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 everyone to a new episode of finishes and factions does Monday night raw this week, both myself and Adam welcome Adam will be discussing the the action from the heritage bank center in Cincinnati Ohio.
Yeah, this is the 19th raw from this arena and yeah they've got an attendance of just over 12,250 to 259 to be precise.
But the sold out this episode. Yeah, pretty much as we've noticed that they don't give out the attendance unless they are close to selling out at least.
But yeah, the first thing that we're sort of treated to and first thing that I made note of only because it is sort of noteworthy is the fact that we have an unusual visitor visitor to Monday night raw.
We have Cody Rhodes in attendance obviously following the promo that was the promo that was cut by him in the rock on Friday night smackdown.
That wasn't a promo that was 20 minutes of our time being wasted.
Hence the hesitation.
But we'll go straight to straight to in ring for a promo from one of Ohio's favorite superstars not by given the reaction that he received from the crowd in Cincinnati.
Now of course we're talking about the Maverick Logan Paul is himself a Cleveland Ohio native which is I think why they've bought him out really early on just to kind of push the fact that he's the local boy and they want to get it out of the way.
Yeah, and as you said it was evidenced by the the crowd's reaction he is not liked in Cincinnati at least.
And it would appear that he doesn't like Cincinnati either, which is a bit odd so it's a bit they are very much not liking one another at this stage.
And it's kind of like for them it's it's a local rivalry Cincinnati and Cleveland they are big big rivals whether it be football between the Browns and the bangles basketball baseball you name it those guys they hate each other.
So sticking out the front of the opposing side is right in the face of these guys in Cincinnati is going to be real slap in the face.
I'd love to slap Logan Paul in the face but that's a completely different episode of the podcast.
I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people that would like to slap Logan Paul in the face if we're honest.
It just shows that he's pulling his heel roll off very very well as much as we hate to it.
They've sat up nicely for a heel run and he plays up really well.
Well he hasn't paid his dues but we're not going to go into that one.
He's starting to kind of push his way through at the moment obviously he's in the elimination chamber on Saturday.
He came out to talk about how he booked his slot in the elimination chamber after he beat the Hall of Famer Ray Mysterio a couple of weeks ago.
Sadly on sadly is retired now.
Well he's out indefinitely with a knee injury caused by the new day but I'm not 100% sure if he's hung up his boots.
Ray comes and goes is Ray pleased.
He's Ray Mysterio.
He can kind of do what the fuck he wants anyway.
Well I've very much got the impression that we're not going to see Ray in ring again unfortunately.
It is the impression that I'm getting from the news that's coming out from Ray Mysterio's camp and things like that.
It's a sad day if that is the truth but obviously he's going to go out as well to the new day of all people.
Like there's definitely not a good day when the new day are ruining careers.
No this is it.
This is it but I can't really say that his career has been ruined.
I mean it's Ray Mysterio's career. The guys are one of the very few living legends.
Yeah definitely. Talking about living legends though we got to see another one in Nisproma with the second city saint.
Mr. CM Punk decides to cut Logan off midway through whatever he was saying.
All the right words just not necessarily in the right order.
Pretty much what the Rock did the other day.
We're seeing an awful lot of CM Punk at the moment and I'm not going to lie to you.
I'm not mad about it after not having him in the WWE for so long or even in professional wrestling for so long.
Actually getting to see him a lot makes younger rich happy.
Well as it stands obviously we've as you quite rightly pointed out we haven't had.
For Logan Paul. CM Punk has only recently sort of made his reappearance back in WWE.
That's not to say that he hasn't had runs before.
He himself is in the elimination chamber this year and he's no stranger to the chamber either.
This will be his fifth elimination chamber.
I think he's probably one of the most experienced when it comes to the elimination chamber.
You look over those five entrances into the chamber look at the superstars he's been in there with.
Oh yeah I mean he's also no stranger to winning the chamber either.
He's being able to win the chamber matches.
He has won one of those previous four that he's been in.
But because he has not been in WWE for over a decade it's his first chamber match in 13 years.
And I don't know about you but I'm starting to hurt doing things that I did 13 years ago.
And Phil Brooks is of CM Punk is definitely a lot older than we are.
And he's definitely got to be feeling some of these big matches.
That's probably why we're not seeing as much of him because he's taken so long for him to recover.
Possibly. We can't rule it out. I mean as anybody gets older it takes them longer to recover from anything that they're doing realistically.
Well one thing that Logan Paul's going to take a little bit of time to recover from I think is the beat down that he's going to get off CM Punk on Saturday.
Because Logan Paul had the fucking absolute balls to slap CM Punk in the face.
Yeah after some verbal sparring in the ring which I mean if you're going to get in the ring and spar with CM Punk.
You've got to be prepared to take an L on that one I'm afraid.
You don't go in a ring with CM Punk looking for a war of words and win very often.
No there's not very many people that have walked out of a war of words better than they went in unfortunately.
No enough to CM Punk not only destroys him with the microphone.
You get the cheeky little slap like I said from Logan Paul and he made a run for it.
Because you know what you don't slap Punk in the face and then stand in the ring and wait for a response.
Not unless you want some serious pain being bought your way in a pretty much guaranteed go to sleep.
I'm not going to lie though I still referred to Logan Paul as a bitch for running away when in my notes this week because.
Why not? It's Logan Paul he is a bitch.
I've seen bitchier bitches not run something like that to be honest.
Definitely but we definitely they're starting to build up. I think if Logan Paul and CM Punk do not win the elimination chamber on Saturday they are going to go into some sort of programming afterwards.
That slap and oh it was enough to make me feel that was the way it was going.
It's definitely a possibility I don't think we can rule it out at this point.
No definitely not. It's silly not to. But before we get there we've got a hell of a lot of raw and other promotions to talk through before we get to.
Yeah well we left elimination.
We left this opening promo CM Punk standing in the ring and Logan Paul pretty much disappearing.
And then we went into a VT recap of Penta and Pete Dunn from last week with.
It's basically just kind of reiterating sort of the heat between Pete Dunn and little because it will be Kaiser obviously came in last week and distracted the match giving Penta an opportunity to take out both men that he was up against that opportunity in the triple threat match.
So it was kind of a and that was that was the an interesting one I think the way they've they've kind of kept this one going I didn't see this storyline going as far as it did.
With sort of Penta Pete Dunn and Ludwig Kaiser.
No I think these were possibly just a bunch of like cold matches that they put together in the hope that they could sort of build something organically and in fairness it does seem to have worked out.
It's whether it's got legs on it to go past where it is now.
I'm not saying it has.
I have seen an interest I did see an interesting poster I can't remember if I've spoken to you about it actually.
A fan made poster for an icy title match.
Is this the six man tag six tag six man ladder match poster that's been flowing around.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we've seen a different one floating because I saw one that had might have had some of these guys in it but it had Seamus and possibly I'd have to look it up now but I know they definitely had Seamus in it so I saw another one had afterwards of Seamus with the icy title around his waist.
I'm not sure if that's a potential spoiler for for mania or if that is just some fun made Photoshop work that was done very very well.
I mean why couldn't it be both.
No I mean can you imagine obviously Seamus is never one that I see title so there'd be a hell of a pop if you pulled that one off.
Oh 100% they'll be the hell of a pop in my living room and I fucking watch it it's a case that I'm not going to be able to keep the lid on that shit.
You know but no we then ended up with a match between Pete Dunham Penta and Kaiser.
It was a triple threat.
It was the Kaiser versus Pete Dunham versus Penta so yeah they were basically at the old adage of stick them in a ring let them Duke it out get a system.
Kind of feels like Teddy Longs in the background somewhere just kind of pulling some strings will set a miss in her three way.
I'm going to say his go to was a tag team match player and of course you ended up going one on one with the Undertaker player.
Yeah I don't think anybody's going one on one with the Undertaker apart from Michelle McCool.
That was the joke I was about to play.
Yeah but these guys went into what I thought was a pretty good match considering I haven't seen much of look with Kaiser in ring during the Netflix era.
We've seen a bit of him but not a huge amount to be able to make up enough of a judgment on what I thought and we've seen a lot from Pete Dunham.
We've seen a lot from Penta so this match already between those two was going to be a decent match adding look with Kaiser into it sometimes like I said it could have gone one of both ways.
It went in a more positive way than I thought it was going to I'm not going to lie.
But for a triple threat match it was actually pretty good.
It was noted by the commentary team as well.
It's the first time these three have ever had a triple threat match which I found slightly funny considering Penta's what for an O going into this match.
So he's been around for like the last month where the other two guys have obviously been around a lot longer.
So yeah I found it a bit silly how they threw that one in but one of those interesting facts after all that Michael Cole likes to spell I suppose.
Yeah it's um see I didn't hate this match.
I just think that this was another way of them being able to push the Penta agenda.
It's not again it's not a criticism well I suppose it sort of is.
I'm unsure how to feel about this match when I watched it I enjoyed it it was a good match.
But I couldn't help feeling like the other two guys in the ring were not really getting sort of a fair shake at the stick.
It was it was all sort of the action was very much weighted towards Penta.
Yeah so the few notes that I made out was that you know Pete Dunn started off nailing Kaisa with a few flurry of kicks to the chest.
And the kind of like they were given their sections but like you said a lot of it was very very panda based.
But considering the way it went was really really strange.
So I like said for a lot of it Penta was in charge we saw sling blades Hurricane Rana's you know we saw a lot of Penta's sort of high risk maneuvers that we see a lot of.
Yeah but to have I'm not sure if I think personally with the way this match went I think they changed their mind halfway through the match about who was winning.
Because it kind of I don't even know how to describe it it went from being the Penta show to actually Ludwig Kaiser getting more of a look in from the opportunities rather than Penta.
But there was still it still felt very back and forth.
It felt incomplete to me there was there was there was definitely I don't think you needed to add anything but there was certainly missing.
I felt like there was something that we were supposed to have picked up on that didn't.
Yeah.
And yeah I'm just I mean as you say it's considering the way the match went it's it just didn't quite all add up to me but maybe that was me maybe I did miss something I'm not sure but yeah as it goes Kaiser sort of interrupts a Penta driver which we haven't seen anybody do yet.
No and sort of steals a win via pinfall on Pete Dunn so overall the loser in this is Pete Dunn.
Yeah because he didn't get much time to show his ability is not that Pete Dunn needs to show what he can do but it is nice to let a wrestler get into a rhythm.
Yeah the thing is the thing with Pete Dunn as much as he's very local to where I came like ridiculously local to where I came from it's a case that and as much as I want to support him there's just something about him.
I'm not totally sold on.
He's a decent talent and he stayed there as long as he had.
I say he's been there since the NXT UK days so he's been there a fair while.
But if you think about it NXT UK also had Gunther who's now the World Heavyweight Champion.
Yes.
Obviously we see this in wrestling all the time is that two wrestlers can follow a very similar but end up in two very different places and sometimes it's just the right word in the right ear.
What do you think about it NXT UK was introduced almost 10 years ago so it was December 2016 we got an NXT UK boy like opened up to us as viewers.
And it's it why didn't it lasted six years so it went through to September 2022 and then it was sort of relaunched and repackaged and then it was delayed due to the merger between the WWE and UFC for the TKO group holdings.
And then after that is kind of being forgotten about.
Yeah it never really.
It never really went anywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah just even if you scroll down through the Wikipedia page there's not a huge amount to it.
You know there's a few names that popped up that we haven't really seen since things like Tyler Bates who was quite big and then like you said at one point we had some big names in this a Brooks Jensen who's currently part of the D'Angelo in the D'Angelo family.
And Josh Briggs were a target one point and they they've both done a lot better out of it than Pete Dunn has.
Yeah so in any situation there's winners and there's losers but I'm just not sure what to make of Pete Dunn.
It's a case that I want to like the guy but I'm not entirely sure that I can.
I don't think they've been given enough to like him in a way that we'd like to.
No this is it.
Yeah so obviously like we said Ludwig Kaiser came in and stole the win for this one which gives him gives him his little bit more of a heel push like it's a classic heel victory to kind of come in from the outside and snake it or to steal a win at the end.
It may not have dominated this match but he capitalized when it mattered the most.
Yeah 100%
You could tell as well you got a verbal reaction from the audio reaction from the crowd and they really weren't happy about it either but again that works in with with his role as being a heel.
He's done something to piss off the crowd and he's done it well.
So I think he did his job it may not have been the best one for us as a viewer.
It may not have been the best one in terms of you know as a talent being in that ring but his job was done he gets his paycheck.
Yeah certainly.
So we went from that first match into a VT promo which basically it was seen as retirement tour one.
We recapped Seen as journey into the elimination chamber which there wasn't really a journey.
It was more of a speech but they managed to string it out into a good two three minute VT.
I mean considering the speech itself only lasted about 30 seconds and it didn't beat you.
I was going to say it was 30 seconds to a minute top basically just Seen as saying that he was he was going on to win the 17th championship.
WrestleMania just so he can shake the hand of the guy who wins 18.
After he's built his existence in this company off of you know the loyalty that he's provided to it the things he's missed the sacrifices that he's given up for WWE.
One of those in theory being his you know his marriage as well as I don't think his relationship with the WWE being the way it was helped with the Nikki Bella situation as well as the other bits that were were cited.
Well they were never officially married.
They were due to get married weren't they but they never actually got down the aisle.
Yeah it's a case that they they were engaged but never actually made it down and never actually made it to the altar sort of.
He's married now.
So snaggy value.
He's married to an engineer I believe.
And when he first entered WWE 20 years ago he was married then too.
Yeah that didn't make long did it.
No it definitely did not but yeah John Cena hasn't had much we haven't seen him at all since.
Yeah.
He literally cut the he cut that promo in a press conference after Royal Rumble and then we haven't seen him since.
Well so he's been filming a TV show in Hungary which this pissed me off a little bit I'm not gonna lie so when he came back on Monday night Raw for the debut of the Netflix era and he's like you know I'm not just going to be one of these part time I'm here every week I'm going to be doing this every week and we are now
two months in and we've seen them once and yeah don't get me wrong he had a great Royal Rumble run.
Obviously coming second to the main event Jey Uso if you haven't listened to that episode of the podcast I would go back and listen to it fantastic.
But yeah no he's not really done much to warrant being a retirement tour so far but if we're going to get him back more frequently after Elimination Chamber.
I think we knew you had this previous engagement that was pre-booked in that they kind of gone right we can't have you win the Rumble because we need you a lot more but we can have you win Elimination Chamber.
Be sure then not booked from this date through to this date for anything else you'll be lost.
So I've said for a long time that I think Cena's going to win Elimination Chamber.
I mean it doesn't think he will.
I'm starting to doubt my prediction.
I've got a feeling it's going to be a CM Punk year.
There's something deep in the pit of my stomach that tells me this is going to be CM Punk's year.
The reason I don't think it's going to be CM Punk is because of his favour with Paul Heyman.
I think that is going to pay into this Cody Rhodes rock soul situation but.
Either way we're going somewhere and before we digress too far.
We're going to go into an in the crowd interview between Jackie Redmond and Rhea Ripley.
Kind of just looking to see what her opinion is on the Elimination Chamber even though she's got a match on the Monday Night Raw afterwards with EO Sky for the women's title.
This is it and this is one of the big things that Jackie Redmond bought up in the interview is that as much as she will be as much as Rhea's got to be keeping an eye on what happened.
After this after this next Raw it's a case that she might not even be the champion she might not even go into WrestleMania.
I mean she is probably due a chunk of time off.
Do I see them dropping the title from Rhea before WrestleMania?
No, I think EO is going to go in and have a great match against Rhea but I don't think it's going to be a contention for title changes just yet.
If by doing that you take out a few other storylines as well so it'd be a bit of a big one.
It'd be like having Tiffy drop her title now.
You take out the whole Nia Jax, Candice Larray, Trish Stratus sort of angle their building and it would be a complete waste.
Rhea does point out in this promo though that it has been five years since her and EO Skylast had a match.
We are reminded that Rhea has never beaten EO in a match but like she says in the last five years she's become the most dominant woman in the WWE
and she's beaten everyone including Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Liv Morgan.
No one has come up against Rhea and there's really been too much of an issue and she doesn't think EO is going to be an issue either.
And EO seems to think otherwise as she...
I've said this before and I will say it again with the same...
It's not that I am against non-English speaking wrestlers in the WWE.
I just wish it put some more time into learning more English.
Yeah, knowing that this is primarily broadcast in English and every other superstar speaks English.
Apart from the Japanese ones.
She cuts a promo part of it in Japanese which I understand native tongue get that completely.
But it sort of takes away from any intensity that she can ever build.
Yes, because she ends up having to repeat it in English.
We find the same with Penthouse when he's popping the promos.
I've noticed it with Julia.
A lot of the non-English speaking main wrestlers do not cut great promos.
What they're trying to come across is lost in translation.
I'll use that way.
It's probably a wrong one to use to be fair but it does get lost.
It does.
But she comes in basically says it's going to be a history of repeats itself again.
EO Sky thinks she's going to work out of next week as the women's champion.
Which all power to her if she manages it.
No, I don't personally either.
I think EO needs to lay off the magic cookie she's been eating backstage because she hasn't got a chance.
Yeah, pretty much.
We go from here into the second match of the night which was a men's tag team match.
We saw the new day versus the LWO being Cruz del Toro and Joaquin Wilde.
I'm glad you managed to pronounce his name because I've been trying to get it done for the last few minutes and just could not get it out.
I had to make a note.
I'm not sure how I managed to make this note but I've managed to make a mental note of it pronounced.
So it's very much a case that I got that right.
But this is where we find out that essentially Rey Mysterio is out indefinitely.
This is where it's confirmed.
Obviously we mentioned it earlier in the episode.
But yeah, it's...
Did you get the impression that the timing was slightly off for this little segment?
Because we saw an entrance, we went to an ad break.
We went to a pro.
We came back from the ad break and it felt like we were interrupting.
I've noticed that with a few matches over this and I noticed a few issues with NXT as well.
We're getting three quarters of a product at the moment.
The way they're trying to build the programming just does not seem to work.
If you're going to give me a match, give me a match.
Give me the entrance, give me the match.
While they're leaving the ring, give me a promo or a VT.
Don't bring in half a set of superstars where we're like, right, cool, this is the match.
Especially if you're trying to make notes on it.
You're making my notes and you get like, it's the new day versus LWR.
And then you get like, new day come out.
And my notes on the new day coming out.
And then it's like, we've got a VT promo about such and such.
And then it's like, you come back out and the match has already started.
Yeah, it drives up the wall.
Anybody that happens to sit with me when I'm watching an episode and writing notes on it.
Because I'm constantly stopped starting it because I've either so much has happened in such a short space of time that I have to try and note some of it down.
Or it's a case that I'm having to let something play out to find out if I'm going to need to go back and alter something.
If I because if I start making notes and it still happens, even though I do that is that I'll play it through.
And I'll start making notes all of a sudden something else has happened that I haven't that we haven't been let in on yet.
And it's a case that I'm then having to sort of cycle back and rework and rework my notes to make sure that they're consistent.
Yeah, which is getting more and more harder.
I think this strongly worded email is going to have to be sent to the production team.
But this match kicked off with the cruise del Toro and Xavier Woods starting against each other.
You know, we've got a cruise. I've not seen much of the LW boat.
I know Adam's seen a little bit more than I have, but I've not seen much of them.
So it was really nice to see kind of what we were going to get from them for me.
See, I noted down that it was actually walking wild and Xavier Woods that started the match.
Not cruise del Toro.
No, I've got crews game with the stomping woods in the corner and knocking in an upside down choke along the press.
And then after we'd done that, he tagged in Joachim Wilde and they double teamed Woods with a combination wild with the springboard missile drop kick.
Sending Woods across the room.
Okay, that could be me. I could have got that wrong, but it's perfectly possible.
Was there after that LW row trying snag an early ping but Woods kicks out at two with everyone sort of chanting up a little bit more about how much the new day sucks.
Yeah, which they do. Let's face it.
Although I will say.
I'm not angry at the new entrance.
No, I mentioned I got to review this while you were off ill ago when they first debuted it.
And this is the last the next time that I seem to remember.
That I seem to remember us being able to cover it.
And yeah, just absolutely adore their new entrance. It's great.
There's can't get enough of it.
It's definitely different to what we used to. Obviously we spent so long with that face new day.
You know, with the beats of entry music has been it's definitely a nice change and what gonna like makes them feel a little bit fresher than they were at one point because they were probably still out to a point but the character is dragging a little bit or their storyline is dragging a little bit.
Yeah, they needed a new direction. They've got the new direction. It is a new day for the new day.
And yeah, I didn't get a massive amount of notes. I got to admit I enjoyed watching Wild and Deltoro.
I thought they were really fun to watch. It's really high energy high risk.
Just what we'd expect from the Luchador World Order LWO.
Yeah, we did get Kofi penning a cheap shot and with a low bridging Wild.
Yeah, low bridging Wild with when he was trying to pull off a springboard attempt.
But there wasn't a huge amount of things that are noted of apart from maybe there was a springboard Huracan Rana a little bit later on, which was quite nice to watch.
I quite like watching the Luchas. I tend to get lost in their matches, especially, you know, when you've got them sort of popping up and and just disappearing with some insane agility.
You know, there was a doomsday device inspired move at one point where you've got Wilder perched on Cruiser's shoulders, but Kofi managed to break it up.
You know, we got to see a lot of what LWO are capable of. We haven't seen a lot of them. I think we need I need to see more of them before I make too much of a decision about how excited they are for their next matches.
Well, I think with Rey Mysterio out, we're certainly going to see a lot more of them. And with the way this match ended, I think we're going to see a lot more of LWO in general,
especially when it comes to the new day as they seem to have made it a personal mission to go after everything that Rey Mysterio is building over there over there for it.
I mean, new day ended up picking up the wind. Follow it. I've got it down here as following an eye rake from Kingston to Del Toro.
There was a there was a distraction from Kofi Kingston, not from Kofi from Xavier Woods to start off with.
Then Kofi raked Cruz's eyes behind the ref's back and hit the finisher, which from it was a backbreaker into a top rope double stomp.
And then yeah, Cruz got pinned by Xavier Woods, I think was the guy you pinned him.
I'm not 100% sure.
I didn't make a note of who got the pin.
Yes.
I think you're right. I think you're right in the fact that it was Xavier Woods, but I think it was Del Toro that got pinned.
But again, we seem to have.
I think we might have confused which one is with who's his.
Yeah, pretty much it's fucking need to start wearing name tags around that round the neck.
So often I can't keep track sometimes.
Especially NXT at the moment. They keep adding new people in and it's confusing me, man.
If I wasn't making notes that we screwed.
And yeah, this is a new day steel.
We're not talking about it. We're not talking about NXT just yet.
No, new day steel. The win.
It's not clean, but it is a textbook heel win for them.
And well, the Cincinnati fans basically do to them what they do to Logan Paul and burn back out of the building.
Well, not before a new day decide to get some, try to lay in a beating for the LWO to the point that we even get dragon Lee, another member of the LWO come out to try and save their asses.
It turns into a numbers game.
Well, even then, like, it's not very often we see a numbers game go quite this way because unfortunately, what should have been a three on two situation?
I mean, Cruz and Del Toro were already laid out in the ring.
Dragon Lee came down. He put up a good initial fight, but did succumb to the fact that there were two active new day superstars in the ring and one of him.
Yeah, but also you've got to think even though new day have just had a match,
they're one of the most decorated tag teams in the WWE at the moment.
If probably they I'm not going to go to say as far as catching up with sort of the likes of other Dudley boys and the Hardy boys and stuff, but they've racked up a fair few title runs.
They're not an experienced are they?
They can probably deal with the guys they're coming up against quite easily anyway.
And boy, they did within the match and they certainly made easy work of Dragon Lee.
But, you know, the three guys of LWO, they're not.
They're not a major threat, are they?
Not to some of the new years.
I think we're going to see a lot more of them and they're going to reveal themselves to be a lot more of a threat than I think anybody thinks they are.
I mean, wouldn't horse situation.
It's just a case I think we're going to find that we're going to find that they're not as helpless as they perhaps want to make out that they are.
Yeah.
And I'm sort of I'm interested to find out where WWE are going to take this feud because
there's not really a path set out for it.
There isn't a path really set out for it, but there needs to be.
There needs to be someone in gorilla going right.
This is what's going on.
We need to make this go to here, this go to here and even if even if they don't take it as far as Mania.
I mean, we haven't got a long left now, but even if they don't take it that far, it needs to be a main event somewhere down the line.
Yeah, I think they possibly with this one, they could even be looking forward to like next year's Mania.
Yeah.
Because that's the that's the WWE writers ethos is always looking forward to Mania.
Oh, yeah.
And they've probably had this year's Mania written for about six months anyway.
So but yeah, we're we'll find out about Mania in April, I suppose, but we go from here into a backstage segment where judgment day have set up their little base camp again in a corner.
And I did notice something interesting in this segment before we jump too much into it as you scroll up towards the camera pans up towards finbala and dirty Dominic Mysterio.
There is a poster in the background on the wall of the demon finbala.
So it'd be interesting to see was I said, I think it was last week or maybe the week before we've not seen a lot of the demon finbala yet and I know we only really see it with a face bala.
But there's a few things being set up, which could we see it soon.
It has been a very long time since we've seen demon King finbala that so it would be interesting to find out how that works out if that is something we see in the future.
But for the here and the now.
Yeah, we find ourselves in judgment days little clubhouse and finbala don Mysterio as they have been for a few weeks now just seem to be having another disagreement.
Yeah, sorry, just to throw it in the other way the last time we saw the demon King finbala was WrestleMania 39 night two.
So yeah, it's been a long time.
That was when he won the WWE Universal Championship, I believe.
Don't think so.
It doesn't versus Seth Rollins and it just says he debuted it.
He debuted the persona at WrestleMania 2018 where he beat Bobby Lashley for the Intercontinental Championship, but we haven't seen it.
It doesn't say I know when lost to Roman Reigns and a Hannah Nassau match at WrestleMania 39.
Lost to Damian Priest at Bar Blood 2024.
Yeah, it's not really coming up with anything lost to Xavier Woods and the King of the Ring tournament.
That's got to be embarrassing.
So yeah, it doesn't say what the match was.
I'd have to look into the WrestleMania 39 match code.
Yeah, but again, we'll digress we'll see stigressing.
So, again, I've talked before about this this power struggle that Balor seems to have found himself in or seems to be getting himself all worked up about because
he's here to call in last week, the most embarrassing day in Judgement Day history.
And he's laying all the blame for it at Dom's feet because Dom went out picked a fight with AJ Styles.
The house handed him by Styles and then got speared by Bron Breaker.
And he didn't just get speared by Bron Breaker either.
He got snapped in half.
Like, I don't know how the fuck he got up from now.
I really don't.
Well, considering the spear that he took wasn't even intended for him.
No, it was intended for AJ Styles.
So I stepped it and Dom was just in the wrong place at the time.
You went to the all you could eat buffet and did not pick up a clean plate.
But you know what, I'm going to give Dom some credit here.
He could have quite easily turned around and said, well, you didn't win your match last week either.
And then he did have a have an elimination chamber qualifier match against Seth Rollins, which Seth Rollins did have his hand raised at the end of it.
He does bring that up, actually.
That does get brought up a little bit later on in the promo.
And then you get to see that was just after Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez came into the fray.
And basically just to tell him to stop fighting.
Everything was going to be cool.
They got their match against Bianca Belair and Naomi later.
Dom's got his match a little bit later on as well.
Against Bronbreaker.
Yeah, against Bronbreaker.
So, you know, and then if both of them win their matches, they've got, you know, three, three belts between them to with the tag team champions.
And then Dom as a potential IC, if you can pull it off, I don't think this is an IC match.
There was a no, so either way, he's got a win.
Well, got a match against Bron.
And if he wins, he gets he put these sets himself up for a future IC title stock.
So yeah, that was the stipulation.
Basically, Liv's Liv's instructions were get on the same page, help Dom win his match.
Me and Raquel are going to go outhand our business.
And actually, they bring up at one point that for the first time, Liv and Raquel actually claimed to have no involved with the Cargill incident either.
I did spot that because yeah, Finn Barlow says to him about, you know, you guys bring a little bit too much heat to the judgment day after your incident with Jade Cargill.
And they're like, yeah, yeah, it wasn't actually us.
And I think you may have hit the cherry on the head with your call a few weeks back about it being Naomi.
I think we're just going to find out that that I think Liv and Raquel were there.
They just weren't in the wrong place.
Yeah, they got set up wrong place, wrong time.
Because that footage was handed into Smackdown general manager Nick Aldous anonymously.
So yeah, I'm still putting money on the fact that Naomi had a lot to had a lot to gain and not a lot to lose by taking Jade Cargill out.
Yeah, no, she had a preexisting friendship with Bianca Belair.
So yeah, I'm still calling it.
Definitely, I would take that if I could. And then the next thing we get is a we get a VT.
Oh, actually, sorry, before we jump into this, I made special note about this.
I'm going to mention it.
Carlito, we get a line from Carlito when he grabs his apple when he says, oh, a yellow one.
And I don't know why that intrigued me so much.
But I don't think I've ever seen a grown man get excited every yellow apple before.
But this is the man that thinks apples are cool.
This that is true. Like, and don't get me wrong, a decent granny Smith is an enjoyable one.
But I'm not quite sure I'd be wanting a yellow apple should be green.
Yeah, so we go from here.
Is a road from.
I got here. I didn't make a note of anything coding roads related.
The next thing I got, I was.
I took note of was an in ring promo gunther.
Gunther had a VT thing before like a little bit earlier on where he was walking through.
And then obviously there's a little bit with American.
I've put down alpha babes, right?
And I think it's because it was written on their t shirts.
And but it's Otis.
It's Alpha Academy that he walked past and they were doing a little like Tick Tock dance thing backstage,
which obviously.
Yeah, Gunther doesn't like people doing stupid clowny stuff like that.
But the irony is, is that I saw the video they made on Tick Tock itself before watching the episode.
So it just gave me a little bit more context as to because all you see in their Tick Tock video is a cameraman sweep past them.
You don't even see Gunther in their frame.
So their frame shows nothing of Gunther.
All you see is a cameraman sweep past them.
Obviously recording a bit.
And that's what he was recording.
He was recording Gunther walking through looking disapprovingly and moving on.
Yeah, but you first see him is in a suit and then we see him again just before his walk out and he's in his ring gear.
Yeah, obviously.
But he comes obviously out into into the ring in his ring gear and proclaims that he has a match that nobody knew about.
Yeah, that he'd been taking his WrestleMania happiness and he'd been to talk to Raw's general manager Adam Pearce.
And he'd handpicked his opponent.
Now, I thought it was going to be James.
So whenever somebody handpicks an opponent, it only ever goes one of two ways.
They're either looking for a squash match so they pick somebody that's far below their level.
Or they pick somebody who is going to be like a real achievement to get past.
Yeah, which is why I thought they were going to bring Jey Uso out.
And I thought they were going to let Uso get a cheeky win in the singles match over Gunther before they met WrestleMania.
Jey hasn't beaten Gunther yet. So I thought they were going to get some some confidence going into this ring into this match.
If they're going to do that, they'll do it by having him face other opponents.
They're not going to let him get a win over Gunther until Mania.
Because I still think Jey Uso is going to walk out of Mania having dethroned Gunther.
That is how I think that's playing out.
So, yeah, when we do WrestleMania coverage in a few weeks time,
I'm looking forward to being able to proclaim Jey Uso, WrestleMania main event Jey Uso as the new heavyweight world title holder.
Until then, I will continue to call him WrestleMania main event Jey Uso.
Your neighbours will fucking hate you.
We're doing this during the day today.
So it's a case that all of my neighbours that would be possibly fucked off are out already.
So, nothing to worry about there.
Yeah, so we find out a little while later after Gunther's busy chatted Gunther shit.
He's facing Akira Tazawa.
So they're going for the squash match in this room.
Yeah, it's a case that and he calls Akira Tazawa to bring.
And despite being flanked by the other members of Alpha Babes Alpha Academy, which ever go with, which are of course Otis and Maxine Dupree.
Yeah, he's clearly shitting himself.
Oh, he is clearly shitting him.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
I don't think Gunther is the most physically impressive person on the roster.
But that man can still shit myself.
I was going to say I'd still shit myself if I'm having to walk down the ring knowing I've got a fighter.
Yeah, if I knew I was just going down to the ring to receive a chop, I'd be a little bit like, yeah, good breath.
So for an actual match, yeah, I'd be cacking myself.
But it did give you a little bit of a David versus Goliath vibe with it.
Akira Tazawa has held gold before, but whether we knew he wasn't going to take it off him.
But there was always just that little inkling of maybe he could.
Yeah, it's a case that at this point.
So this was a really weird one for me to take notes on.
For everybody listening, it's a case, obviously, I know Rich has seen the way that I take my notes.
It's a case that it's broken down between in ring promos matches and I break it down that way.
But this was sort of a promo that led directly into a match.
It wasn't there wasn't a clear break.
Couldn't tell where the promo ended and the match began.
No.
So it was a really weird one to try and take notes on.
It started off with Gunther just kind of like pushing him around really.
That was it.
It just kind of shoulder poaked a few times and then the bell rang.
He started off.
He was still cutting the promo after Tazawa got into the got into the ring and he just sort of tries drawing the parallels between him and Tazawa.
They both left their home countries to come and make a name for themselves.
WWE.
And yeah, it's just a case that it's similar to what I was saying earlier on about Pete Dunne is that you can have two superstars that start off in very similar positions.
But their trajectories through the company are so very different.
Yeah.
Tazawa we've seen dressed as a ninja chasing hard truth around different arenas all over America chasing the 24 seven championship.
Yeah.
We've also seen more recently Akira Tazawa doing TikTok dances.
Admittedly not even doing them well.
In some cases doing completely different dances to what the other two are doing.
But still that is the trajectory.
Yeah, that word that we've seen him on.
Whereas you look at Gunther who has done nothing but pretty much hold gold throughout his entire WWE career even back when he was in WWE NXT UK.
Oh yeah.
So two very similar starts with no real crossover.
No, they've both done completely separate things.
They said Akira Tazawa has basically been turned into a clown and Gunther has been pushed off as the face of the one of the biggest brands in there.
Yeah.
And basically I genuinely thought that Gunther was going to be put in his title on the line for this one.
Yeah, no.
And you know that arrogant sort of we see it every year on the run of WrestleMania.
Most champions will have a championship defense between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.
We already seen Tiffany Stratton do it.
We know Rhea's got hers on Monday next week against Air Sky.
I don't really see Cody Rhodes doing one this year.
No, that's what I'm thinking.
But it wouldn't shock me if we get a Gunther title defense before Mania.
It'll be an opponent if he's choosing and it'll be a squash match.
It always is.
I don't think there's, if there has ever been an instance of lifting a title off of a champion between on the road to WrestleMania.
They are few and far between and there's no extenuating circumstances behind that.
No, there isn't.
And Gunther pretty much used this as an opportunity to build up for just kind of keep his streak ticking over really, didn't he?
Ragdoll Akira Tazawa around for about three, four minutes.
It wasn't a very long match at all.
In fairness, Akira Tazawa put up a really good fight.
He started off really well.
He started off really well and I'm not, again, not mad at it.
He did, yeah.
He did as well as he was ever going to do, realistically.
Yeah.
But yeah, eventually we got to the point where...
I think he just ran out of gas to be fair.
Yeah, it's a case that he was never going to get overtly far with it.
It's, it just, yeah.
This is exactly what a squash match is.
He was there to just get thrown around, beat pulverised just to show Gunther off a little bit.
Not that Gunther needs it. It's a title holder, but, and to kind of, without trying to throw too much of Jey,
so down on X, obviously we've seen a lot of Jey so the last few weeks.
And again, I'm not mad at this, but they don't want them running out week in, week out, week in, week out,
threatening the same thing because by the time they do finally get to it,
everyone's just going to have got bored of them running in and out.
Yeah.
And this is the balance that WWE have got a strike.
But in this match, I've got to admit,
Tazawa does manage to get a few pin attempts in there.
Obviously no successful pin falls, but pin attempts.
At one point he tries to go high risk.
Gunther catches him and turns it into a Boston crab submission,
which I thought was actually rather impressive.
And even more impressive, Tazawa manages to make it to the rope to actually break the submission hold.
But yeah, Gunther wasn't going to win this with a pinfall.
That was not how he was going to go.
No, definitely.
He wasn't going to allow it to go that far.
If you're going to have a squash match, you're going to embarrass the person you're doing it to.
And he pretty much found out a way of doing that.
Especially after you don't see a lot of Gunther with submission attempts.
But for a submission win, it was definitely not something I was expecting.
I thought he was just going to throw him around Rugdoll and jump on his head a few times
and then pin him for an easy three in the middle.
But yeah, he managed to lock in that submission move and put Tazawa down,
which made a statement really that he was really in full control
and it was going to be very clinical about the way he did it.
But after we got that bit done,
we could see by the looking Gunther's eyes that he wasn't finished.
He wanted to make sure that he'd thrown everything he had at Tazawa
and he jumps him again, stomping him into the mat,
which point we get finally some intervention from Otis
where he comes in and you get...
It was a bit of an interesting one, but he got into the ring and Gunther got out of it.
So obviously Gunther wasn't looking to get too much into it with Otis,
maybe knew that if he did, that his days may not be numbered as such,
but he might get his chicken cooked for him and that specific one.
Not that I see Otis as much of a threat to Gunther,
but Gunther also saw enough to go,
actually I'm going to jump out of here,
only for him to sneak back in a few minutes later,
not even a few minutes, it was probably 60 seconds later at the most,
and lock a sleeper holding on Otis while he was checking on a Tazawa.
I mean, strategically it made complete sense.
Oh yes, it did.
Otis had made the crucial rookie error of turning his back on Gunther.
He turned his back on the threat and he paid the price for it essentially.
I like Otis.
I think Otis is a really entertaining superstar,
and he's incredibly nimble for somebody of size.
But you can't walk properly.
He can't talk properly either, but that's not the point.
There's a reason he doesn't do much mic work, bless him.
He's got such a little mini,
it's like his muscle bound to a point where he can't use certain points,
so he just kind of waddles in his arms, just kind of moves to the side,
left to right, left to right really quickly.
Yeah, but it's all part of his charm unfortunately.
It certainly is.
But yeah, it's a case that we do eventually get Jey Uso comes out to run Gunther out.
Quite a big pop as he came down as well to be fair.
I mean, what did you expect?
This is the guy that managed to get several arena full,
but arenas full of pete all at the same time.
I mean, don't get me wrong, he's over over, but did they leave it too late?
Possibly.
Could they have done, if they had bought him down 30 seconds earlier as Gunther was locking in that submission hole,
just for Jey to super kick his cheeks off and for Gunther to roll out and disappear again,
it could have been written slightly differently and had more of an impact towards the end of it.
I think Jey coming out was a little bit lackluster considering the damage had already been done.
We're still in the provocation stage of this WrestleMania story.
This is where Gunther is building up the heat before Jey can start getting little wins in on him.
There will come a point where it's almost as though Gunther becomes too overconfident.
Too cocky.
Yeah, it's a case that he will become overconfident.
He will get to the point where he starts making silly little mistakes.
And that's when Jey will start capitalising on him.
It's okay. We've seen it quite a few years ago.
Over and over again is the big bad champion who doesn't really feel threatened,
starts picking out some weaker opponents to squash.
He then starts making mistakes.
He might lose a match to one of these scuts.
He might lose one of these matches.
And this is when we see this champion really start.
It's when we see the threat level for the champion.
You disappeared.
You shouldn't have done.
Nope, you disappeared.
But yeah, like you said, it starts bringing the threat level in for the champion
and as he starts getting a little bit too cocky and Jey will come in
and give him a few kicks and a few little mini victories before they go into their match at WrestleMania.
Yeah, this is it.
But unusually we went from here into, we went from match three, if you can call it a match, into match four.
Which was the women's intercontinental title match between Dakota Kai and Lyra Valkyria.
Lyra's first title defense as well, which I believe that I remember the commentary team giving it a little bit of stature too.
So this isn't their first time facing off, but it is since it's their first time facing off with Lyra Valkyria as the champion.
And she Lyra beat Dakota Kai to win the women's intercontinental title about a month ago, wouldn't it?
Month six weeks.
Yeah, something like that.
She beat them in the final round of the tournament that decided who the inaugural is going to be.
And yeah, Dakota Kai managed to re-qualify as number one contender for this title by beating Ivy Nile last week.
What match that was.
Yeah, it was an okay match.
Again, I feel like when I first watch the matches, it's the case that I see them through rose-tinted goggles.
And sort of ponder on the match afterwards and think, was it as good as it could have been?
Probably not.
Is there elements I would have changed?
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, that's fair enough. I think we all do it at different matches.
I think Dakota will be doing it with this match to be fair.
In fairness, I think Dakota Kai gave this everything she had.
Wasn't enough to beat Valkyria on this particular night.
No, so I will give you the pretext of that one.
So it does finish with Lyra Valkyria retaining her intercontinental title.
But this is definitely not a match that you can ignore.
If you listen to this before you get an opportunity to sit and watch the programming, then definitely make sure you sit and watch this match.
There's so much in it that yes, it doesn't change the result, but it just gives you that little bit of extra.
You can see how much these two women are putting into this match.
Yeah, there were some bits that I really enjoyed.
Valkyria was avoiding Kai pinning her by...
It was like a suspension crab maneuver sort of thing.
I loved seeing that. That was brilliant.
And there was a superplex quite early on, I think, where both of them ended up getting just as banged up as each other.
Yeah, that was an interesting one. I will not lie.
Yeah, it was a delayed vertical suplex into the mat.
But yeah, both of them ate the mat quite hard on that one.
And you can see both of these girls were giving everything they had in this match.
On this particular day, to Kora Kai, I just didn't quite have enough in the tank, I don't think.
And I think you see that she gets that because at the end of the match, it's again,
what we've seen throughout a good majority of the women's title matches is that there's a great show of respect and sportsmanship at the end.
It either ends with a handshake. In this case, I think it ended up with...
More of a cuddle.
...Dakota Kai's hand being raised and things like that. I loved seeing it.
The real bit came after the match, though.
Yeah, this match was definitely... It was worth watching, but the real meat and venture this story came afterwards with Ivy Nile running out on Dakota Kai,
throwing her straight into the barricades as she was talking to the crowd and kind of doing her face bit on the way back up the ramp,
and then running straight down to the ring.
Shit, this woman's fast. For someone who's so muscly and well-built,
woman's got some speed on her, too. She flies down to the ring, grabs Lyra Valkyra's foot on the rope while she's stood up on the top.
It's kind of celebrating. Her win with a title gets face planted off the top rope on her way down and then beaten brutally by Ivy Nile.
I think it was a released German suplex followed by a bit of a beatdown, which was...
It kind of showed how much, I'd say, apart from her speed and her pure aggression and agility,
like, she's got the package there, she's just not normally what you'd expect from a...
It's about to say a diva, but I think that's what's disrespectful these days, from a member of the women's division.
Yeah, we've got to make sure that we...
We're not allowed to call them divas anymore, even though the TNA have not changed their class.
Although, yeah, I suppose that's not quite as viewed as quite as disrespectfully, but yeah, we're definitely seeing, I think,
Ivy Nile is possibly the next in line for a women's I.C. title shot.
Yeah, definitely, because she picks the title up and makes her, you know, stands over Lyra Valkyra,
holding it, kind of screaming at this mine, so she's definitely coming for that.
Is that going to be elimination chamber fallout, though?
I mean, we're not going to get any more matches at elimination chamber, I don't think, but you'll...
No, I don't think we will, either. We might see...
That'd be a main event of a Monday Night Raw at some point, I think.
We may even see it evolve into, possibly, an undercard match for one of the Knights of Mania.
Yeah, undercard match for one of the Knights of Mania as well, could be a great idea.
We went from here to a VT promo.
I've got a VT promo for the match at elimination chamber, the unsanctioned match between Sami Zayn and Kevin...
So it started off with Michael Cole and Pat McCarthy talking ringside about it, then it went into the VT
for the elimination chamber match with an interview with Sami Zayn and Rachel Redmond, was it?
Kathy Kelly, I've got.
I might have just completely fucked up the names and I wanted to be fair, but I know it was...
The Sami Zayn was definitely there, I just didn't make...
Didn't double check my notes on who it was with.
Yeah, so I've got... It was a pre-recorded interview with Kathy Kelly and Sami Zayn,
talking about the latest development.
Now, the latest development is obviously...
The last time we heard from Kevin Owens was literally outside of one of the windows of Sami Zayn's...
Yeah, it was outside the window to Sami Zayn's house and he was busy kind of discussing why it was a bad idea for Sami
to be trying to take him on at elimination chamber in their unsunctioned match and what sort of broken things he could do.
Yeah, it's to the point that Sami Zayn doesn't recognize either him or Kevin Owens in how they're playing this one out
and apparently he's been asked quite a lot.
What's different from this between this time and all the other times that you've...
Um...
When they fall another...
Yeah, all the other times that they faced off against one another and...
I think he probably hit the nail on the head is that they're not acting like friends having a fallout.
These are mortal enemies going at each other.
Yeah, neither of them are feeling very ousy.
No, definitely not.
And this all seems to have been cooked up inside of Kevin Owens' head again.
I mean, I suppose I can sort of see the logic that he's using,
but I'm certainly not buying what he's selling.
It's very thin, isn't it?
You really don't want to pick up what he's putting down.
We're getting this whole match over the fact that Sami Zayn didn't interfere in his match at the Royal Rumble with Cody Rhodes
and didn't save him from being a package pile driven through a ladder.
I mean, I personally enjoyed watching him getting that package pile driver through the ladder.
But this whole match is based off the fact that Sami Zayn didn't save him.
And Sami's like, well, I wasn't getting involved. It wasn't my match to fight.
Yeah, the fact that I was out there, his stance is very much of...
Is the fact that I was out there not enough to show how much I cared.
And this is the match that you pulled for.
And now he's going into an even more brutal match with probably one of his best friends in the world.
I think Sami Zayn's got this in the book, personally.
Something in the pit of my stomach tells me that we're going to have the most phenomenal match.
And if Dave Meltzer doesn't give a f**k, these guys out of five stars, he's getting my size 14 up his bumhole.
Because you know these guys are going to give it everything they've got.
This is going to be the match of the night, I think, when it comes to Elimination Chamber.
Elimination Chamber matches themselves will give us a lot more storyline for WrestleMania.
And a lot more information. But I think this is going to be the match that people leave Elimination Chamber talking about.
So there is a rumour.
There is a rumour going around.
So there's somebody that is connected to this little story that we haven't seen in a long time.
He's otherwise known as the Viper Randy Orr.
Please don't tell me they're going to make this a triple threat and stick him in there too.
No, I don't think it's going to end up being a triple threat.
But I think he's going to, there's a rumour that he may be involved.
Now, he hasn't been seen on WWE TV pretty much since before the Netflix debut, I think.
I don't recall seeing him or reviewing anything done over the course of us doing these episodes.
But I believe he has been off because of a package pole driver from Kevin Owens.
Ooh, do we think Randy's going to show up and interfere?
That's the rumour and I'm a big Randy Orton fan. I always have been.
One of my favourite matches of all time was the I Quit match between him and John Cena.
I forget what event it was that they played it out at, but I literally can recall watching Randy Orton at the Pyrotechnics desk
trying to basically blow John Cena's head off. And it's always stayed with me.
So that was breaking point 2009 for the WWE Championship.
Yeah, it was an insane match.
The looking Randy Orton's eyes was of a man beyond possessed.
And I was there for it every second. Loved it.
But yeah. So that's the rumour that's going round.
And I'd love to see if that one plays out that way.
But either way, if we see the Viper return, if we don't see the Viper return,
this is going to be a big contender for match of the night.
Definitely. Definitely. I don't think we could. I don't think we could have a bigger contender at this point.
No, this is it. Right. I've got.
I've got next to a VT promo for Naomi Bianca Baller responding to Liv Morgan and Rick Ruedriguez for taking out J. Cargill.
Where I don't have a lot on this one to be fair.
No, I have next to nothing apart from they were giving a response to Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez.
So you have an unusual fashion. I didn't give an awful lot of detail as to what they were responding to.
It obviously made sense to me at the time when I wrote it.
But I think it might have been more to do with the response to Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez saying they were going to handle business.
And then match this evening against the two of them.
Yeah.
I had that we had a little VT about Cody Rhodes and his offer from the Rock from SmackDown.
And that we'd seen Dominic Stereo and the judgment day coming out for his match with Bron Breaker.
We then got this little VT about Bianca and Naomi responding to or talking to Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez.
And then it going into the next match.
I didn't really my notes kind of which was Dom Mysterio versus Bron Breaker.
Yeah. So this was the match that I I'm going to be even I thought this was going to be an IC title match.
I don't know why I thought it was going to be an IC title match.
But that was quashed very quickly when the commentary team mentioned that it was to be it was if Dom won it he was going to be walking out with a future IC title shot.
So.
But yeah, this match as we mentioned earlier on was born of a missed spear last week which was intended for AJ Styles but ended up hitting Dom and pretty much snapping him in half like a deck chair basically.
And yeah, I mean.
Dom was completely outmatched.
And we knew he was going to be when you get like there are some matches that you know Dom's going to be able to to compete in.
Dom is nowhere near Bron Breaker's level.
And I think he knows that going into this match but he doesn't seem as if he's fully like giving it everything he's got.
Yes, we get like the the cocky grins.
You know the the fact that we he's playing his his character still really well but in a match that it doesn't really have any.
There's nothing in it.
He doesn't know there's no business being in it.
It's it if it weren't for the fact that Carlito and Finn Balor were on the outside helping Dom that would have been a squash match.
Yeah, 100%.
And we could have taken this match off the card taken off the Akira Tazarra Gunther match off the card and given to people who could have had a really good opportunity to show themselves in a singles match 10 minutes.
These two matches really feel like they were just kind of thrown in for the to see the organic push.
Can we make something of it?
No, not really.
I don't think so.
There's the thinnest of thin ice for the the the story they were trying to build here.
But yeah, it's a case that one of the things that I picked up on Cole makes a really bizarre claim that at one point, Runbreak is running the ropes.
He's running the ropes and it's a running clothesline that is supposed to have been delivered at 23 miles per hour.
And yeah, Pat McAfee says it was 22 in the next sentence after this.
Yeah, though, I don't know how true that is.
I can believe that they can achieve some fantastic speeds in that ring running off those ropes.
I'm not sure I can believe that a man can travel at 23 miles per hour in a space that isn't even a mile long.
I mean, it's just it doesn't seem feasible.
That impact on I show speed looked he looked like a crash dummy that had just been fucking brutalized.
Yes, but I'm pretty sure I could make I show speed out of pipe cleaners from hobby craft.
Don't mysterious not much bigger.
No, he's not.
And this is why we say he was completely out he was completely outclassed.
I mean, this this match from what I can remember or what I've got noted ends up it's a DQ win for for breaker because Finn Balor and Carlito or the Ripcord.
Yeah, well, Finn, Finn swings a chair at Bronn, champ ducks and the ref calls for the for the bell for the disqualification.
And I think we all wanted to see Dom get the living shit spared out of himself again.
I think that was the only reason this match was thrown in there is so we could all get a bit of we could get our rocks off a little bit by watching Dom get twisted up.
And I'm not having a clean finish to this match makes me feel they've either really indecisive about giving Dom that win for a push into that title.
Or that is someone hasn't got both feet in the door on this match, whether it be Dom not having both feet in in the wanting to be in there knowing it's a squash match.
There's us theoretically what this was. There's no way I think you know to kind of defeat it really.
At this point, I think we're actually looking more down the bar of of WWE finding somebody that's believable enough to take the IC title off Bronnbreaker.
They say we we mentioned earlier about sort of things we'd seen on social media there are rumors floating that the IC title WrestleMania is going to be defended in a ladder match with six or seven guys in there.
And I think any person they can give it to is is shameless.
He can't have too much long left in his, you know, too much gas left in the tank.
I think they've got to give it to him so he can have a run with it at least before he can turn around and go right guys, I'm going to retire now.
Like this is taking too long to recover.
We haven't seen much of shameless since his match against Bronnbreaker.
I'm pretty sure that shameless hasn't long signed a five year contract with WWE.
So he's still in the early door.
Still got some time to pick that title up.
Yeah, I'm just do we really want shameless to have a run with that title where it's, you know, like a really negative run with it?
Or, you know, I'd much rather see him have it now for six months and walk out the door then and have it in four and a half years for six months where he just can't do it anymore.
Yeah, this is it.
And this is this is where I'm hoping to God that they're not going to leave it too long for him.
But we'll only we'll have to see from there.
And we'll move on.
We went from there to a Smackdown VT recap of the Rock promo.
And we just kind of again just boost in this this thing with the rock and Cody from last week, which I really didn't see the point in the original promo.
I'm kind of losing the will to live with all these little sort of cheap shots and pushes towards it.
Yeah, it doesn't feel like this. It came completely out of the blue.
It looked completely unplanned.
And they're trying to give it legs.
They're trying to breathe life into something that should never have.
I don't know about you.
I know we've both been watching professional wrestling for a very long time.
The Rock State is done.
Yes, he can put a crowd.
He can make some money.
We've seen him have less and less within his WrestleMania appearances over the last few years.
Like, just move over, Rock.
Go back to Hollywood.
Like make your movies, make your money.
Do what it is that you want to do.
Leave the young superstars there.
They're weekend week out who want to want to progress and build the art of professional wrestling to do so.
Just have one foot in or one foot out.
Pick a, you know, pick a struggle.
Yeah, it's a case that at the moment, I think it's the Rock could end up making like so much more money with so much so so much less work.
Right. He doesn't need to be taking and distributing rock bombs for cash these days.
He just needs to go and sign and do another movie that's not going to make it to the cinema.
Well, even if he wants to keep a foot in professional wrestling, which I know he does,
all he'd have to do is bulk record a few generic pro a few generic VT promos about this, that and the other at the beginning of the year.
And so, yeah, chuck these in when appropriate.
And he'd still make the money off it.
I mean, how many times do we need to see a VT every year at the Rocks right into whoop someone's candy ass?
You know, I'll watch three or four of those a year and kind of hope that the Rocks come in back.
It doesn't just because I'm hoping doesn't mean I actually want him to appear. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, it sparks the it sparks the the fans imagination as well.
What happens if like the rock comes back and lifts the icy title off Broker breaker?
Yeah, you get all these dream matches possibly pop up in fans heads and then it ends up on social media.
This would be a cool idea. I'd like to watch that.
I mean, I'm not ever I'm not ever for a single second saying that any fan has ever uttered the rock of Bronbreaker in the same breath talking about the same match.
It they're two completely different skill levels.
And yeah, I'm just not sure that Bronbreaker would ever make it that far.
But it's that sort of thing.
Yeah, I don't I think but if you're feeding Bronbreaker to the rock, you don't have much of an interest in Bronbreaker.
But it's one of those like the rock once Cody's soul.
I don't care if Cody gives it to him or not.
I think, you know, it's one of those.
We then see a little bit of American made backstage hyping up Ivy Nile.
And she then a comment but who it is she says it to but she's talking about, you know, the Creed brothers are going after tag team gold,
which we know obviously is the war Raiders at the moment.
And without really even having to mention them, they come in and start basically a beat down on the Creed Brothers.
Yeah.
And Ivy Nile is lost somewhere in that right.
It's a case that I'm getting starting to get really confused with these tag titles because.
Are they both known as WWE tag team champions?
So we've got obviously war Raiders on Raw.
And we've got DIY on SmackDown.
Yes.
And then you've got Fragsium at NXT.
Yeah, but they're known as the NXT tag team champions.
Well, the other guys are just known as the tag team champions.
I'm guessing it's Raw's top smart and SmackDown, but they're both referred to as tag team champions on their own respective shows.
Yeah, that's the thing that I could never because before we've had it known that it's the tag team champions from Raw.
From SmackDown.
Yeah.
But they never in the red belts, didn't they?
So you could tell who was holding what because the SmackDown ones at the blue background, the Raw ones at the background, the red background, sorry.
And they were normally being held by an Usuf.
Yeah.
That's the bit that's sort of confusing me a little bit.
But yeah, it's a case that they've got a match.
I believe that is next week, I think next week.
Don't think it's a elimination chamber.
I think it's Monday Night Raw.
Yeah, I've got a feeling it's Monday Night Raw as well.
We went from that backstage promo into an in ring promo where we see the American nightmare.
Cody Rhodes come to talk about his the decision he's got to make about his soul.
That's pissed me off a little bit because we've not like 60 seconds beforehand, we were talking about Cody Rhodes in a recap VT.
Now we've got Cody Rhodes.
Did we need that recap VT?
Is he's just come out and recap the recap of the recap?
I mean, being pushed as a really big story when there's very little that's gone into it right now.
I mean, I think the biggest thing we've seen so far is what happens next.
And that's just Seth Rodin's coming out to the ring to basically just say, look,
they didn't sacrifice everything at WrestleMania last year to come and help you win that title for you to basically align yourself with the people we were fighting against.
Last year at WrestleMania, we were fighting against the Rock and Roman Reigns and then now you're about to become Rock's champion.
Like the fuck bro, seriously.
And you could see that's what's really wanted to say as well.
I just wanted to kind of grab him by the tie and just go, but the fuck are you thinking really?
Well, he goes as far as to say that if you take this, it's basically it's a slap in my face.
In fact, I take it as a slap in my face that you didn't slap the Rock in his.
That could have been an interesting move, but Cody slapping the Rock in the chops.
Oh, 100%.
We both know it would have ended in a rock bottom at the end of the day, but crossroads.
But yeah, Cody has some polarizing things to say because he says about the fact that Cody said it was never going to be asked for his soul because
Roland's soul is so compromised based on how much betrayal he's inflicted out on everybody else.
And then Cody in the in the next breath calls in the MVP of WrestleMania 40.
He was to be fair, but you saw that Rollins knew he'd fucked up by coming out of the way he did when Cody said that because he was kind of he looked quite taken back by it.
And very not the the Seth Rollins we used to see normally we used to see a cocky arrogant motherfucker and I love it, whether it be dressed in some erratic clothing of some kind.
I swear he's basically sharing a wardrobe at this point with Sam Smith.
But he was quite, I mean, you're seeing he's looking down, he's got his beard in his hand.
He's very sort of like he's pondering. He's thinking he's like, you know, actually, maybe I was a little bit too hard on you when I first came out.
But then continues to go off at him about, you know, once Seth Rollins has won the elimination chamber, and he's gone to WrestleMania and he wants to face Cody,
but he doesn't want to face like the soulless Cody Rhodes that belongs to the rock.
He wants to face the guy that dethroned him at WrestleMania 38, the guy that he helped win last year, the guy, you know, this is, and Cody Rhodes has been pushed really, really hard since he returned back from AEW.
And you can see it's been such a long winded story back to back WrestleMania at main events back to back Royal Rumble wins.
You know, like it was a huge, huge story that we love. We love watching the bloodline bit got a little bit in some points, but we've come away from that now and we're getting another great storyline with Cody Rhodes in it.
And, you know, is this hinting that maybe we're going to see Seth interfere at WrestleMania to make sure that whatever does happen if he doesn't win the elimination chamber, you know, to try and stop whatever is going to happen from happening.
I think there's so many possibilities at this point. This could end up evolving into one of our favorite storylines of WrestleMania moving forward.
We don't know. There's so much that we don't know at the moment. I think we we possibly need to get the other side of elimination chamber for us to find out where we're going with this.
Yeah, I think so. But talking about elimination chamber, obviously that's coming up later on this week.
We're having more of this Jade Cargill situation thrown out with the next PT. So are we going to see, like you said a couple of weeks ago, return of Jade Cargill elimination chamber?
Well, before we go there, we need to sort of visit the we will need to visit the main event match of this of this week, but we've still got a few other bits to clear up first.
Or one more bit of business to clear up first before we get there. It's a case that we go from here to a backstage promo for which sees Akira Tazawa and Otis being attended to by the WWE trainer in the training room, as well as Maxine Dupri.
And Mr. Duser. Well, no, the other person that was there and I don't think by the sounds of it doesn't sound like you picked up on it.
We saw Natalia for the first time on Raw since the since Netflix era, and she was in the training room places attending to Akira Tazawa and Otis.
There have been a few videos popping up on social media of Natalia training in a private gym somewhere.
So I'm not sure if we are building up to possibly a Raw after mainly a return for Natalia.
I hope so. I'd love to see Natalia back in like, yes, she pisses me off sometimes when she's in, but I think like she's definitely one of those stables of the women's division.
It's been weird not having her around. And we if I remember correctly, we did not see her in a Royal Rumble either, which is something that was very strange.
Normally with a women's Royal Rumble, you get Natalia.
Yeah, I don't think we did see her in the women's Royal Rumble and you're right, we do normally see her in the Rumble match.
But what if she comes back?
I don't want it to be this big return, this big fanfare for Natalia to come back and then they don't do anything with her.
I mean, yeah, I want to see Charlotte go and then get a title opportunity with a few weeks issue.
I just want to see her come back, have a really good run, even possibly mean there's so many more titles now.
I'd love to see it doesn't necessarily have to be a women's championship run.
Women's I see title or a women's North American title run from Natalia would be nice to be honest.
Yeah, I just love to see a hold hold some gold or a tag team.
I'd see her in a tag team division, you know, it depends on the partner she gets if she if they pick her partner well.
Give her a rose on Perez, you know,
what if I just done it again?
That's not a bad show.
I might just done it again.
That'd be an interesting one. Could we see Natalia or Roxanne Perez in a tag match?
We'll keep hold of that one.
Talking about tag matches, though, the main event of the evening is Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez versus Naomi and Bianca Belair.
I keep wanting to call it.
It is, but we've sort of breezed past this backstage promo.
We got sidetracked talking about Natalia.
Yeah, so you write we said we saw Jey so come in basically to check up and offer some words of encouragement to to Zawa and to Otis.
And yeah, that was quite sort of a wholesome moment for Jay to come in and just say, guys, you actually did well out there to consider it.
It's just playing his leaves and he's adding it's the little snippets that have made it so much better than your standard face run or your standard sort of like push.
He's adding little bits in not many other people doing it.
It's working on his benefit because the viewer is getting to see that he's not just about himself.
He is more about the other people.
It just seems that while he bumps into two of WWE's biggest dickheads that outside of the Miz and in Grayson Waller and Austin Theory on the way out of the medical room.
And they're basically they're just digging at him.
They're just being dickheads, really.
It's the only way I could describe it basically saying that, you know, people think he's just a bit of a meme that he's not actually going to beat Gunther WrestleMania.
And all you really get in reply from Jay is just the occasional you.
It doesn't really say until the end where he kind of comes off with, you know, they've got the whole the locker realms doubt of me.
You guys are doubting me.
Everyone's doubting me, but actually, I'm going to do it.
And we both want him to.
I know that much.
I'm hoping you guys at home also want to see him dethrone Gunther at WrestleMania.
Yeah, as much as Gunther is an impressive champion with an impressive pedigree behind him, it's a case that I'm just not I'm not seeing.
I don't want to see him past.
I don't want to see him as champion past past mania.
Although I do keep seeing I'm pretty sure there are some clickbait items out on the internet.
Moment keeps saying that Jey Uso is going to be replaced, which would be an absolute rave at this point, unless he gets unless it's for medical reasons.
But yes, we will.
We've basically covered that promo, which means we are left with the main event match.
Yep, we certainly are.
If you'll excuse me, I have a special guest in the studio that is currently getting all up.
Fair enough.
I will carry on from here then.
So jumping all over me.
Right, so this was a main event women's tag team title match as Rich said earlier on, they saw the ladies of the judgment day live Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez versus the current champions Naomi and beyond there.
And it's a case that because of all the animosity and bad blood that have sort of generated because of this Jade Cargill situation, I think Naomi and Bianca Belair went in.
They weren't going in to defend their title, even though they physically went in to defend their title.
They were going in trying to get retribution for Jade.
Which is completely understandable as an opportunity to make sure they got that match because let's face it.
Who doesn't want a tag title match?
We all have title matches.
Oh, 100%.
Having said that, me and Rich are entering in a tag title at Wrestle.
No, we're not.
That'd be an interesting one though.
I'm not sure which of the tag titles we'd go for.
Let's face it, mate.
The only thing we knew a tag team in these days is a fucking full English breakfast somewhere.
I ain't tag teaming that with you.
Fucking finish that myself.
That's a one on one.
That is.
That's Mano on breakfast.
You should see the breakfast I've got lined up for us next time.
Don't you worry about that.
It's a big breakfast.
Anyway, yeah, so champs looking for some retribution for Jade Cargill.
And because of the aggressive stall they come out of the gate with,
it's a case that the champs are taking early lead in this.
And really you'd expect nothing less from champions, really.
I mean, you're going to use everything you have in the champion's advantage bucket, aren't you?
As long as you can get that match one, you don't care if it means that you have to slap someone with your title for a DQ,
because you know that you're not losing on that DQ.
It doesn't matter really, does it?
You take one for the team.
That's why it's a tag team.
Yeah, this is it.
But having said that, a lot of the big moves and a lot of the big maneuvers came from
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez and the judgment day on this one.
Because, yeah, we saw...
I've got a few sort of bigger bits from Bianca Belair and Naomi,
but a lot of my notes are more how intense Liv and Raquel were.
Yeah, they went out there to make sure that gold went home with them.
And I mean, I found out from social media about this match and the result and I was, obviously not.
I was not mad by it at all.
We've seen this tag team of Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez,
they've not done a huge amount up until the last month,
but the work they've put in in the last month and the matches they've had,
we followed this from the start, really, in this storyline.
It's been, I'd say from the start, from the start of the Netflix era,
we've really been invested by this one purely for the fact that we don't actually know who took our Jade Cargill either.
So, and what's going to happen with that?
We've got an official finishes and factions theory on how that's working.
We'll get to put that up in the bonus episode as he's got a hell of a theory.
Which I've gone over in a previous episode, I've got too much time going over it today.
So, if you want to hear my theory, then go back and listen to my own episodes and see how you get on.
Yeah, no, definitely.
So, there was a couple of cheap shots in this one that I made note of.
I got one on Bianca Belair knocking her off the apron, which again, in this move,
I suppose you've got Judgement Day as a heel, you know,
they were going to then use that as an opportunity to kind of taunt the crowd and do normal,
heely bits and pieces that you've kind of come to expect from Liv Morgan and Judgement Day.
Yeah, they weren't pulling any punches and yeah, they were trying to get every punch they were.
They could get, even though or even including, having a distraction on the outside of the ring in Dom Mysterio.
He was just jumping all up and down the ropes, just trying to keep the referee entertained
so someone could get some naughtiness off in the background.
And yeah, I mean, Dom's got that perfect heel heat down anyway.
There's a re-sort in his match earlier.
We see it a lot when he comes out.
People don't like him.
Yeah, and honestly, this match didn't really get interesting until the last couple of minutes for me.
The first chunk of this match I could have taken all left.
It didn't really resonate with me, but as soon as we started getting into the closing stages,
we could see sort of where it was heading toward.
And yeah, the match ended up...
There was a complete overtaken who was in charge, to be fair,
and it went from having Naomi and Bianca Belair having more of the match,
but not necessarily having the steam to be in charge of the match.
It flipped quiet sort of drastically into Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez had the steam to push through,
and they took complete control of the end of this match
and made themselves for the first time in WWE history,
the first three-time women's tag team champions.
Yeah, it's a case that...
I'm not sure that I'm 100% agreeing with that statement.
There has got to be a women's tag championship,
or tag team somewhere that's won the title more than twice.
So not in WWE because they didn't really have a title for women's tag.
They've never really done women's tag matches,
but never really had much of a tag team title to speak of.
Yeah.
But yeah, the end into this match is basically Naomi goes for a split leg moonsault
but has a leg caught by Raquel.
As Naomi tries to fight back, has her head bounced off the ring post,
which basically is a good night vienna per.
Liv Morgan just pulls the three count out of the bag,
and yeah, they are walking into elimination chamber as the...
Liv is walking in as one half of the new women's tag team champions.
Here we go.
So the women's tag team championship was announced on December 24th, 2018,
on Monday Night Raw, and the first champions of the first women's tag champions,
do you know who they were, Adam?
I want to say it wasn't Lake Hill, was it?
It wasn't.
The first women to hold the WWE women's tag championship,
apparently it was Bayley and Sasha Banks.
Ah, okay.
Obviously Sasha Banks is known as...
Mercedes Monet.
Yeah, she's holding like four different belts at the moment, I think.
Yeah, there's quite a few of them.
I know she's got a couple of indie ones and a couple of AEW ones,
but yeah, no, definitely she's stacking gold over there at the moment.
100%.
But yeah, so that actually brings us to the end of Finishes and Factions does Monday Night Raw.
Thank you to everybody that's listened, we really appreciate it.
You will hear from us again when we come to you for Finishes and Factions does NXT,
which is coming to us from Cincinnati, Ohio, just like we have done with Raw this week.
We'll break down all of the matches that come with that as well.
So yeah, please stay tuned.
We'll get that episode out to you as soon as we possibly can,
and we are but days away from Elimination Chamber.
So we look forward to hearing for having each and every one of you here with us
when we come back for Finishes and Factions does NXT.
Thank you so much and see you all soon.