her home.
Yeah.
I mean, she is probably one of the most well known female Hall of Famers.
So yeah, I mean, this is the same woman.
This is the same woman that I think it was last year managed to wrestle the Royal Rumble in.
Oh, boots.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, absolutely not.
She turns up ready for work in whatever it is that she's wearing.
It's a case that it really doesn't make any difference.
Oh yeah, she's told you getting in the ring.
She's getting in.
She's like, oh, okay.
I mean, my pajamas will guess what she's getting in the ring and her pajamas.
Didn't see him punk run down to the ring one year and just a towel and a shower cap.
And a purely event.
Yes, he did.
I forget why.
I think it might have been Helen Assal.
Possibly.
But yeah.
So we went from that much in ring to a backstage sort of Nick oldest.
But it wasn't quite in his office, was it?
I put this down as a VT because it was all sort of pre obviously pre recorded.
This wasn't him.
Yeah, it wasn't a live interview.
It was pre recorded VT.
So basically Nick oldest explains what's going to happen for the rest of the episode.
Basically pinpointing the rework for the United States Championship and he's bringing in a tournament for the night.
So there are six people involved in this tournament.
We've got LA Knight who is ending up in a singles match against Santos Escobar for a qualifying match into a triple threat at the end of the evening.
Where he's got a match.
There's a match between Carmelo Hayes and Braun Strowman in exactly the same way.
And also it's announced as a match between Andrade and Solo Sokoa.
Yeah, to be the final one in the triple threat match to become the number one contender for Shinsuke Nakamura's United States title.
Which it wasn't until we found out that Shinsuke Nakamura's brother had passed away that this sort of made sense.
Yeah, I saw it on social media the day.
So yeah, I saw this on social media on Saturday.
Before I watched SmackDown.
So.
And the day that a few weeks prior, the only reason this didn't really sort of make sense and I don't think they really thought about it from a continuity standpoint is that LA Knight had already wrestled a match to become number one contender.
He's then having to.
Rewrestle in a tournament to maintain that position.
So that was the only bit that didn't sort of.
It didn't stick the landing for me, but the storyline work for this was that apparently there's been a lot of.
In fighting between the six gentlemen involved in the tournament over the number one contendership for the for the US title.
I'm calling I was one of the first to think to call bullshit on it because.
Solo so Co has never expressed any interest in the US title on Sunday certainly hasn't Carmelo Hayes is fighting just to win matches.
And Braun Strowman is being trotted out every week or every fortnight to to get a payday and Santos Escobar has been more focused on the on the tag team.
The tag team division than anything else.
Well, so I saw this and lining up in a certain way where I thought we were going to get strome and Fatou and.
I'm not strome and solo sorry and night when it was first announced.
As and then I thought those three people going to go into the triple threat match for the end of it.
Obviously, the next thing we see after Nick Aldis announces these matches is that backstage conversation between Jake, Fatou, Tamatonga and solo so color.
Where solo basically tells Jacob take my spot.
Not really that bothered up.
I'll help you out.
You'd be better with the title.
And this is solo so color still trying to sort of ingratiate himself to.
Motherfucker.
He had the spoon and everything ready this time.
And then they spoke a little bit about the that's super kick that solo so color eight from Jacob Fatou last week.
In his qualifying match.
Was he what was the match for last week where they he ate that super kick because that was a qualifying match for something as well.
Was it the final I want.
I'm trying to remember myself now.
The tag match.
I feel like it might have been yes.
Men's tag team it was the main event from last from last week where solo so color and Jacob Fatou versus Damian Priest and Braun Strowman.
That's the one.
And obviously so Jacob Fatou ends up getting told that he's having this match for the you know he's taking solo's place going into this qualifying thing.
Once that was announced I was like right you get a night Strowman and Fatou and it's basically going to be Strowman and Fatou beating the shit out of each other and I know it's going to steal it.
And that's pretty much how they've been having a lot of these triple threat matches go is the person who wins is the one who does the least work.
And then which which makes sense you know they've done it with a few of the different matches and then that leads into the first one of the three matches for the United States number one contenders triple threat qualifying match.
And which was andrade versus Jacob Fatou which I thought was actually going to be a really good match.
Considering the two wrestling styles and how they're both bigger men if you get me.
Like it was normally with the luchadors like Andrade they tend to be a lot smaller and sort of like more petite and very sort of like fast and sort of quick where andrade is bigger than you stand luchador but you can still pull it off just as well and actually I think he looks slightly better doing it.
Again as it stands I think this was one of the first times that Fatou has ever had to face an opponent quite like quite like Andrade on his own with no backup from tamatonga or anybody else it's a case that it's one of the very few matches we ever see of Jacob Fatou actually wrestling solo.
And having to wrestle solo as well so it was nice to be able to see that he wasn't just being held up by tamatonga.
We know he can actually go when he gets his matches like this and we've started to see a lot more of him without tamatonga or ringside as well.
Yeah and this is I mean it always happens when you have people that are bunched up together that are sort of grouped up together for a while and then one of them gets a solo push and the other one just seems to be they seem to be sort of pushed to the wayside.
Like a spare death in a porn studio.
Yeah pretty much and that seems to be tamatonga all over I mean it would be it would make more sense if they had him competing for something else or involved in another storyline separate and just sort of keep looping him back in with Jacob Fatou every now every now and again.
They can quite easily do that but at the moment he is pay is.
Well I've got a feeling we're going to see we're going to see Zilla Fatou come in soon and I think we'll end up seeing him join up with Jacob tamatonga and solo.
And I think we'll end up seeing a tag team person tamatonga and Zilla Fatou.
That's how I would wear I think they're going to take it anyway.
Well as far as I'm aware Zilla Fatou is doing quite well on the independence at the moment so I don't think he's going to be too.
Well he is not going to be coming into WWE anytime soon.
He said in an interview that with a few months ago that I saw on Facebook and it was like someone said to him like you know WWE when and he went soon.
Like I can't tell you when when but soon. So whether I mean and that was probably like six weeks ago.
So we'll probably see him within the next 12 months I'm guessing I hope and they don't leave it that long but.
Well they need to do something with Tamar if they're going to leave it that long but.
See what happens I suppose there is always another episode.
Because the main two out of this now we're looking at it being either it's it's solo seco and Jacob Fatou tamatonga is the cook in the corner is.
Did you see that stare down between solo and Tamar and Jacob left that little sort of conversation.
Those two giving each other proper eyes like there is a possibility that they work this so that solo seco is doing a lot of ask us in for Jacob Fatou.
He's not really he's not really bothering with tamatonga.
Just tamatonga sneak the leadership out from underneath Jacob Fatou.
No I think we're going to see Fatou eventually forgive secoa.
But because secoa has felt has spent so long dealing trying to ingratiate himself to Fatou and sort of ignoring.
Tonga it's going to be a case that Tonga is going to get a going to get a little nit from the Green Eyed Monster going to get insanely jealous and just start sabotaging solo secoa every term.
I mean I could be an interesting way to go about it.
It's the way I see it working out but it's again I've had some fantastic theories that work out I've also had some terrible ones that work out and I've had some that don't work out as well.
So it's a case that we've still got to wait and see what happens with this but rather than sort of digressing too far because there's a lot of this to get through and I don't want to spend too long dwelling on one thing or thing.
We went into the first match which was Andrade vs. Jacob Fatou and then we went into a VT for WrestleMania being in New Orleans.
And then we ended up backstage in Cody's dressing room with Cody Rhodes and our truth of all people just truth to find out where the food was man like seriously guys walking around though with a tiny ass plate with two shrimp on it.
I think you may have skipped over a few bits and pieces here my dude.
I have. I don't know the backs the Cody Rhodes dressing room promo you're quite right sorry it's because I've written it all out of order.
That actually happened during the the entrance for.
Andrade Fatou. Yeah which Jacob Fatou ended up walking out with the victory becoming the first one in the first one in the triple threat tournament at the main event at the end of the the end of the card.
Let's face it though we're not sorry that was a really bad time to have a sneezing fit we're not going to leave that just quite there though because yes Fatou won but Andrade ended up getting his ass handed to him at the end with that running hip
and then being hit by a spiked impaler DTT and then for that that one of those leaf the last moonsaults that Fatou does as well for a three count like he got bullied into the loss massively.
It's in fairness and Dr. Andrade for all the work you put in realistically probably should have won that match.
Right and he was the upper hand for most of it but you knew that Fatou was going through they weren't going to kill the push they've given Fatou by letting him lose to Andrade clean in a qualifier match for a title.
No because that would have just killed any put it would have killed dead any push that Jacob Fatou was under at the moment. Yeah it would have any momentum he had and there would have been very little to recover from that especially if you've got no future plan at the minute for Andrade which honestly I don't think they have.
They're just giving them a better screen time to give them some money before Charlotte Flair takes it all well takes any more after that divorce.
Well it's again I sort of feel sort of a little bit sorry for Andrade he left WWE.
Yeah went to AEW. Yeah.
Did reasonably well in it did reasonably well in AEW left AEW to come back to WWE.
And they and now he's a jobber.
It feels like it feels like a like a massive kick to the nuts for and I'm not going to lie that's how I think that's how I'd be feeling unless they're constantly promising him like oh we've got some we've got some in the works for you just got to stick with it just stick with it we've got something in the works for you let us just let us cook a minute and.
I thought they were going to introduce him possibly with the Rey Mysterio and not Rey Mysterio with the Chad Gable angle but.
I'm not quite sure what what's taken quite so long without one that could be a way they push it but I don't think it will be.
He's going to he's going to end up getting wasted if they put him in programming with Chad Gable and it would involve having to swap him over to Chad Gable Raw.
Yes he is.
So yeah you end up having to swap them over.
They're outside of transfer window now so.
It's not going to make any sense for him to to go in that direction but yeah so.
We went from the Fatou Andrade match as Rich said to a backstage promo where we see sort of Cody Rhodes in this new dressing room which basically has a wall of wine on it it's.
It sort of looks like they just stuck him in the middle of a restaurant and said yeah this is your locker room.
Yeah you see all that sushi that's at room temperature now I wouldn't eat any of it but it's it's there.
It looked very very nice but yeah like you said not not digesting any of that that is a night on this shitter waiting to happen.
Yeah and yeah it seems it seems that our truth has just sort of let himself in he's chilling out helping himself to Cody Rhodes spread and.
You found the sushi didn't he?
No wonder we didn't see our truth tonight he was in the bathrooms he was eating all that shrimp that was no good.
Yeah no I can't imagine that was freshly put out just before that promo started somehow.
No that's been there all day that was the catering van come on.
And our truth is talking to Cody Rhodes obviously about the Rocks offer.
I'm not gonna lie I love the subtle nod to the Rocks dad.
Rocky my via no.
Yeah Rocky my via I want to say.
So he had a subtle nod to the Rocks dad he was a wrestler he trained the Rock initially.
And obviously the Rock is after Cody Rhodes' soul and the subtle nod that our truth gives is.
To the soul man Rocky Johnson.
Rocky Johnson that's it Rocky my via was was what the Rock wrestled under at one point for a very short amount of time.
There's a Rock Rocks granddaddy was the great high chief Peter Malvia.
Yeah.
Who was obviously the first generation WWE wrestler of that specific family and now it seems that that family owns or is is the WWE.
Which has been the case for longer than longer than we realize of box longer than Dwayne Johnson's been on TV.
He owns board of directors.
Yes.
But yes the truth basically makes the suggestion that you know what if it's like this maybe selling your soul isn't so bad.
I like how they've added in like other wrestlers within this storyline kind of given their input.
You know we saw Seth Rollins give his a Monday night Raw and I think he had a very good point.
You know and it's a lot of the way they've got other people coming in going you know I do this I do that.
I quite like it to be fair like it's been interesting just to serve you know for the people to have their input with the people's champion if you get me.
That's what you class themselves as he's the WWE Universe champion.
Yeah this is it.
But yeah I mean anything big like this in any workplace you're going to get people who are going to want to weigh in.
Yeah you get it everywhere you go and WWE is no different it is a workplace at the end of the day.
People are going to have their opinions even if there are truth who lives in our truth land for 90% of his life.
But yeah we went from the backstage promo that then went into on Fridays versus Jacob Farthew the match.
We then went out of there and went into a VT promo which recapped.
Recapped SmackDown from last week where the Street Profits basically laid waste to about 85% of SmackDown's tag team division.
Yeah well you got to think that last week on SmackDown Street Profits laid out DIY pretty deadly, Motor City Machine Guns and was there another team out there at the time?
Nope it was those three.
Yeah and they laid them out like.
It was a title match between DIY and pretty deadly.
It was.
Street Profits came out to interfere.
Motor City Machine Guns came out to, we still don't know what Motor City Machine Guns were trying to do when they came out but they came out and got a can of whupast opened on them.
Yes, yes they did.
And that's when we cut to a pre-recorded backstage conversation between sort of Nick Aldous and the Street Profits.
The one thing that I'd latched onto more than I possibly should have done is the fact that despite obviously the Street Profits being upset at the fact that they were put on the shelf for three months due to injury, due to being jumped.
It's a case that they're still very respectful of the position that Nick Aldous holds.
Which is nice because it's not something we see very often especially in, I'm guessing they're casting themselves in a heel role at the moment but I'm not 100% certain of that.
Yeah no, obviously we haven't really seen much from Street Profits in rings since we started Finishers and Factions.
So the fact that all we've seen is them run in and lay waste to pretty much everyone multiple times has been interesting to me for now.
I'm looking forward to seeing them get in the ring.
But it's all being a little bit sort of iffy because they were promised this title and they're not going to stop until they get this title shot that they were promised three months ago.
But time doesn't wait for no champion.
I think if you've been out for that long you go down to the bottom of the list and you work your way back up again.
Yeah, this is it. I mean Street Profits are one of the more experienced tag teams in the division.
I mean the Street Profits themselves sort of debuted back in 2016.
It's a case that they're not new kids on the block by any way, shape or form.
Well then they should know how it goes, surely?
Well, I think that before Street Profits took all this time out I think they threw quite a lot of accusations around just based on what happens next in this little VT where we see Legardo del Fantasma come along asking for apologies for some false accusations that were made.
Now again, this all, everything that happened with Street Profits happened well before the Netflix era.
So the gist I got from this was they got attacked but no one saw who attacked them.
It wasn't like an in-ring attack or it was like a backstage attack and they reckon it was del fantasma.
But obviously Santos Escobar is pissed about the fact that they think it's them.
Is this, are we going to find another situation here about who killed Jade Cargill?
Yeah, this is it. It's a case that before it gets too heated between these two teams we have Nick Alders still present sort of cuts in and says, look, Street Profits have got a match versus Los Garza later on tonight which has implications on the tag team championship picture
and Santos Escobar has at least one match to wrestle tonight and they all need to go off and start preparing.
So basically it's a case of shut up, fuck off and get ready for your matches basically.
Which was the next part of the programming was the Street Profits versus Los Garza.
Yeah, so this was match three, immense tag team match and it wasn't, honestly, it wasn't even a match.
I wouldn't even call it that. Los Garza got an entrance and Street Profits got jumped.
Yeah, and Street Profits got jumped by DIY of all people coming in for their chunk of flesh as that line was quoted.
But so already you knew that whatever match they had planned had just gone straight out the window like Guerrilla must have just been going, you know what, fuck it.
Just how about it? Have fun. We'll be back in five minutes. I need a cigarette and a coffee because that's pretty much what happened.
It was just five to 10 minutes of pure fucking chaos.
Well, it wasn't even as though those were the only teams involved because we had pretty deadly who came down to settle their beef as well.
And then we had a shit ton of security come running out, followed by the Motor City machine guns.
Well, I'm sorry that security may well have not come out.
They couldn't fucking organize a piss up and a brewery those fucked on. That was fucking diabolical.
It was about three or four guys. They all stood on one corner of the ring with their dicks in their hand basically.
They may as well have done. They may as well have literally just flopped it out in their hand and gone, yeah, that's what we're here to do.
I'm here to strike best.
It was made about the much sense of what they actually did.
Well, they were all stood around like I said, but they're coxing around and then for about five minutes and then all of a sudden they start getting involved.
At which point, you know, you've already got an eight man fucking last man standing melee in the ring.
They just kick and fuck out of everyone's kicking fuck out of everyone at this point.
Yeah, obviously, we know they're not actually kicking the fuck out of them.
We do know it's scripted and choreographed, but they're going ham in the middle of the ring.
Yeah, this is it. And yeah, it's just complete chaos.
The match gets completely scrapped because yeah, they were bodies are in everywhere.
They weren't getting that back under control.
And then no.
So yeah, no, this was this was fucked.
We ended up cutting backstage while the security dealt with what was going on in ring to have a sort of a little watch of an interview.
Well, not even in an interview, it's a conversation between our our favorite person at the moment, Mr. Drew McIncrier talking.
The great Scottish cry baby.
Talking to the American nightmare Cody Rhodes about the decision that he's got ahead of him tomorrow night at the elimination chamber.
And he sympathizes a little bit with Cody, because, you know, 10 years ago, they were both so low that in the company that they'd have done anything to kind of get to where they they wanted to be.
But, you know, it was a bit of a shame he didn't offer it to Drew because Cody sold his soul years ago.
Which I've known a little bit more behind what it was specifically that he did to sell his soul about them.
Yeah, I can't be the only bit that really confused me about that is that I don't generally if somebody infers something, I mean, it generally tends to fly straight out of my head anyway, but that's it's a case that when it comes to the WWE,
it's normally something that's happened recently. So I genuinely don't know what it is that McIncrier thinks Rhodes has done to sell his soul recently that that meant that he could make that sort of a comment or whether he was just trying to say something to get
under Cody's skin, because that's a possibility as well.
But yeah, I mean, sports, he reckons that this was drew saying that Cody's already sold his soul to the rock.
So that he'd already possibly agreed to something maybe.
Yeah.
But that's apparently they they exchange text messages all the time and drink tequila in the back at the end of live shows. So who knows they might rock says all this but Cody doesn't look to convince Cody's kind of like the fucking chatting about bro.
Have you been you on mushrooms?
He's maybe on the same stuff as our truth.
This is not the same stuff as that guy in the tech talk I sent you the day.
Apparently you can't tell the difference between Tomasso Ciampa and Triple H.
No, no, or Shawn Michaels and Johnny Gargano.
That was a difficult one. I'm not going to lie. Like the Tomasso Ciampa one I could understand but Shawn Michaels and Johnny Gargano was a bit of a stretch.
Yeah, that was it was a bit of a stretch wasn't it?
It's definitely a bit of a stretch.
But we then we follow that up. WWE is makes a bit of an announcement saying that they're going back to Perth, Australia this year.
They haven't said when and what for but it's apparently a weekend takeover of Perth, Australia.
So I'm going to take a guess.
There's going to be an XT takeover paper view there and it's going to be possibly SummerSlam over there as well.
You think it's going to be SummerSlam?
It's the elimination chamber last time.
It was but we've just been doing elimination chamber now.
So I think SummerSlam could be interesting because if they do SummerSlam in Australia in the like the sort of time period it is, it would actually be winter in Australia.
Yeah, that's true.
So SummerSlam this year apparently is the weekend at the second of August.
But it's in the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
So I fucked that one already.
So we possibly see maybe Hell in a Cell.
That is a good show.
I'm going to say Hell in a Cell in Perth, Australia.
I mean, hopefully it's better than AEW did in Perth, Australia.
Maybe WWE might be able to get their ring out there.
Yeah, that's it.
Maybe WWE will be able to get a full size ring.
Hell in a Cell is no longer a paper view.
Finished in 2023.
It was rebranded as King and Queen of the Ring.
That might be the way they go with it then.
That was changed to Knight of Champions.
Jesus Christ, that was...
There'll be a paper view at some point in Perth, Australia that has NXT one night on a takeover.
And then a big paper view on the Saturday.
Basically, WWE are going to pay a shitload of money to fire a bunch of people that already make a shitload of money over to Perth, Australia for a weekend of wrestling in the Netherlands.
Making a shitload of money and getting drunk.
Yeah, pretty much.
For our privilege on TV.
So we go from...
WWE's announcement.
Well, more of DKO's announcement.
Was that into the scene of the retirement tour of ET again?
Yeah, this bloody ET.
Well, to be fair, we're not the only ones who think that at the moment because, I mean, I don't get me wrong, fucking BT.
Every opportunity they get to throw it in that it's seen as retirement tour, they're getting it in.
Did you know that Cena is retiring at it?
What?
You'd think they'd mention it.
Yeah, it's a retirement tour.
At least 62 times in a three hour program.
Yeah.
I must have missed that one. I think I missed the fucking memo.
But, yeah.
It's all builder, I suppose.
It makes me a little bit sick to my stomach that the other person that feels exactly the same way as us about this fucking BT.
Mr. McIntyre.
Yeah, he just came out and cried.
Yeah, pretty much.
He came out, ragged on Cena.
I said he was going to rag on Cena.
He talked about Cena being a hypocrite.
That bald spot.
Oh, mate, that bald spot that needs its own area code.
Oh, yes.
And what Cena from 2010, 2011 and say about present day Cena.
But is he wrong with that part? He made a lot of valid points.
He did it all to the rock. You're a part timer. You're lazy. You never hear. You don't do this.
What's all the things that Cena's done? Boom.
Yeah.
And it wasn't even that long ago, which is the even more embarrassing thing.
But McIntyre doesn't stay out there on his own for very long.
As he when he starts talking about his is his 2024 season, if you like.
Damian Priest comes out and decides to tell him to shut his trap.
Drew, Drew, it's enough. All you do is cry and miss you right through you.
Yeah, the best line that Damian Priest came out with in this entire promo that he cut was, dude,
our truth makes more sense than you.
After Drew tried telling everyone that he just speaks the truth and it's like, you know, fuck off us.
Our truth makes more sense than you do.
And he's in the back with a big bag or something fun that he shouldn't have right now.
He's in the back sitting on the car, sitting on the shitter.
He's got too much room temperature sushi.
And yeah, Priest does his own recap of Drew's year last year and sort of he comes to the quite a valid conclusion
that Drew's just obsessed with CM Punk to the point that he's actually starting to behave like him.
It's when it's pointed out to Drew that he sat cross-legged on the announced desk trying to drop a pipe bomb.
He actually turns around and goes, I dropped the pipe bomb around here now.
And I'm like, no, you don't. Fuck off.
Yeah, sat on that announced table like 2010 CM Punk just about to run out of SummerSlam with the World title and never return.
Yeah, smart. He came back.
He just made the entire promo that he cut that day that pipe bomb completely like null and void because he came back.
Well, no, because a lot of what he said, I mean, he started getting basically from interviews that I've seen about that pipe bomb.
I'm not going to digress too far into this, but from the interviews I've seen,
basically they gave him a microphone and said, just go out and say, what's on your mind?
Right.
And then he got to a certain point where he started making personal comments about Vince and the family.
And that was it. That was when they were like, no, fucking cut him off.
Cut him off before he says something we're all going to regret.
And one thing you don't do is get Phil Brooks and microphone and say, here, go have.
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, but yeah, we're going to digress away from the digression.
So Damien and Damien and Drew are basically about to get into it when they are interrupted by the human pillow himself.
Seth freaking Rollins.
Honest to God, does anybody seriously tell him what he looks like when he walk when he walking around in these fucking outfits?
Have we missed punk bit coming in?
No, because punk doesn't come in until after Rollins has already been in.
Right. Yeah. So Rollins comes in and like I've got in my notes here that Seth Rollins is dressed like Jasmine from Aladdin.
And he was just fucking stupid.
He basically comes in, he calls everybody in the he calls priest or moron and he calls Drew a moron.
And then they basically tells them all that they haven't got a chance.
However, there's one thing that has nothing to do with Seth Rollins that I noticed in this part at this particular part that made me laugh more than I probably should have done.
Is that if you watch this part of the promo back, there is a guy in the crowd holding a sign that says Drew McIncrier wipes his arse side to side.
Quoted on this sign and I'm sorry, one of the best signs I've seen in a very long time in the crowd is the one that says Drew McIncrier wipes his arse from side to side.
That is ruthless. You've got to love the WWE Universe, his ability to come out with some of these signs.
Oh, 100%. But now this is when CM Punk comes out.
Yes, a punk.
From the personality himself.
Yeah. I've got so many notes about this specific section, but it just doesn't feel like any of them make any sense.
Now I'm looking at them again.
And I know punk tells Rollins that he looks like an oven mitt.
Yeah, which I thought was fucking quality.
Especially considering I've seen a meme online that shows Tess Rollins in that outfit and then an oven mitt that looks exactly like that outfit.
It looks exactly like that outfit.
It's pretty sure I've got one in the kitchen that looks exactly like that outfit, just a different colour.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, punk basically agrees with something that priest said in fairness, he does turn to priest at one point and just says,
I'm sorry, I don't have an issue with you.
Did you notice at this point, though, that you've got Drew on the announce table, you've got Rollins and priest in the ring.
The only person who doesn't actually set foot in that ring up to now is punk.
He spends his entire time on the outside.
Yeah.
And I kind of thought this was quite an interesting moment, he makes himself out to be the outsider and now he's really trying to sort of like push that at the moment about,
you know, he doesn't really need anyone and then he stands away from everyone else.
And then while the other three were kind of doing their thing.
And then the one, I'm not going to lie to you, they got me with this next bit, like they got me hooked.
So before we go any further,
we have to make sure that we mention this part because it's integral to what happens next.
So punk echoes a sentiment that we knew have spoken about a lot on and off the podcast is that Cena is on this retirement tour that he's not really on.
Yes.
This is the point where, yes, this even got me.
I knew it was going to, I'd seen a spoiler online because I hadn't watched it live.
I watched it read, I watched it re-edited afterwards as I always do.
It's a case that I'd seen a spoiler online that this was going to happen.
So I knew it was going to happen and it still caught me off guard because the next thing we hear is seen as music hit.
Right.
And let me say it caught me hook, line and sinker.
I was generally waiting for the man that you cannot see to come running out with a microphone in his hand instead.
We've got the knobhead known as Logan Paul come out with a microphone in his hand, laughing his ass off at the fact that he just managed to troll.
I mean, in fairness, the guy punked not just all of Toronto, but pretty much 90 percent.
I'm going to take a guess at 90 percent of the view.
Yeah.
He's got us all, bro.
Like, I don't know about you, but every time I hear seen as entry music when it comes to a match or something on those lines, I always get goosebumps.
It's just one of those, you know, you're going to get something half decent, right?
And we've watched the guy our entire lives when he's been in ring and competing.
Like, I always get a little bit of goosebumps and it got me and I was like, yes.
And then I heard Logan Paul's voice and I was like, son of a bitch.
Like, you could have literally done anything to me right now.
You could have reminded me of the game.
And I'd have been less pissed off than what I would have been.
Then what I was sorry when I heard Logan Paul's voice.
I can hate you.
You're a dick.
Right, I'm going to crack on because I'm in the fuck.
Yeah, no.
Fuck you.
Fuck you, your big nose prick.
Right.
Yeah, Logan Paul basically comes out and pushes this agenda that he is now a full time wrestler and even has the gall.
And I'm sorry, while I will stand up for the fact, stand up to the fact that we have said that Cena is more part time than part time at the moment.
It still hit a little bit different when Logan Paul decides to call him a celeb wrestler.
I mean, John Cena is currently doing the hours that a part time waitress on Sick Pay does.
So, you know, like there isn't a lot of time there for him.
Like you said, for him to refer to Cena as a celebrity wrestler is a bitch move.
Yeah.
Consider it a little bitch.
And I mean, Logan Paul just comes out and basically rags on everybody.
He takes this pop at the Toronto Maple, the Toronto Maple leaves.
I mean, that's a valid point.
He mentioned somebody else.
I don't really remember who it was, but he takes a, I'm guessing it's a local sports hero of some kind.
It was Austin, someone.
Something like that.
And yeah, Logan Paul basically takes a pop at each and every single person in the ring calls through Damien Priest irrelevant.
Which, yeah, I have a tough time sort of, I have a tough time being able to rebuke that because he's not the most relevant person in the ring.
He's the guy with the fewest lines and that was when Logan Paul came out last.
And yeah, basically Logan Paul takes a run at everybody leaves punk for last and Pete keeps poking and poking and poking until punk basically makes a play for him.
And Logan Paul runs off like the bitch ass he is.
The only thing that I could think of while watching Logan Paul turn tail and run like a coward is he hasn't got anywhere to run in 24 hours.
No, he doesn't.
He's going to be sealed in a chamber waiting to come out because I severely doubt he's going to be the first one.
He's going to be one of the initial two in the ring.
No, but I think the way they're building this Logan Paul CM punk thing, I think that's going to be punk's WrestleMania match this year is Logan Paul.
I know he's going into the elimination chamber in 24 hours time, but there's an elimination that elimination chamber matches got a lot of big names in it and they can't all go on to main event WrestleMania.
So I think you know that Logan Paul isn't walking out of that elimination chamber with his hand raised.
No, that's a that's a given. I'm still putting money on the fact I had a little bit of a wobble when we spoke about it and when we were doing finishes and factions does Monday night raw just gone.
That were where I said, I think it could actually be punk's year.
I'm going to be honest.
I still think there's a possibility, but my main if if I had to split a bet and bet money on it, it's seen a walking out of that with his hand raised 100%.
Yeah, there's no other way around it.
No, I can't see them doing any other way around it.
But no, so we then end up going from that dispersing in ring into a VT for the six women tag match that we have later on in the evening.
At this point, I hadn't made a note of who it was within that match later on found out it was Roxanne Perez with Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez versus Bailey Naomi and Bianca Belair, which we get into a little bit later on in the episode.
Yeah, so the VT prep, the this six woman tag match is born of something that happened on the Elimination Chamber kickoff show that happened earlier in the day where Michael Cole was interviewing Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, our new women's tag team champions about the Jade Cargill attack.
Yeah, there's still one. It was not there. And yeah, everyone wants to know who attacked Jade Cargill. And we got a little bit more information about it this week was I didn't actually know what happened to her.
But this week we find out she was hit by a car.
Well, she was done. Something was done to her which left her going through the windscreen of a vehicle bum first.
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez have been very careful about how they were their responses went asked about it. Yeah, the only time they've ever expressly said that they didn't do it was Monday night just gone during a judgment day Clubhouse promo where they did say, yeah, no, it wasn't it wasn't us.
But every other time they're asked, it's they don't say no, it wasn't us. It's a is it would we be sorry if we had done it? Not really. No, we wouldn't. No, that very much skirt around the question.
They are dropping hints that it could have been them. I still think your theory on Naomi is pretty pretty tight on that one.
It's just it makes so much sense. No, they had the most amount to gain.
Now they've lost the titles as well. You know, the Monday night raw before elimination chamber, we're going to see a bomb drop in the women's elimination chamber much tomorrow.
I think.
Well, we end up with those two in the ring together.
I've seen something online that says that since Smackdown went out, I've seen that Jade Cargill is cleared for in ring competition.
I've seen that back imminently.
I've seen that as well.
Yeah. So so it's it's going to happen. I can feel it.
And if they won't tell us or don't tell us before Jade Cargill comes back from her injuries, Jade Cargill will tell us when she comes back.
Oh, 100%.
And that's when brown stuff is going to hit the fun.
I am waiting for the word Naomi to pass her lips as it went asked, who was it who attacked you?
If she says the word Naomi, you are going to be partying in your front room like a 13 year old because you'll be like, I called it, I called it, I called it.
I don't think I can masturbate that furiously.
I ran out of breath 30 seconds in.
Two sex lofty device.
Anyway, we went from that VT into match four, which was another men's singles match for the US title number one contenders triple threat, which saw a night versus Santos Escobar.
Yeah, this one didn't really this is going to sound really strange considering this is an LA night match and I really enjoy watching it.
I wasn't that interested in this one. I knew as soon as they announced LA night versus Santos Escobar, this had squash match slash just not really relevant written all over it.
One of those that you'll remember it like 12 hours later when you're recording a podcast episode looking at notes.
But once you've been to bed and come back to it, you're not remembering it.
So I actually thought this was one of the bed like out of the three qualifiers.
Actually think this was the better match.
In terms of because obviously we haven't yet discussed Carmelo Hayes versus Braun Strowman.
We haven't.
We'll discount that one for the moment. We have already broken down Jacob Fatou versus Andrade, which we kind of knew was going to be a bit of a beat down as soon as we realized that Jacob Fatou was replacing Sirlec Coa.
So as soon as that announcement was made, we knew where that was going.
We knew that Fatou was going to win.
Are you expected that one to be the squash match?
Yeah, that was a better match to be fair.
As we discussed, Andrade was ahead for a majority of that match.
He held the control and then Fatou just got something in really well timed.
An intense beat down in the throat ensued and he managed to pull out the win.
Other than that, he was on the back foot for majority of that match.
He was, yeah.
So that one was the most surprising result based on what happened within the match on paper.
We knew Jacob Fatou was walking out winner.
Like we do with this one to be fair, because like we said earlier, LA Knight is already the number one contender.
They're just beefing out his runner's number one contender with these matches, I think.
Santos Escobar has been more of the tag team title, so he's not really got a horse in this race, so why would they put him through?
No, but having said that, he didn't put up a bad match.
No, he had a decent match to be fair. He did have a decent match.
He pulled off a massive super, super horror conrana from the top rope on LA Knight at one stage.
Yeah, that looked like it hurt.
Oh, yeah, it definitely was. That was probably one of the only highlights of that match, though, for high-risk maneuvers that I made a note of.
There may have been more in there. I lost a bit of interest in this match.
So the only other note that I made was...
So I made a couple of other notes here. So Knight tries to send Escobar into the ring steps, but it was reversed.
LA Knight ends up colliding with the steps himself, but head first.
I also made a note of the finish, how it finished.
So Escobar goes up top for the crossbody.
He's caught by LA Knight in a Blood Force Trauma BFT.
In midair. Yeah.
It looked a little bit like... When he did it, I'm not going to lie, it looked a little bit RKO-ish, but...
It worked. It did. It did what it was supposed to.
But we know ultimately LA Knight advances to be the second person in the triple threat in the main event.
Yep, and we went from that match into a VT about the Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and sanctioned match tomorrow night at Elimination Chamber.
And then...
Which went into an in-ring promo with Sami Zayn coming out to address...
Well, he came out to address Kevin Owens.
Yeah, he did, and he basically just kind of said to him that, you know, they've been through a lot together over the years,
but Kevin's been running and hiding like a little bitch.
And he knows that Kevin's in Toronto because they've got that match at Elimination Chamber tomorrow night,
and he told him that he'd be there.
And he was basically just saying, look, if there's anything you want to say before our match tomorrow, come to the ring, just say it.
You know, let's get it all off our chest because after our match tomorrow night, there's not going to be much left to say.
And in fairness, to Kevin Owens, he did come to a ring.
He did.
He just won the ring in the Scotiabank arena.
No, Kevin Owens, when he came into the camera on the on the Taitron, was actually stood in the ring in the Rogers Centre, Toronto,
which is where they are holding tomorrow night's Elimination Chamber match.
And he basically just said that he'd gone there to get his head straight and kind of prepare himself and kind of,
yeah, kind of get himself into the zone for his his unsanctioned match with Sammy the next night.
The one particularly chilling bit of what Kevin Owens said that I did take a note of was basically Kevin saying that he's going to take pleasure in watching.
Not he's not going to take, he's well, he is going to end up taking pleasure in what he does to Sammy's in in their own sanction match tomorrow.
But it's a case that he's more so thinking of taking more pleasure out of watching Sammy Zane's family struggle when he ends Sammy Zane's career and he will do nothing to help them.
Bearing in mind that these guys have been close friends for 20 odd years.
Yeah.
I mean, so to be able to say something like that, I think it shows the level that this is sort of some kind of,
some to and despite what Kevin Owens says himself, this is all of Kevin Owens's own doing.
Yes.
And we've put these two guys have pulled out some incredible promos for this match, but I'm not going to lie to you.
I just want to watch them fight.
Yeah, we're less than 24 hours removed from when they're due from when they're due to tee off against one another at the Rogers Center.
This promo fell touch flat just because we're of where we were and how we were getting.
I mean, I don't see them continuing to be friends, despite no matter what happens in that unsanctioned match at Elimination Chamber,
realistically, that friendship is done.
Definitely.
I will say that whatever does happen in that unsanctioned match,
I don't think this is the end of the storyline.
I think this is going to continue through to Mania and one of the matches at Mania will be Kevin Owens and Sammy's own.
Yeah, it's not going to.
It's not going to be the last we hear of it by any by any way shape or form.
No, they'll take a week or two out to try and show like, you know, they're really, really hurting that much.
And then they'll come back in two, three weeks and they'll be like, oh, yeah, no, no injuries.
Yeah, this is it.
So we went from there to a backstage promo, which sees one of our favorite people, the Miz and Carmelo Hayes.
And basically the Miz giving Hayes a bit of a pep talk before his match, which is coming up next, realistically.
But the one thing that I sort of didn't expect to see,
was Carmelo Hayes has really started embracing the the reality of Melo don't Miz.
I think he's got a win under his belt with Miz now and it's it's the Miz is trying bless him.
And I think he's just kind of rubbing off.
But what I what I found interesting is you've got the Melo don't Miz and then it's not just a lifestyle.
It's awesome.
Which was like, oh, dear God, they've even got a catch phrase to go with it now.
So you know, these guys are getting pushed into a tight.
It was such a cringy fucking.
Yeah, it was.
But you know, these guys are going to get pushed because it'll get over with some of the crowd because of our cringy ears.
Yes, I know.
And yeah, it's to be expected.
But, um, but yeah, it's it's going to be one of those.
But yeah, Hayes basically says, look, I don't need you at ringside.
Don't need you the Miz at ringside to be able to do anything else.
It's literally a case.
Let me take care of it myself.
And then he fucks off to go and go and take part in his match, basically.
And then goes from there.
So Carmelo Hayes leaves Cody Rhodes, Cody Rhodes comes into shot.
And the big takeaway I got is Miz saying, trying to convince him to take rocks, rocks offer before somebody else does.
And it was that last bit that got me.
Who else could rock in theory, get his claws into to fuck with Cody?
That's not Roman or punk.
Yeah, this is it.
It's it's one of those.
We're not.
Yeah.
It's just a really odd thing to say.
It is, but we know what WWE are like, and we will probably find out either later on today, elimination chamber or at some point in the next week, sort of what Miz meant by that specific comment.
Yeah, I think they don't drop things like that in for no reason.
They love they love a line that will be a gimmick or a head start for something.
There's too much of a throwaway for it not to be.
Yeah, this is it.
So we go from there to in ring where we see the last of the number one contenders.
First round matches, which is Braun Strowman versus Carmelo Hayes. And honestly, I don't think.
I think, despite what happens in the match, I think we all sort of saw where this one was going to end up going.
Yeah.
Carmelo Hayes was completely outclassed completely outmatched in every aspect.
Yeah. I mean, if you just look, it takes like three Carmelo Hayes just to make Braun Strowman's leg.
So it was a bit of an interesting matchup to say the least.
But it had me on grip of hooks to see where it was going, even though I was adamant from the start that Braun Strowman was winning this and winning it pretty comfortably.
I am. But as we got through the match and we like, I didn't get a huge amount of notes for this one.
I'm not going to lie.
Not for any sort of major spots, so to speak.
So I'm not sure what you picked up, Adam.
So there wasn't really anything to pick up on it in when it comes to this.
Because basically Carmelo Hayes spent about three, four minutes of being ragdolled by Braun Strowman,
at which point we see Tamatonga run down from the back to jump onto the apron to distract the ref.
Well, we've got Solo Sakao coming out of the crowd with a chair to basically try and do one over on Braun Strowman.
But again, Braun Strowman is one big SOB.
It's going to take more than a punky chair shot to take the man down.
Yes, definitely.
I couldn't remember where the chair had come from, but I didn't see Solo bring it in.
I saw Tamatonga run down, so I must have been looking at the keyboard typing when Solo brought that chair round throughout the crowd.
Yeah, I saw him armed.
He was revealed to us as armed with that chair.
So it's a case that the only thing I didn't pick up on is what happens next.
So I don't remember how the chair ended up in the ring.
I'm guessing it got taken into the ring by Braun Strowman from the outside.
In which case, how did it end up in Carmelo Hayes' possession?
If Strowman slid it under the bottom rope as he got into the ring, if Hayes has picked it up or he's over slid it too far,
and Hayes has got his hands on it, what Hayes does with it though is pure naughty.
And it was nice to see another tribute to the late great Eddie Guerrero.
It's a tribute to the old man who wasn't done by Dom Mysterio.
Pretty much. They're getting a little bit boring now because Dom does them week in and week out when he stands on the ring.
He shakes his butt.
But to see the old fake you with the chair, bash it into the mat and toss it at your opponent and then flip yourself onto your ass going,
oh yeah, be with a fucking chair.
For Braun Strowman to be stood there like a twat with his dick in his hand holding a chair too.
Yeah, it's been a very long time since we've seen it done well.
So the fact that we got to see it on this occasion, as I said, done well, it's a case that, yeah, it was just nice to be able to see it come out of,
almost come out of retirement I suppose.
Yeah, pretty well.
So if you can do it, well do it. If you can't do it well, leave it the fuck alone.
Yeah, it's got to be done. It's got to be done in the right way. And that was just, yeah, choreograph.
Yeah, so obviously we end up in a disqualification ending to this one because the ref believes that Strowman has smashed Carmelo Hayes with a chair.
So he disqualifies Braun Strowman, which sends Carmelo Hayes into the triple threat main event with Jacob Fatou and LA Knight to find out who is going to be the number one contender for the United States title.
But before we get into that big bundle of fun, we have a backstage VT with Naomi and Bianca Belair talking to Bailey
about the former Tag Champs wanting to get their hands on Liv Morgan for attacking Jade Cargo.
Still, I mean, we've seen it from one side, we're seeing it from the other. It happens with every sort of VT, I suppose, but just, yeah, just revealed to us who beat up Jade Cargo.
And to be fair, it's not been that long since we spoke about Jade Cargo anyway. I think it was about 20 minutes since we previously heard about Jade Cargo.
Yeah, it's one of those that they are. Have they hit the point now of overhyping it? Is that where we've is that the sort of?
I'll tell you something. If Jade Cargo doesn't come back reveal who could like beat her up and kick some serious motherfucking ass in her return, and then the hype is not being worth it.
Yeah, this is it. I mean, like some booty needs to be battered for the for the beating that she took.
Yeah, this is it. So, yeah, we, I'll be honest, I don't feel like that that little backstage promo was really necessary.
No.
Didn't add anything as such. It's just, yeah, wasn't wasn't enamored by this. It wasn't something that I felt we could have quite easily given some more minutes to another match and cut that promo out completely.
Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you. I felt very similar about the next match.
I'm really not going to lie to you on paper. The next match was phenomenal. Adam, did I miss anything? Or did we go from that VT into the next match?
No, we went from that VT into the next match, which was the six woman tag team match, which saw Liv Morgan, Roxanne Perez and Rocquel Rodriguez versus Bailey Bianca Berleau and Naomi.
And yeah, I mean, for what could have been an absolutely phenomenal match, it just felt a bit lacklustre.
What I'm going to say is this entire episode to this point feels like it has gone from being phenomenal at the start. You know, we get like a great start to the episode and everything from there has kind of gone downhill.
I kind of feel like it needs to have been reversed. So we got the naff at the start. And then when you get to the end, you get the, you know, your big match, your main event, the most interesting one of the night, which so far for me was that opening match.
Yeah, I'm in very much the same boat. I mean, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the bit at the end of this match. I mean, there wasn't a lot that I took notes on. I did take note on the finish.
So Perez hits pop rocks on Bailey for the three count. But other than that, it was all I got for most of it was that the match was basically a brawl for 50% of it. And the other 50% of it just wasn't worth talking about.
I put it down that the match was it was if the match was 10 minutes long. It was an opportunity for six superstars all to get their shit in.
Yeah.
Which in fairness, they did all of them got a chance to play dominant superstar.
They did.
But just wasn't it wasn't worth giving that time for what we got. The only bit of this match, as I said that I enjoyed after Perez gets the pin on Bailey and Perez Morgan and Rodriguez are in the ring celebrating winner.
It's just Perez is celebrating when one of my favorite superstars sneaks into the ring behind it.
Adam.
Yeah.
And I have to press button before I say this next superstar or otherwise otherwise the other thing listens.
No, we have Alexa Bliss join us in ring. She seemingly comes out of nowhere and and plants Perez. I mean, plants Perez with commentary commentary describers in Abigail DET just looks very similar to a sister Abigail that the like great Bray Wyatt used to use.
I understand that they don't call it that anymore for that reason.
But now you mentioned the name Wyatt. That brings us nicely into the end of this segment where after Alexa Bliss has hit that Abigail DDT on Roxanne Perez we get a Wyatt six glitch.
And we've not had one of those for a little while.
So it's definitely been a couple of weeks since we last have one of those.
And because the last time Alexa, Alexa Bliss managed to make an appearance on on Smackdown we saw her in a backstage promo.
Yes.
And we saw one of these little these little glitches then. But previous to that we haven't seen it probably since the Wyatt six were active.
So which was before we started this podcast. So we won't actually have any episodes on the Wyatt six yet. This is their first major mention on finishes and factions.
Yeah, we've talked about Wyatt's and things like that. We've certainly mentioned them at the very least, but never really had anything to to break down for them.
And maybe this means that we're they're going to be making a return shortly.
Talking of people that have made a return recently, we go to a backstage segment with Byron Saxton and the Queen Charlotte Flair.
Talking about sort of the strat a strat and team at elimination chamber, obviously we've got Trish and Tiffy have got their match against Nia and Candice Larray, which we'll talk about more in the elimination chamber match episodes when they go live a little bit later on.
It's basically just Charlotte saying that no matter what happens in that match, her eyes are firmly focused on Tiffy Stratton and her match at WrestleMania and, you know, in that match at WrestleMania, there's going to be absolutely no help for Tiffy and what's coming from Charlotte,
which we can only guess was it was written into a contract that she could win the title at WrestleMania and then she can drop it again six months later and leave and come back next year and do the whole thing over again.
I'm going to be honest. I know I say again and again, I'm just bored with Charlotte Flair already. Right. She's been back since the Royal Rumble and I'm bored already.
I mean, I was bored anyway. Yeah. I was like, I wasn't mad that she wasn't around. Let's put it that way. I was quite enjoying it. Yeah, I definitely didn't miss her.
I don't think the women's division need her. That is the problem. They're so much stronger without her than they are with her.
Yeah, this is it. It's not. We're not looking at. It's not someone like Natalia that's going to bring something to the division to amplify it, even if it's just putting over a couple of the less experienced people in the division.
Charlotte, don't do that. If it don't benefit Charlotte Flair, Charlotte Flair don't fucking care. That was a mouthful.
No, this is it. Charlotte Flair is very much out for herself in every way, shape or form. She's not there to further the business or anything like that.
She feels like the business Oza, which don't really just don't think it does. You're not your dad, Charlotte.
I was going to say it owes her dad a massive amount. But yeah, she is not her dad. The business will never be able to repay the debt to Ric Flair that he has racked up in my opinion.
Charlotte Flair, yeah. She's not collecting that debt. No, definitely not.
And thankfully, this segment didn't last too long. I think if it had lasted much longer, I'd have been asking Kurt Cobain where the shotgun was.
It was getting quite painful with Charlotte. So we go on from there, if I am correct, into our main event of the evening?
So there was a there was a in fairness again, in light of what happens or what has happened potentially, this next VT is completely irrelevant now.
Because it's a VT promo for the at the time that this goes out, the current US champion Shinsuke Nakamura, basically giving a reaction to this number one contenders tournament and how he plans to humiliate his next challenger.
Now, as I said, if the rumors are to be believed.
That title is now being vacated. So we.
Yeah, that promo was completely pointless, but I suppose at the time of airing, it was still a thing. He hadn't stuck down as as of yet again, if that rumor is true.
Yeah, and it's a case that I mean, again, I said this on, I think it was Monday night, last Monday night raw.
It's a case that.
I'm just looking to see if there's anything online about the fact that anything online about Shinsuke Nakamura vacating his title, but he's vacated titles before but nothing's been confirmed.
So I'm not sure how, how true that one is.
But yeah, Shinsuke Nakamura.
I've said before it's not a like it's it's never great when you have a promo, a VT promo or any promo that requires subtitles.
No.
It's I mean, I was what I ended up watching this in between doing other things and the fact that I had to I had to sit and concentrate on it to read the sod in subtitles really just sort of took me out of it and just feel like this.
It was a pointless promo realistically even with the subtitles it made no sense. So yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's fair enough.
But yeah, now we go into the main event match, which was the men's triple threat matched for the number one contendership for the US title, which sees Jacob far to versus Carmelo Hayes versus La night.
All three men have already wrestled one Matt well.
Well, we'll use wrestled in the loosest sense of the term, especially for Carmelo Hayes who got thrown around a little bit and then one.
I think I think Bonnie blue wrestled more of her opponents than she did.
Then Carmelo Hayes did with Braun Strowman.
Yeah, we did get a quick for you to just while the entrances were going on with Triple H saying that Travis Scott would be at the arena in Toronto for elimination chamber tomorrow evening.
Yes.
And then I did notice this as he walked out dudes wearing a suit with Jordan's.
Like those shoes as he walked out the door at the end of it. That man is in full on trainers.
Fair play.
And then we had a little bit of a backstage thing between solo Jacob and Tamatonga saying that, you know, Jacob Fatou needs to go out there now and he needs to finish the job.
They've helped him get into the triple threat.
It's it's him for time for him to do this thing.
Okay. The biggest threat.
Yeah, pretty much they took up Braun Strowman.
So it was a little bit easier for him to get through.
And then obviously in his normal fashion, Jacob Fatou cuts a promo on his way out to gorilla, basically saying to Nakamura how he's going to come after him beat him down and take that take his title.
And then his music basically his everyone's favorite line at the moment hit my music as he goes through gorilla and then straight out to his music and down to the ring for his entrance.
Yeah.
And Fatou.
Do you know what the match itself wasn't that bad? There was a little bit of fatigue setting in, I think, which I don't think anybody was going to be able to begrudge.
Not considering they've all been in the ring previously. Yes, Carmelo Hayes didn't do much apart from.
Absorb damage.
Yeah.
But they've all been out there and I can imagine Braun Strowman beating on you is not an easy thing to anticipate.
So yeah, I can understand why he was no wincing a little bit. No, this is it.
I mean, it's not as bad as the wincy had when he stuck a headbutt on Jacob Fatou.
Has anyone not learned in the WWE now you do not headbutt a Samoan?
Apparently not.
I thought they'd know, but yet like Carmelo Hayes decides to throw a headbutt at Jacob Fatou of all people. Why would you want to get close enough to headbite?
Yeah, this is it. And yeah, there's a few other bits of a few of the great I made a note of great bits in this match.
That was just the first one that came to mind that fitted.
So there was a point where Fatou was basically stacking Hayes and Knight against Time Keep.
Has that cost himself over the barrier because they both fucked off in the opposite direction?
Yes, it was. Both Knight and Hayes dodged the last possible second and you just see Fatou fly over the barrier and it just, yeah, it was just a colossal failure.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Jacob Fatou flying again.
Yeah, pretty much. And another point not too long after this, Carmelo Hayes takes advantage of Fatou in a prone position sort of thing and plants Fatou with some kind of springboard DDT, which Fatou just completely no sells.
He does that a lot and they just kind of shrugs a lot of these moves off.
He no sells Carmelo Hayes a few times in this match and you just thought like, you're gonna take the piss or are you just trying to oversell yourself?
I think giving a superstar like Jacob Fatou the ability to no sell on the regularity that he does is way, way, way too dangerous.
Oh yeah. We've got to see that he is vulnerable and don't get me wrong, we're seeing it more now, but still it's just, yeah, there's far too much.
But anyway, yeah, it's a case that, I mean, there's so many bits in this match that were that I noted down, but let's see.
Alainite hits a jumping net breaker, which only really earns him a two count. Alainite again hits a springboard cross body on Fatou, which sends Fatou onto the announced desk at one point.
Because there was a very real possibility that he could have ended up with a similar injury to one JD McDonough. But yeah, the finish for this match realistically ended up with Fatou really beating down on Carmelo Hayes,
getting Carmelo Hayes into a position to pin him, being dragged off Carmelo Hayes by Alainite possibly the last minute.
And he's the last one for Knight to run in and pin himself the cheeky prick.
Yeah, I mean, we've said before about stealing victories, I think that's about as stolen as you get.
Yeah, you couldn't have done a bad job on that one to be fair, he literally just dragged him off him and no, no, no, no, no, not today my good sir, I'll be taking that.
Yeah.
Fuck off you.
Very much so. And yeah, I mean, that was how that so Alainite secures himself cements himself as the de facto number one contender.
Which he was anyway, but they've just used it.
Yeah, excuse to try and boost it like boost the storyline, I suppose not knowing what was going to happen.
Obviously, they must have known that Shinsuke wasn't going to be there. He was in Japan. So they were just trying to fill some spaces, I guess was that his match was one match that should have been there that wasn't there.
Yeah, this is it. So.
Yeah, we go from from there to backstage where we see Cody Rhodes and CM punk, sort of hashing it out between the two of them.
No conversation about what punk would have done if he'd been made the offer and he puts his hands up and says, you know what, I'd have taken it.
As a younger man, he says, yeah, I'd have taken that all day long.
As an older man, now I'm older. Now I'm older and wiser. I would rather see you take it.
Shine it up.
Oh, real nice. Turn it sideways and stick it straight up the rocks part time Hollywood candy ass.
And you know what always had that hatred for rock. They were ever since he nicked that WrestleMania spot off in 2012.
Yeah, but to be able to turn one of the rocks phrases on him.
Oh, yeah.
It was just chef's kiss. Absolutely phenomenal.
And the last section of the match that we go to is an in ring promo or an in ring interviewers, at least as it starts between Michael Cole and Cody Rhodes talking about the rocks offer.
And you know what, for the first time in a very long time, we've seen Michael Cole being journalistically aggressive.
Yes, because he has quite submissive with it and he doesn't really fight too much with what he's saying.
He kind of lets people go over and this time he was very much like, no, this is the question I want to ask.
And I'm asking it how I want to ask it. You're going to fucking answer it too.
Yeah. And there was no way of no way of him skirting around the issue, apart from the fact that during this promo, a special gift of a Ford F 150 Raptor truck was wheeled into the was wheeled into the arena with Cody Rhodes is branding all over it.
Very nice.
Oh, 100%. I'd have killed for that thing.
And then, yeah, we went into a VT from the rock in an airport next to his plane.
Kind of telling Cody about, you know, this was a gift for him.
And, you know, as they both like driving on dusty roads, which I thought was a cheeky little comment in there.
Well, I took a boiling everything down in this put in this in this promo.
It was very much a case that I got the impression that he was doing everything he could to try and almost guilt Cody into making the decision he wanted to make.
It was a very emotionally blackmail heavy version of getting this done.
Yeah, it just it stretched a bit far for me personally.
One thing that I did.
I didn't know what to make.
Like what to make of it in the long run was the bit with the belt that rocks had made saying Cody soul with the the date of Dusty Rhodes is deaf on it.
I was a little bit like I'm not sure that was needed like that was quite a big heel move for something.
Well, you know, they're not for someone who's not remotely direct, like directly involved in in the lead up to WrestleMania and then Cody's match at the moment.
That was quite a big thing to try and do that's something to expect from a guy who who knows he's got a match against Cody at WrestleMania and he's just winding them up and trying to piss him off before they get in the in the ring and in Las Vegas.
Yeah, very much so very much so.
But yeah, I mean, the entire thing at the end we just left with an image of Cody Rhodes just looking completely dumbfounded and more confused than ever.
I don't know if that gifted more to cement the decision that Cody Rhodes was made is due to make in 24 hours time by the end of it or whether it just caused further confusion.
Yeah, pretty much it was definitely confusing and the episode.
I I'm out of notes. I'm out of things to discuss at this point when it comes to this episode of SmackDown.
But I tell you one thing I am really, really looking forward to elimination chamber now.
Oh, 100% and you can catch all of our coverage for elimination chamber.
We're breaking it down into three episodes in very much the same fashion that we did with Royal Rumble where we're doing the men's and women's elimination chamber as sort of live watch along to get our live reactions with it.
As we watch the episode back and then we'll do a third episode where we'll break down the unsanctioned match between Sami Zayn and every other match Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens and every other match in between as well.
And yeah, I mean, there's nothing else to say, but to you at finishes and factions does elimination chamber.
See you soon. Peace. See you soon.