Welcome to the ring, it's rich and atom Breaking down the fights with flaring passion
Tag teams grappling belts are clashing Finisher's and factions catching action
And welcome back everybody to a new episode of Finisher's and Factions does Monday night raw
This week myself, Rich and my co-host Adam welcome in Adam. I am going to be breaking down the episode from Buffalo New York
The Monday night raw after elimination chamber. If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to our elimination chamber breakdown
You have three episodes of awesomeness to sit and watch or sit and listen to sorry
There are a 100% catalog but like I said this week we are in Buffalo doing Monday night raw as the raw after elimination chamber
And well I didn't think after elimination chamber it could get any more intense and then Monday night raw sneaks up and slaps us right in the face two days later
I don't know about you Adam but I thought this was a hell of an episode
We've got to remember we are well and truly now on the road to WrestleMania and now we've come past elimination chamber. We are looking down the barrel at two nights of back to back
Like just wrestling heaven essentially
Not only have we already found out some of the matches that we've got going into this already, we already knew that Jeyusa was going to fight Gunther at WrestleMania
We knew that Charlotte Flair was going after Tiffy Stratton at WrestleMania
We've already had some matches put together and with elimination chamber showing us that John Cena was off to WrestleMania to go and face Cody Rhodes
And when Bianca Bella was going after face either Rhea Ripley or EO Sky
That match is our main event of the evening and if you want to skip to it I go to the last sort of like 20 minutes in the podcast and give it a listen
But you wouldn't spoil it too much for yourself but we actually get to start off with a gentleman that I say me and Adam have been massive fans of this guy for a long time
And we get to see CM Punk come down into the ring, he doesn't even do the ring to me fair, he walks around the outside of the ring, clears everything off the announce table and sits in his pipe bomb position there
And it starts basically telling us that he's got a microphone in his hand and he's going to use it
Yeah Punk describes this as giving a state of the union address which is a very American way of looking at the news
Pro-vote is about to get them cancelled off Netflix
Hell, apparently Netflix are quite strict on what they will and won't allow sort of thing so it could very well be the case
Punk has not got his sights set on anybody in particular to begin with as he's basically just saying to the crowd like
They're fucking throw out some names and we'll start there and work our way around and the first name that comes to the second city saints is the rock, the bald fraud which I took particular enjoyment in actually
As soon as that first line came out, as soon as he started picking on rock, he set the tone for what we were about to get
And what we were about to get is a classic CM Punk pipe bomb moment and we've seen them over the years in pro wrestling
Ironically enough, the last one he cut was about John Cena too, as they went into SummerSlam
So Blake, something along those lines you've got to work your way
Yeah, we were talking sort of like 15 years ago, I think it was SummerSlam that Cena went against John Cena with and ran out with the title
At the end of it, no Punk went against Cena with sorry but yeah, so he comes down and calls Dwayne a bald fraud and adds that just because he's on the TKO board he ain't getting away from any criticism
And then after kind of, you see, he's not desperate enough to wear a fake title and call himself the People's Champion when Punk's earned his accolades
To be fair, I think over the years Rock has too, just now the only recents we see of the Rock is, oh, it's WrestleMania
Yeah, go on it boys, we'll go back to the WWE for a few months, we'll make another couple million and then we'll go back and film another movie that goes straight to DVD
Yeah, this is it, I mean, it's standard fare for the Rock now but coming back in a heel position is something we haven't seen before
Normally we see him come back, he does the finally and runs his normal stick in a couple of cities, drags a bunch of numbers in and then fucks off back to Hollywood again
But yeah, I mean, and to be fair, we're not in the attitude era anymore, we don't need Rock, professional wrestling has advanced so much in the time Rock's been in Hollywood that I think he's more concerned that professional wrestling needs him
But actually professional wrestling is probably better off without him in most circumstances these days, don't get me wrong, we've had a hell of a storyline with the Bloodline stuff where he was at Mania last year, we're getting another decent storyline this year
It is just a Mania thing, it's kind of like, oh, numbers are dropping, Netflix isn't quite worked, we'll bring in the Rock, and then, yeah, you know, Cena, Punk finishes ripping Rockier, a new Rocky Road, and moves on to the man that no one can see
And basically stating that, you know, yeah, no one else can see you, but I can see straight through you, and yeah, he basically starts saying that Cena's given up that the words that he's touted for the last 25 years of hustle, loyalty, respect are now just completely meaningless
Because of how he's behaved, which do you know what, I can't really disagree with him on?
No, you can't, but then this is something that professional wrestling fans have wanted for the last, I'm going to say 15 to 20 years, because obviously Cena came into WWE as a heel, made his way through all these years where he's just, he's not even tried to be the baby face
He's just ended up being that fan favourite that was always there, because week in, week out, he bought that same height, and it doesn't matter whether it was raw, smack down, wherever he went, whatever city in America it was, you knew what you were getting
John Cena was going to come down and defend a title, whichever title it was that he was holding at the time, he was going to come down and defend a title, or he was going to come out and he was going to cut a damn good promo
It's one of those, it's a professional wrestling fan, to be able to turn around and say that you were in the arena when Paul Heyman cut the ECW promo, when CM Punk cut that pipe bomb, the Cena promos we're going to get now, I'm not talking like when he stands on the mic for five minutes after a match or whatever
We're going to get that quality promo all the time I think, well on the times we see him, because where we're not going to see him a huge amount anymore, we're getting everything professional wrestling fans have ever wanted from John Cena's character for a year
So there's going to be a lot of things they can push with that move, I've seen one saying that he's going to stop showing up at shows, he's going to stop them making wish stuff for a little while, and he's going to basically just stop doing the hustle loyalty, respect thing and just completely reverse that gimmick and see where it goes
Because no matter what happens, they can always bring him back as a face and everyone will accept him back within that section, because of who he is and what he does, this is the guy who's done the most to make a wish ever
See I'm not entirely sure that at the minute they'd have to, because he's on his farewell tour, I think this is what we're going to see from Cena now, it's going to be the rest of his year long farewell tour is going to be heel Cena
We're not going to see him brought back as a babyface, it's just not going to happen, unless it doesn't work, but I mean it already has, like I've seen people on social media talking about wrestling, I followed for years, never mentioned they're pro wrestling fans
I follow people on social media who are wrestling fans that have put in on social media that they've gone to work, and normally the topic of conversation is football or rugby or the latest only fans model or whatever
He said, never have I heard some of these colleagues talk about John Cena, he's like, this, this, what has happened has just elevated such a massive hype around professional wrestling from people that weren't necessarily anything to do with it now
It may have been sort of 10 years ago, but don't even think about it now, even to the point where you've had, it was at MJF from AEW, I've seen interviewed by Chris Van Vleet, and even he turned around and was like, oh my God, it was amazing
He's like, of course we all watch it, he said he wouldn't be a lover of professional wrestling if you didn't sit and watch professional wrestling, even as a professional wrestler, like there's still people that we look up to, friends that we work with that's still working different promotions
I think what we're getting with this is going to be a pull through of everything that Cena's done with a few of the bits from outside where his influences are now, and that's going to be an interesting road to follow for the last year
Whereas as much as you say they have the option of bringing it back with the impact that this has had, they'd have to, I was going to say we wouldn't get a year long, there's an argument to be made that so far it's been a pretty piss poor year long
It's a case that, you start to his year long farewell tour to be quite honest, but regardless of that, it's a case that now that he's turned heel, he's shocked the world, not just the wrestling world, the world
In his heel term, they can't just simply flip flop on it and go back and expect everybody to take it, I can't think of how they would write the storyline to say, oh yeah sorry guys, I goofed when I completely demolished Cody Rhodes to within an inch of his life
On a stage as big as Elimination Chamber, just no, it ain't going to happen
We are going to see a year of heel seener, we've seen 25 odd years of face seener, whether it was intentional or not, we have seen a year of that, we've seen years and years of that, we're going to see something that we've never seen before, or we haven't seen in a very very long time
And I just don't think he's going to go back to that doctor of thugonomics, that doctor of thugonomics role because I'm sorry, he'd have to keep the baseball cap on all the time because the shine off the bold spot is going to create glare off the cameras
Yeah, if any of you guys have seen how bad my hairline is on my live streams, seener has got 20 years on me granted, but holy damn, that thing, yeah, Seth was right, that thing needs its own postcode
Well
Is it Seth or Punk?
Someone made the reference about him needing this
That was Drew McIntyre
I've had some great posts the last few weeks and I fucked that one right up
It's alright, we'll forgive you, but while you mentioned Seth, it's at this point that CM Punk turns his wrath to Seth because again, if you haven't listened to our coverage or seen elimination chamber, fair warning
Probably about to spoil a big part of it for you
Obviously during the men's elimination chamber, essentially Seth stole or robbed Punk of his any chance he had of winning that chamber match by curb stomping his face into the chamber floor basically
It was the steal, but Punk sold that, I thought he was dead
Like after that stomp, I thought he was dead
We know that Punk will sell
Oh yeah, you just don't expect him to sell Rollins because those two generally do hate each other, that's not an on-screen thing, that's a thing they generally do absolutely fucking despise each other
Yes, but they both love the business, regardless of their personal feelings for one another, they're two professionals, they will always sell for one another
They might lay in a few rough hits here and there, but ultimately they're not going to go the performance
No, I mean, all I got from his little entrance on Seth Rollins was that he told Becky Lynch to come and get her man or he's going to put him in a wheelchair
Now this goes back to some social media stuff, I don't know if you saw it Adam, where someone posted online that CM Punk's ring gear looked very much like Roxanne Perez's
And then I'm not entirely sure what Becky put on Twitter, I didn't see her tweet but she deleted it very quickly afterwards
But yeah, there was a response to that one, but that was the only thing I got from that was Punk telling Becky Lynch to come and get her man and there's just me sat there hoping
And I don't even know why because I knew it wasn't going to happen but just hoping Lynch's music would hit
Well, somebody's music definitely hit and it wasn't Lynch's, we were all told to burn it down as Rollins music hit and these two unstoppable forces collided as Rollins music hit
Punk dropped the mic like it was on fire and high tailed it towards Rollins where just an out and out brawl ensued that required, I'm pretty sure they had to draft extra officials in
I'm not sure where they got them but it's a case that they drafted officials in from pretty much anywhere they could have possibly got them because I think both Rollins by the time they'd managed to separate this brawl
There were eight plus officials for both Rollins and Punk each, this brawl was out of the, was yeah, just complete chaos to start Monday Night Raw which is
It's always a good way to have a nice change, yeah I like a nice bit of chaos to start Monday Night Raw but I like a little bit of chaos to start any WWE show to be fair
It definitely beats having to listen to Michael Colb, I do enjoy listening to Pat McAfee though but these two were not going to be separated at all
And this is where I say about their real life here as well because of how much personal problems they have when you've put them in this role they're both, they're not playing a role, they're just being them
And the chemistry between them within this fight and the show in and the trash talking and stuff like that, it's the sort of thing they would have done, this is believable because you can expect this to happen in the cafeteria
Or on a bus somewhere or on a gas station or a service station or an airport because of how much they dislike each other, this wasn't, yeah this was so well done, this was perfect
But this is what makes a decent promo is if you've got real world heat to bring into it, it's a case that you're always going to get that better on screen reaction because they're not acting, they're not playing a part, they genuinely dislike one another
And it definitely helps to sell a storyline, well it definitely helps to sell that storyline at least, obviously we know
Well I've been sat watching some of the WWE show that they've recently released, LFG, Legends and Future Greats
And it's one of the things, do you know what actually I've watched the first episode before we started recording and really enjoyed it
Solidly really enjoyed it, because there's no storyline involved or anything like that, it's just wrestling, it's the business
What, Saturday Night Main Event used to be then, no storyline, no promos, it was just exhibition matches of people wrestling
Sort of, but it's more behind the curtain than that
You've still had an element, there was still an element of kayfabe in with Saturday Night's Main Event
Yeah, they weren't any main roster storylines or anything like that, it was just exhibition matches
But these guys are all competing for an NXT contract and it's just really interesting to see, sort of watch them even just in the first episode how they develop
And the matches that they put on between them are actually some of them, I watched the first episode, the women's match, I'm not going to give too much away
But the women's match, even the experts were like, yeah, they pretty much blew the guys out of the water
And they did have a really solid match for what you've shown, like wouldn't have been out of place in NXT
Or even like an exhibition match, a dark match within a SmackDown or a Raw taping sort of thing, it was really well polished for the first episode
Yeah, but yeah, so these guys basically weren't completely in, it was an impossibility of being able to separate them, but they managed to get them both to the back
I imagine probably separated them throughout the arena sort of thing
You stay that side, you stay that side, you do not move
And we went from there, I've got down that we went from there into an elimination chamber recap of the Cody Rose
There was a little VT in between those two, but it wasn't anything storyline or anything like it was basically just saying about WWE World in Las Vegas, WrestleMania week
And I think if I remember correctly, they announced or confirmed that main event Jey Uso will be at WWE World in the build up to his match against Gunther WrestleMania
And then yeah, we've got an elimination chamber recap of the women's elimination chamber
So I've got down here that it was the elimination chamber recap that we got was the Cody Rhodes promo, the social media reactions on Cena's heel turn
The one we see about nine, ten times during the course of this episode
Before this episode we got to see the, oh well, I didn't win the Royal Rumble, but I'm off to elimination chamber and I'm off to win my 17th world title
So I can shake the hand of the guy who wins 18, yet note this time we get to see Cena kick Mr. Rhodes in the genitalia multiple times, multiple times
Actually that many times that if they took them all out, they could have fit in another match
Or, yeah, it was definitely one of those
And then we got a recap from, yeah, so you've got the elimination chamber recap which obviously was the Cody Rhodes being kicked in the nuts
We then got another recap of the women's tag match where Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez won the tag team titles from Naomi and Bianca Belair
I believe that was the Roar before elimination chamber
I wanted to say it was the Smackdown before elimination chamber, but you might be right with the Roar actually
But either way, the week before elimination chamber, those titles changed hands
And then if I remember correctly, we went into a backstage thing with the judgement day
Yeah, so they sort of tied in the recap VT and then we cut to the judgement day club house as I appear to have taken to calling it
And yeah, basically they're all Mickey Mouse's
Yeah, well
But yeah, we see Finn Balor sort of purposely separating himself off from the rest of the main group
And yeah, just sort of being, even when he does come and join everybody else in the club house, it's a case that he's just being really passive aggressive
I wrote down that he's genuinely just being a pissy bitch
Yeah, he was probably a little bit hungry and could have done with the Snickers because he was definitely not being himself that time
The general recap I got from this judgement day promo was that not only Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, the first three-time women's tag champions
We also find out a little bit more about the injuries that Liv Morgan received from that absolute whip of hair that Bianca Belair had in the elimination chamber
And some of the marks that were left were absolutely ruthless
Yeah, that braid is lethal
Well, we've spoken about it in the past. I've seen some photographs that Liv Morgan put on social media after the next day
And the welts and the cuts that a woman has from that match was...
Oh, mate
The fact that she went into a Monday night Raw two days later was...
Yeah, I wouldn't have been there. I'd have been at home in my bed kind of going, oh, it hurts. Every time I move, it hurts
Yeah, pretty much
And then finished off with the Liv section of this segment saying that Raquel Rodriguez should go for the women's intercontinental championship
I mean...
Do you want to see that match?
I can't see it myself
I mean, the fact they've given her a tag title is one thing
It's only because Liv Morgan carries her through most of her matches
I do not see the appeal with Raquel Rodriguez at the moment
She's not strong enough to stand on her own
No, the character's not
Yeah, the character development just isn't there. They haven't put the time in with her
Yeah, as a person, she's definitely got some ability, a lot more than I have, don't get me wrong, but maybe not quite the level you'd expect from a champion
Yeah, so you sort of took more variety out of this little promo
I focused mainly in on Balor for this one because, and I've sort of seen since this raw aired, and I've taken my notes for it
It's a case that I've seen some bits and pieces for other... let's call them social media pundits online
where they're sort of thinking the same thing as me, and it's a case that Balor is sort of slowly starting to remove himself from the judgement day
So I think we're going to see Balor and the judgement day go off in another... they're going to go their separate ways
I'm hoping that ends in a match for Dom vs Finn to be fair, because I think that could be an interesting one
Well, I think that's how they're going to separate Finn Balor out, but the interesting thing is that obviously, I think you may have mentioned it on one of our previous episodes more recently
is that we keep seeing little hints of a familiar Balor character that we haven't seen in quite a while, which is the demon king Finn Balor
with all the face paint and everything like that, the Finn Balor we used to see in rather than...
I've got a feeling that we are going to see a return and that's how he's going to break away from the judgement day
but there's an interesting theory that he won't stay on a singles run, he'll instead end up going and joining another group
Well, we only see the demon Finn Balor from a face, Finn Balor, so yeah, he'd have to have a face turn to be able to get away with using it
with judgement day currently being more of a heel faction than a face faction
Yeah, this is it, but we'll have to wait and see what happens with that one
It did get a little bit here that Finn Balor seemed quite un-himself and Liv Morgan asks him if he's okay and he just kind of replies with the Dom embarrassed himself last week
and Dom replies about, well, let's face it dude, you had the chair in your hands and you still couldn't finish the job
Which was an interesting one, that's referring to Finn Balor's match against... I want to say it was Braun Strowman
So this was in reference to how the Braun Breaker Dom Mysterio match ended last week
That's the one, that's the one
Because we had Carlito and Finn Balor out to support Dom Mysterio and in fairness Dom Mysterio would have been absolutely laid out in seconds
Had Finn Balor and Carlito not been there
It's not the first time we've seen Braun Breaker break Dom Mysterio in half though, so...
Yeah, but that match ended basically, I think it ended the queue in the end
That match segment ended with Finn Balor backing himself out of the ring whilst holding a chair in the face of Braun Breaker
In the face of having to swing that at Braun Breaker
Because that move had been reused when they had Punk and Orton facing off each other and against each other in the ring in Punk's first run with the company
Yeah, I remember that now
One thing I am definitely not going to remember
And that is our first match of the evening, which I actually thought I'd get a little bit more from
But the first match of the evening was Gunther vs Otis
And I've got this down as a title match, but I don't think it was a little bit later on
No, it wasn't a title match although in fairness
We have seen when a heel champion goes towards WrestleMania and they start having these singles matches with unrelated parties like Otis and the rest of Alpha Academy
It's a case that they do normally put their title on the line
And it starts to get a bit dicey when they have to really start to defend themselves as we see Gunther do in different areas of this match
It's a case that during this match Otis puts up a really good fight
You know what, actually, and I was watching this going, come on mate, you can do it
Just because for whatever reason, can you have imagined how nutty it would have been if we'd have got Jey Uso vs Otis at WrestleMania in the main event?
I don't think it would ever be a WrestleMania event, if I'm honest, I think we'd probably see it in another paper view
Oh yeah, but you'll see it at some point, but that's what I'm saying, can you imagine that Jey Uso vs Otis for a World Heavyweight title at WrestleMania?
Because the title matches they have built, that just would not be salivating
So we knew Gunther was going to keep hold of it anyway, even if it hadn't been a title match
Yeah, this is it, and before this match even starts realistically, Gunther comes to the ring with a mic in his hand
We've come to learn from previous weeks that he's probably going to end up giving some very thinly veiled insults
Yeah, Gunther's ability to insult someone is pathetic
You can tell that guy never played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 the original, because he would not have lasted in those lobbies with the promos he cut
See, I've never had an issue with Gunther's ability to insult, it's just a case that he does it in a very nice guy sort of fashion
He is a very passive aggressive bully, but he's not necessarily that passive aggressive
I did find it funny how he was getting an Otis for being a big lad, right? Do you not remember what Gunther looked like two years ago?
Yeah, this is it, I mean, done it wrong
But there has lost a lot of weight and put in and done a lot of work in the gym in the last two years to look the way he does
And trust me, he looks better than I do, but yeah, he's commenting on Otis being a big boy and he used to be a really big boy
Yeah, this is it, I mean, sure, I've got the note down for this somewhere
So they make a reference at one point
So, yeah, so the result for this as we've already said, Gunther wins via pinfall after an impressive power bomb on Otis who is 330 pounds
Incidentally, exactly the same weight as Ivar from the War Raiders
There will be more Tag Team champions, but I wanted to try and find something to equate 330 pounds because I'm English
Yeah, they don't mean much to me
Pounds don't mean fuck all to me unless you're talking money
So Otis, if he's 330 pounds, is the same, what is essentially equivalent to an adult male giant panda
Just not as cuddly
I don't know, I reckon he'd give you a fucking good cuddle to be fair
I was talking about the panda
Well, yeah, there is that too, but yeah, it's a case that I had to try and find something to equate that too
Because the fact that the WWE has always worked in pounds and I know the only way it means something to me generally is if
Obviously, the higher the number, the heavier it is, that is about as much sense as that makes to me
Yeah, 330 pounds is a fair chunk of weight
Oh, 100%
We did get notified during this match that they had a nearly sold out arena of 13,602 in attendance
Yeah, this was the Key Bank Center in Buffalo, New York
Yeah, there is another sports team that calls it home, but off the top of my head
I can't work out who it is, well I don't know who it is
Yeah, I'm not 100% certain off top of my head without looking into it to be fair
Oh, it's the home to the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League
And the Key Bank Center is the largest indoor arena in western New York
With a seating capacity of 19,070
So, when they said they had a nearly sold out arena of 13,600
Bear in mind they have to take out a load of seats for the ring and all the bike station stuff, they're probably not far wrong
Yeah, this is it
But yeah
It's also home to the Buffalo Bandits of the NLL
Which I think is the National La Crosse League
Oh, okay
I've only ever had one experience with La Crosse and that was in high school
And I ended up with a four day suspension from that particular PE lesson
So yeah, no, I wasn't allowed to participate in the rest of it
Bear
Apparently tripping people over is not within the rules set, but quite funny when you do it on the outdoor or weather hockey pitches
It's like gravity sort of dirt mate, yeah, that was painful
That is how you end up with a lot of scraped knees
Yes, definitely
So after this match finished, we ended up with...
So the other members of Alpha Academy kind of tried to come in
I'm not entirely sure what this next bit was really for to be fair, but as Gunther ends up locking in a sleeper hold on to Zara again
Which gets interrupted
And then there's another power bomb onto Otis from Gunther before J. So comes running out to save Otis from a third power bomb
But Gunther pretty much is already like knows J's coming at this point, you can kind of anticipate it
We see one, you see the other at the moment
So he lays a bit of a beat down onto J, J reverses it and ends up hitting him with a spear
And then he kind of raises the title above the Gunther who's lying in the middle of the ring
Which kind of, you know, it says, we're told by commentary that in 47 nights we are going to have that WrestleMania match between the two of them
And then Theory and Waller came running out
I couldn't really think of why we'd see Austin Theory and Grayson Waller
And then we were informed by Michael Cole, it was they came out and attacked Jetty because they felt that he embarrassed them last week
When they were trying to call him out and tell him that no one likes him and everyone thinks he's going to lose
Yeah, so this, I mean it sort of is what it is with this one, it's a case that Grayson Waller, Austin Theory felt fucked off that basically J had managed to
Knock Grayson Waller's jaw around to the other side of his head with a super kick outside the trainer's room and yeah, it just
I always feel particularly underwhelmed when it comes to A-Town Down Under, I mean they had a really good match the other week in NXT
And I've just got an odd feeling that should they really have ever been moved from NXT in the first place?
Probably not
No, they've not really done a lot on main roster, they could probably have benefitted from staying in NXT slightly longer
But hey, we're just two middle aged men sat on a sofa discussing wrestling, we're not anything to do with wrestling and they probably got a half decent storyline ahead coming up
But I'm not going to lie to you neither of them really gripped me and kind of go yeah, you want to watch me wrestle, yeah, no
Yeah, this is it, it's basically like the next generation's version of The Mizzers
Little bit
Yeah, no, I'm not really a big fan of Austin, Austin Theory and Grayson Waller
So we get, Jay gets a bit of a bit of fun in there, he hits a nice little spear, one of them, I can't remember which one it is, I think it was Austin Theory, he speared
And then we got some good old slaps locked around and yeah, some yeet slaps they were described as and all you heard was the slap and yoo from the crowd
Until Gunther Jops back into the ring sneaks up on Jay and locks him into a submission into a sleep hold, isn't it?
And puts Jay to sleep, he puts him to sleep, kind of night light, oh yeah, yeah, he definitely went to sleep
That guy knew his chicken had been cooked, I know
Which Gunther picks his title back up and holds it above Jay's unconscious body in the ring, which is a little bit of like, you're not doing that to me mate, this is my title, I'll show you how to do it properly
Yeah, which we've sort of come to expect from Gunther, he's not one to be one up as it were
Definitely
So yeah, that feud intensifies on the Road to WrestleMania as we will see with so many other feuds that we'll likely develop over the next few weeks on the run
But they did say he was going to make Jay use those life hell on the Road to WrestleMania and he's made a good start to keeping that promise
I mean he's also managing to make the Alpha Academy's life not very fun either, so he's sort of got a twofer in there
Wow, yeah, but you know, it's all good and heard, talking about all good and heard this, we ended up going from that match into a promo of our match a little bit later on between Rhea Ripley and Yo Sky for the women's world title
Yeah, just sort of illustrating the history behind Yo Sky and Rhea Ripley's little rivalry I suppose, it's probably the best way to illustrate that
And we're basically, yeah, we're waiting on that for the main event, we go from that into another VT for John Cena's heel turn
Oh, did John Cena have a heel turn? Oh, I missed that
Did you not know?
Well, where was that? I'm going to have to go back and check out that podcast episode that I recorded and completely forgot about apparently
Yeah, apparently so
Cena had a heel turn, god damn it, what a surprise
Yeah, I know, right? But the only reason I haven't made note of every VT they use in Raw
is just illustrating that heel turn, the man we can't see had on Saturday night
The only reason I've mentioned this one is because it then goes into a backstage interview where Kathy Kelly is interviewing AJ Styles
and he's probably getting his reaction on John Cena's heel turn and Styles barely gets a few words off before he is interrupted by Karrion Kross
who seems to be trying to get as many, he seems to be trying to have as many hands in as many different pies as he can possibly get them at the moment
and he's been sort of stirring the pot with Sami Zayn recently and all the rest of it
and I've actually seen on social media and I've actually seen Karrion Kross himself respond to this theory
It's a case that every time we see Karrion Kross, his hair is in the same style as the person that he's interacting with
So I've often joked on and off, I think on and off the podcast about AJ Styles having a soccer mom hairstyle
Karrion Kross does his best impression of that there
Sami Zayn normally has his little twat knot at the beginning or at the top and it's a case that we see that as well
Well you know if he's going to be getting into it with Randy Orton at the time of the season
or if he's going to end up having to shave his noggin
Yes there is that
but yeah it's
Well Karrion Kross ends up, I think he probably ends up stitching AJ Styles up a good one here to be honest with you
It's a case that he basically
We set AJ up him for a match with Logan didn't we?
Yeah he gets an AJ's head
That's it, like gets AJ thinking that it's a good idea to call out Logan Paul for a match at Madison Square Gardens next week
and AJ goes off like yeah I'm going to go talk to Adam Pearce, yeah
and then you just get back to Karrion Kross and he's like that was easy
Yeah and this is what Karrion Kross does, he gets him people's head
Yeah and he does it very very well but yeah he completely mugged AJ off
So on that basis we are working on that AJ Styles is going to face Logan Paul
in what I'm guessing is just going to be a standard singles match next week in Madison Square Gardens
but it hasn't been confirmed confirmed by anyone at this point
No but we do go from this VT into the second match of the evening which is actually the women's intercontinental championship match
where we see Lyra Valkyria defend against Ivy Nile
I threw in my notes here and I don't know if you can hear it too but when you listen to Ivy Niles entry music
do you hear Kurt Angles in there too? Yes and that is by design
That wasn't just me being stupidly baked, oh shit I can hear Kurt Angles
No it's not Kurt Angles, it's Ivy Nile
No because Ivy Nile uses the same entrance music I think as the American made faction that Chad Gable has been leading recently
and I think on one week in particular they were coming out to the ring and they even managed to get a U-Suck chant from the WWE Universe
So yeah it's in there by design and there are reasons behind it
I didn't get a lot of notes for this match and I'm not 100% sure why because it was a good match
to be fair it was a great match
It wasn't particularly there wasn't a lot of high spots for it which is what you have a tendency to focus on
So we focus mainly on big power moves or high flying moves
I like to refer to myself as a JR note taker
If JR would have gone oh my god I'm making a note of it
If he didn't it normally just gets left by the wayside
But yeah we started off with a recap of Dakota Kai and her match against Lyra Valkyria last time
and how Ivy interrupted at the end so basically Ivy Nile comes down, tosses Dakota Kai into the rails
runs into the ring pulls Lyra down onto the turnbuckle, German Suplex whips her ass and then basically just kind of wanders off
But she laid a beat down on the champion and this time the champion is like well no you don't just come into my ring
and lay the smack of down on me we're going to have a match for this
So we got a women's intercontinental championship match between those two
So yeah I didn't get a huge amount
I've got Ivy's never held a WWE title
and then I've got Ivy used the dragon screw from the second rope which is something we've seen a lot being used by Stephanie Baker in NXT
So it's nice to see that being used by
and it's used to some degree of efficiency as well as it seemed to cause obviously a tweak in Lyra's left knee
which continues just to sort of cause her issues throughout this match as it goes
Yeah I don't remember anyone saying about her having knee issues in the past but I can imagine like
No but we've said this dragon screw move is brutal
It's absolutely brutal so if you're using that on either left or the right leg that leg's not going to be right for the rest of the match realistically
No definitely not
And that's if you choose correctly
Yeah you were, you missed time that one you were going to do a loss of damage
Oh 100%
Someone who's got knee issues themselves, yeah you try pulling that on me if I can get that right you're going to mess my knee right up again
That dragon screw basically was a, it could have been the absolute turning point in this match for Ivy Nile to have won
and just Lyra Valkyrie was the better woman on the night realistically
And that was kind of shown by the fact that she retained her championship at the end of it as well
But it could have so easily gone either way and this is sort of the frustrating thing with Ivy Nile is that fundamentally she is a phenomenal talent
She just doesn't seem at the moment to have enough to be able to get us to sort of inch herself over that finish line with it
Yeah I think with a rework and a slight push Ivy Nile does have the ability to go a lot further up the card
A lot further towards the top of the card than where she sits at the moment
Maybe it's just not her time
Both women had a fantastic match as you said Valkyrie retained and that was all they wrote on that one
So we then went into a recap of old Chick Magnet Punk and Seth from their brawl earlier
And then we see Jackie Redmond backstage talking to a still very pissed off CM Punk
And then...
It was Rollins that she was talking to
She was talking to Rollins, that's right and the reason I mentioned CM Punk was that out of the corner of Rollins eye
He sees the second city saint and makes a beeline for him and all of a sudden the carnage that we open the show with has restarted
It's absolutely bad with those two trying to rip each other's head clean off and shit on each other's neck
Yeah pretty much
But we don't get as much sort of view of what happens after that really because they don't
To the best of my knowledge looking at what I can see here it doesn't look like they make much mention of it at all throughout the rest of the match
Throughout the rest of the card so it's not something that we really come back to at any point
But we went from there and we actually hit a familiar segment which is where WWE sort of recap there
Do a brief recap of their history in Buffalo
This is by an interesting history in Buffalo so Raw has been held in Buffalo 18 times
This is the 18th time Monday night Raw has been held in Buffalo
And this was the 70th WWE televised event which means it could have been Raw, NXT, main event, 205 live
Anything that could have possibly have been televised through WWE was, it's like the 70th one that they've done from Buffalo New York
Before we launch into this next bit I've got your notes in front of me and I know that you've made a mistake with one of the next ones listed
Which one of them made a mistake?
Because I nearly made the same mistake so one of the other things that they give us is that Buffalo has hosted 5 PLEs
The first one on the list was fully loaded 1999
It's the next one on your list that isn't actually a WWE pay-per-view
No, full brawl 2000 I think was a, I want to say it was an NWA pay-per-view potentially
It wasn't WWE because I kept coming back to it because I'm guessing that you probably found the same list that I did
Because you've got all the other ones that I've got
It was WCW that did full brawl 2000
There we go
Because Goldberg's on the poster for it along with Scott Steiner
Yeah, and at that point WCW was just the competitor at that point
But the others that I found your sort of match with me on
Great American Bash 05 Armageddon 08, Knight of Champions 2011 and Battleground 2013
Which was the one that we both messed up on?
The one I messed up on anyway
I was going to say I got it right
Yeah, we then
I did my research properly
Oh, right, oh right
Bite me, I was
Probably waiting for you to come on to the PC to record another episode
So we then went from that section into a little bit of who's in the arena
Mainly focusing on a gentleman called Dion Dawkins who is the Buffalo Bill's left tackle
Showing off some mighty fine WWE merchandise and some Buffalo Bill's gear as well
And then we had a backstage segment with Adam Pearce talking to Seth Rollins
And Rollins is basically just saying like he wants to fight and he's going to do to punk
He did to Reigns and he's going to make sure that punk's not going to WrestleMania
So we then
The exciting part of this was
We got to find out a new match for the Madison Square Gardens card
So next week we have a match between Seth Rollins and CM Punk in Madison Square Gardens
With a stipulation page
They are going mono on mono inside a steel cage
Which means that's a no-dq match, right?
It is a no-dq match and yeah, it's
Oh, there's stuff under the ring too
Oh, yeah, just fantastic
Really looking forward to a match where we see Seth Rollins and CM Punk tee off inside a steel cage
You know what though?
The Garden
The Garden of all places with its WWE history is a hell of a place to have this match
Did you not think that's a WrestleMania worthy match?
Punk Rollins steel cage
It is and that's what makes it so exciting for next week's Raw
It's just a standard Monday night Raw
And we're getting WrestleMania quality matches
You know, five weeks away from WrestleMania
The other thing Adam Pearce does here is that he does make a smart play
And basically kicks Rollins out of Raw for the week
And just says, you know what, fuck off, I don't want to see you
Don't come back, otherwise you're fucking done basically
I've had a few bosses tell me that over the years, you know
Fuck off, don't come back, don't want to see your face ever again
Alright boss
We then ended up going to an in-ring promo
What are your favorite people?
Yeah, we got to see Ludwig Kaiser
And he, well, we saw Ludwig Kaiser in ring, right?
And then we went to a wonderful recap of Ludwig Kaiser
And the fact that he attacked Penta
You know, they've had the triple threat matches between himself, Penta and P'dun
And basically Kaiser is just going to come out
Demand everyone's gratitude for doing
You know, because he feels that Penta shouldn't have the attention he's got
And he's, you know, he feels he deserves it and P'dun doesn't
Yeah, it's very much Ludwig Kaiser too in his own horn basically
And yeah, it's okay, it makes a very interesting vow
To, if Penta doesn't basically stay out of his way
He's going to make what happened to Cody Rhodes look tame
I mean, fair play to him
If he thinks he can pull it off
But Penta himself
Penta himself is not going to take that line down as he comes to the ring
And basically, I cherry picked a few bits, a few, well, one bit in particular
Was that obviously Penta and Ludwig Kaiser's beef started at Royal Rumble
When Penta managed to evict Ludwig Kaiser from the Rumble match
When he'd only been in there for about six, seven seconds, something like that
What was it? What was it?
You sorry?
I said it wasn't long
No, it certainly wasn't
But we got shades of Royal Rumble here with Penta taking Kaiser out of the ring over the top rope
And then suicide diving out of the ring into Ludwig Kaiser
And basically shutting his damn mouth
Yeah, there's a few secret stars I wish they would shut their damn mouths
Ludwig Kaiser is one of them
One person we don't mind hearing from every now and again is
In a women's elimination chamber winner who we hear from next in a backstage promo
Where she's talking about the events in the chamber
Yeah, obviously recapping
If you haven't listened to the episode or watched the program
Jade Cargill came back, looked like she was about to lay live Morgan with one holy right hand
But instead laid an absolute beating down on Naomi
Which you can hear the smile coming through the headphones at the moment
And this motherfucker managed to call this a few weeks ago
He said that this would happen
So yeah, it turns out it wasn't Liv and Raquel that took Jade Cargill
It was Naomi
Now, we still haven't had this confirmed
Even Bianca says that she hasn't spoken to either Naomi or Jade
And since elimination chamber, it's a case that she's in the dark as we appear to be
Even though, yeah, I'm still saying that I fucking called it from jump that it was Naomi
And yeah, Bianca is basically choosing to refocus herself
Trying to distance herself from this drama, the Jade Cargill Naomi, Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez drama
And focus on the main event of the night
As the main event of the night basically says is directly impacting her and her WrestleMania
It's whether she's preparing to go on and fight EO Sky or whether she's going on to
And needs to prepare to take on Mammy herself
Obviously with Mammy being the current holding champion
She'll be preparing for Rhea but with that big title much later on in the episode
Between her and EO, yeah, it could be anyone
But it's supposed to be Bianca, that's got to suck not knowing where she's going either
She's got plenty of time to prepare and it's not like either EO or Rhea are completely new entities to her
They both have faced off previously, it's a case that they came up together so they already know each other reasonably well
The other thing that I happen to notice and I know for a fact that you won't have noticed this
Is in the background before we start talking about Jade Cargill or anything like that
There are two superstars in the background that we spot
One is Maxine Dupree, part of Alpha Academy
And the other one is Natalia who we've seen appearing quite a lot with Alpha Academy of Late
She was in the training room last week when Jey also came to check in on Tazawa and Otis after Gunther's beat down
And we've seen her for the second week in a row associating with members of Alpha Academy
Even if it is just sort of passing, so I'm not sure if there is something developing there
But it was very clearly in camera shot, was off in the background so it would have been a detail that some people may have overlooked
But still worth mentioning
Right, well from there we got another VT about Senus Heal Turn
Oh yeah, I think I've heard about that somewhere
But this one was focusing on the different announced teams reactions when the Heal Turn went on
Which actually I thought was quite an interesting idea
It was to be fair, we've seen the social media aspects with all the big influences on social media
But given their reactions, but to see the Spanish announced table always killed me
But the reactions from these tables were brilliant, absolutely hilarious
Obviously at the time when it happened it was like, what the fuck?
And now we've seen them all, it's just been hilarious
I've seen some quality memes as well with that, boots to goolies
Well you see, it's more the young fans reactions that I've seen
I saw one lad literally trying to clear all of the John Cena stuff out of his room
Chocking it down the stairs at his dad, I'm getting rid of this shit dad, I don't want it no more
Dude it's just a storyline, I don't care, I'm not having it
It's real to me, god damn it
Some people do get far too engrossed in it
But it's one of those, and then we get a conversation ringside between Michael Cole and Pat McAfee
Talking about Chad Gable's quest for Libra
And we get a VT for that
Yeah we get that, we basically get quite a cool little VT actually
He's walking around, I'm guessing it's Mexico
I really don't want to throw too many guesses out there
But asking people if they knew the photograph, we don't get shown the photograph
It's like hey, do you know this guy?
And then he bumps into said guy in a random alleyway
Which very porno-esque style vibes here
Boom, there's the person you're looking for
And who basically just kind of says to him that if you want to be lucha, you need to become more lucha
And pulls out a box of which Chad Gable has to hand over a rather large sum of money to get his hands on the old box
But he's told that the power inside the box will be beyond his understanding
And then we come out of the VT to American Maidston the Ring
Yeah so I've taken that VT as meaning that we're going to see a return of Chad Gable
Now we have to sort of remember that Chad Gable set the rest of American Maid
Which is the Creed Brothers and Ivin Isle, a challenge
Must have got gold for a few years away
Yeah, so far we've seen that Ivin Isle hasn't quite been able to get the job done
And I would make the same argument for the Creed Brothers up to this point
As they had an ideal opportunity a few weeks ago which I still maintain
They completely fucked themselves out of
That was when they no-defeated themselves in the title match
Yeah, very much so
Idiocracy
They smacked out the War Raiders with their own title
Which only benefited the War Raiders
Which with no mean feat were their opponents tonight
Was this just a title match or was this just a normal tag match?
No, this was a title match
Match 3 was a men's World Tag Team Championship match which saw Eric and Ivar the War Raiders
And I noticed during, at least once during this segment Michael Cole makes the same mistake that I'd usually make with the War Raiders
And goes to call them the Viking Raiders
Which was obviously a previous name for the tag team which they're no longer using
Versus the Creed Brothers, Brutus and Julius Creed
And one of the things we find out is it's actually when this match is taking place
It's Ivar's birthday
Yes, and when they asked him
Quite a fun little detail
What he wanted for his birthday, he wanted to eat the Creed Brothers alive
So, um, someone in the catering
Judging by the size of them I wouldn't put it past him
Someone in catering is not doing a good enough job if he's been in the catering truck and still looking to eat another person that's about 200 pounds of weight
Yeah, this is it
Um, but do you know what? I really wasn't mad at this match considering
Considering how poor a showing the Creed Brothers had the first time round
It's a case that I wasn't expecting a great amount from them this time
But it was very fast paced from the Creed Brothers
There was a lot of quick tagging from them keeping the War Raiders off balance with that
They did a really good job to be fair
I'm not going to lie to you
My notes for this match consist of four lines
One telling me what the match is
One telling me it was Ivar's birthday
One telling me the result
The only major thing I got written down for this
Because of how engrossed I got into what was going on
Was at one point in the match
Brutus hit a 450 frog splash
And Julius managed to hit a shooting star press
Which is one of those moves that you do not see at all
And then someone pulls it out
Does it really really well
And I'm hoping he puts it back in the box now
Because when he hit that he hit it well
And I mean really well
It connected it perfectly
The last person I saw try and pull off the shooting star press was Brock Lesnar
And yes he's done it a fair few times
But we all remember that one time he didn't quite get it right
We always remember the negatives unfortunately
But yeah I didn't get a map that I might more than you did for this match
And it was literally just because I sat there and enjoyed it
I couldn't really cherry pick any elements out
Without literally writing notes that were going to be a play by play of the match itself
And the reality sometimes when I'm watching the programming
Because we're watching it, we're making notes on it
We sometimes we watch certain segments two or three times
And we do put a fad
It may not seem it with my notes some days I will tell you
But we do put a fair amount of effort into what we're doing
And then I kind of sometimes forget just to enjoy what I'm watching
Because by the time you've gone oh you know
That was big I'll better write that down
And then you've paused the wrestling you've typed down how you want to write it
And you've gone back rewatched it just so if there's any more details you need
Carry on to the next section
And you don't because you're so cut and match
You don't get time to it to flow
Sometimes it's just nice to go back and rewatch the match afterwards
And be like yeah I know the win but I'm going to enjoy this now
So I do see your point it's a case that for me personally to sit down and watch
Let's say a two and a half hour episode of Raw
Is probably going to take me upwards of about four hours to watch
While making notes because of the chop and change
Or the stop and start and I will as you say go back and watch certain segments
Simply two or three times while I'm making notes because in the space of two minutes
So much can happen in a match or in a promo
If you're sat there watching and literally just watching
It's fine to absorb all of those different events
But if you've then got to try and sit and make notes about what's going on
It becomes a real bitch to do
You'll try to get the details to be able to talk about it in a continuous flow
Without taking away anything from the presentation
But yeah just complete
It can be a complete nightmare
Definitely then talking about bitches we had a conversation ringside between Michael Cole and Pat McAfee
Talking about Monday Night Raw's biggest bitch
I'm talking about Kevin Owens and his unsanctioned match against Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber
We had a recap of their unsanctioned match but it mainly focused on the return of Randy Orton
And the brawl between Randy Orton and Kevin Owens
It was more of a push of an RKO onto Kevin Owens who was then set himself up in the corner of the ring
Bearing in mind he's just had a brutal unsanctioned match with Sami Zayn
And he's begging Randy Orton to come down to the ring to get some
And you're like what the fuck are you doing my dude?
Seriously calm it down
We also get told during this little segment that Sami Zayn is out indefinitely
Due to re-aggravation of that neck trauma that he suffered with a package pole driver
Basically Sami Zayn did not come out of that the way that he went in
Which we sort of knew was going to happen regardless
But yeah it's indeterminate at the moment when Sami Zayn will be returning
I don't like it when WWE use the term indefinitely because the next promo they use that very same term
With somebody involved in this next promo which made it sound like he was freaking retiring
And he didn't because he's back
Thankfully I'm glad he's back because again one of my childhood favourites
But this is where we see a VT promo of
I've just literally kept this dead simple and said LWO
The Lucha World Order or Latina World Order I'm not entirely sure which one it falls under
I'm guessing the latter
Are basically clapping back at the New Day who have been on an absolute tirade against them recently
Yeah so I've got that the LWO got stomped down by New Day
But they won't allow New Day to take their hearts, their spirit or their fire
Because New Day couldn't get the job done
And LWO are stronger and then we see Ray in the VT
And he says that him and Dragon Lee are going to make sure they have a very bad day
When they face off in what I'm guessing is a prearranged match already behind
There's no confirmation from Adam Pearce
But in a tornado tag match so this is a little bit of a strange one
Normally with a tag match you see one member of each team in the ring
And the other member on the turnbuckle holding a bit of string
And they've got a touch, they're a potent like their teammate to be able to swap in and out
This one is not the case so we have four people in a ring throwing down
Like just completely throwing off so we're going to have Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston
Versus Ray Mysterio and Dragon Lee just beating living crap out of each other
And because it's a specialised match type it also means it's no DQ
So there's going to be an entire selection of tables, ladders, chairs, trash cans, kendo sticks
We're going to see everything
Yeah so tornado tags are really not very common at all
We see obviously a lot of the standard tag as Rich said
One person from each team in the ring at a time
Anybody else is normally left out on the apron to await them being tagged in
Tornado tag doesn't operate that way
There's no respite by tagging a partner or anything like that
And it's just not something we see WWE do very often at all
So I'm hyped for this match, I'm not going to lie
So we went from that VT to an in-ring promo for Finn Balor and Bron Breaker
I'm going to throw one last section on the end of that tornado tag match
The last one we had on WWE programming was on Smackdown on the 20th of September 2024
And we had a tornado tag match between Bayley and Naomi versus Nia Jax and Tiffany Stratton
If Bayley or Naomi won the one scoring the four would earn a WWE Women's Championship match at Bad Blood
But if they lost the one who pinned would have to leave Smackdown
Oh right, okay
It doesn't actually tell me who won that much, so that's why I haven't thrown that one in
No, fair enough
I'm guessing it was probably Bayley's the amount of time we've seen her in all of the different programs recently
I would say so, I would say so, but yeah, so I'll still maintain it
It's not a tremendously widely used match type, which is odd because, well, I say odd
It's just going to be more chaotic, and again, I refer back to me and Rich having to make notes on it all
It's going to be a friggin nightmare to make notes on, but in terms of a match as a wrestling fan
Fucking gasped for it, absolutely
It's going to be an incredible match
But yeah, we'll digress on from that
And talk about this in-ring promo between Finn Balor and Bron Breaker, because we sort of come back from a commercial
And we sort of, we've seen this more and more at the moment where we seem to come in part way through something going on
And we're sort of then left to play catch up with no help from commentary or anything
The NXT programming where they were trying to put the NXT logo on the screen at the same time that someone was trying to cut a promo backstage
And it just kept glitching from one to the other and back to the first again
Yeah, nowhere near as bad as that, that is an extreme example from, I think it was last week's NXT actually
Possibly the week before, I want to say it was Kalani Jordan, not Kalani Jordan, Jada Parker trying to cut a promo
Yeah, and...
Yeah, so it's...
We've got Bron Breaker who's sort of up in the crowd, he's obviously been doing an arena side promo with Kathy Kelly
And Balor's in-ring
And basically Finn Balor thinking quite a lot of himself apparently, says that the only way that Bron's been able to hold on to his IC champ is because Judgment Day have allowed it
I mean, he says that and he's definitely, his Cajones were probably bigger when he started saying it than what they were when he finished
But at what point did Judgment Day think they're going to allow Bron Breaker to dictate, to be, you know, at what point, sorry, did Judgment Day think they're going to dictate to Bron Breaker what he can do
And Bron Breaker just breaks him in half
Yeah, and long story short, that's what ends up happening with this is that Breaker ends up coming down...
And Balor makes a claim that he's untouchable, Breaker makes his way down from arena side through the crowd to ringside where we see sort of Carlito and Don Mysterio seemingly appear out of nowhere
Unsuccessfully managed to take out Bron Breaker
They hit him down with the, when you're in the ring, the dogs won't be barking, they'll be watching the dog get put down or something and Bron's just like, I know I'm down, straight down to the ring
Yeah, I'm going to be honest, I don't fully understand this dog's barking thing that Bron Breaker's got going at the minute
And Bron Breaker played football for, I've got to try and make sure I get this the right one, I believe it's Georgia, because their college university football team is called the Georgia Bulldogs
And I'm pretty sure that's where he played football, so the whole dogs thing is a Bulldogs reference
Oh right, okay, so it's all football related
There's a football link there, yeah
Fair enough
That, as long as he doesn't start walking around calling himself the big dog, because someone's already tried that
Yeah, that, I can't even remember who did that
Who's walking around calling himself the big dog?
Yeah
That would have been our tribal chief before he became our tribal chief
Ah, that is a good point, yeah
My brain, my brain decided, nope
Can you remember who did the, the up dog gimmick?
No, my brain's gone
Have you seen the up dog?
I'm not falling, my brain isn't that gone
Oh that was worth a try, it was worth it
It was, it was, you're not wrong
Yeah, basically
Bala basically, as you said, baits breaker down to the ring, tries to basically Bala start to beat down that ultimately he was never going to be able to finish
I'm sure that I quite enjoy watching Bron Breaker military press Fred Bala
Like, he don't see it a lot, but you know that, yeah, Finn Bala's not a huge dude, like he's not Kane or Big Show, but he's still got some weight to him
And Bron Breaker just picked him up like he was a piece of paper, like lifted him up
And Bala is almost pure muscle, there isn't an ounce of fat on the guy, I'm convinced of it
Because he is, that he has, is and always will be as far as I can see
The guy's ripped, he is 100%, pound for pound, pure muscle
You don't see him having a cheat day very often?
No, but somebody that probably wished he called in sick that day was Carlito, who ends up, I like how it's, when Bron Breaker does a spear, it's not just a spear, it's a super spear
Which, I mean, I show speed is going to be able to attest to the fact that, yeah, it probably feels like a super spear
As Carlito is inducted into the Super Spear Hall of Fame
After Breaker tries one on Bala, Dom saves him, they're halfway up the ramp and they've obviously forgotten Carlito was laid out at ringside
Carlito gets up, not realising and you just see this really evil looking smile on Bron Breaker's face as he charges head first into Carlito
Yeah, poor Carlito, like he, he got a fucking train wrecked
But I'm not going to lie, I'd rather Carlito was on the receiving end of that train wreck than me
Yeah, this is true, this is true
But, yeah, we went from there to another VT on Cena, winning the Chamber match
And basically this one culminates to, we'll get a response from Cody on Friday Night SmackDown
And it was the only reason I made note of that VT in any way, shape or form
Yeah, so I just made a note that there was another conversation about Cena's heel turn
We went from there backstage with Mr. Uso, our main event J and Alpha Academy
And he says that, it's pretty much that tonight throw him off his game and he's got some stuff going on in his head
But only Jake can keep himself up and he uses quite an interesting line
So he uses a Bible quote in the next one and it says, he'll walk through the valley of the shadow of death
And he'll feel no evil but he'll wake up a beast and then we get that, was it one word, four letters?
Yeah
Yeah, it was a very different kind of promo than what we've seen J Uso recently
I mean the guy walks out into the Buffalo winter without a shirt on
That takes some cahonis on its own
Yeah, I'm not sure what the temperature was like that night but you can guarantee that it was fucking cold
And there was snow on the ground, it was always going to be a bit nippy
That was just J Uso and he walked out without a shirt
Yeah, pretty much
But yeah, I'm starting to wonder if, like it's difficult to tell if he's
If J Uso is sort of angry but confident, if he's angry but scared or if he's just losing his grip on reality a little bit
Because of everything that Gunther's trying to pull him through
He's losing it a little bit I think
Can't blame the poor guy
I was going to say, does this mean that he's going to end up throwing away a golden opportunity at Mania though?
I mean, you never know, you never know
But talking about Mania, we have one match left on the card
And that is our main event which we've been talking about for a little while
Which is our match between EO Sky and Ria Ripley for the women's heavyweight title
Yeah, the women's world championship where we see Ria Ripley defend
And we also have Bianca Ballet making herself known at ringside
Yeah, which is one of those things that she's obviously going to be facing the winner of this match at WrestleMania
So for her to be at ringside to keep a close eye on what was going on
There's definitely quite an interesting side aspect to it
Yeah, and I mean going into this match we're reminded again and again that
Ria Ripley has never beaten EO Sky one on one even though the last time they faced off was about five years ago
So it's a case that we haven't seen them tee off against one another in quite a number of years
Which is odd considering you think the size of the women's divisions within WWE
You'd like to think that they'd have at least squared off once in five years but apparently not
And yeah, it's a case that Ria Ripley very much playing to her strength early on
And just sort of trying to deal out a lot of damage but EO Sky not really managing to get a foot in the game
It's a case that
I kind of expect Ria to deal with that damage though, she's quite a powerhouse within the wrestling
Sort of the women's division and her main sort of her go to she can have a short powerful match
Rather than a long dragged out one she's going to take that and I generally think she did
Even though you can kind of see she's got some concerns about the fact that she's never beaten EO
You could tell she was just it was just another match to her and it was just another way of expressing her domination
Over the women's division within Monday Night Raw
Well the question is I mean did she go into that match overly confident
I mean she has had a phenomenal 12 months plus
Where she has achieved a lot and managed to do a lot of things that people didn't think she'd be able to do
Did she go into that thinking oh winning against EO Sky it's just another barrier I can break down
I'm going to break down on my way to WrestleMania and it's a bit of an odd one
I mean these two women they again they came up together they came up through NXT together
They came up onto main roster together and it's a case that they know each other remarkably well
But yeah, Rhea Ripley basically trying to steamroll EO Sky
But EO Sky while not getting much offence in when she was landing hits they were in all of the right places
She wasn't sort of hitting a lot but she was hitting weak points
I got her down as hitting like a couple of code breakers a couple of missile dropkicks
A few sort of bullet trains were attempted but you know countered throughout the first
So like 5-10 minutes of the match like when she did get an opportunity to put some offence down it
Like you said it was tactical and it was hard hitting
Yeah she was basically trying to take as much momentum as much wind out of Ripley's sails
As she possibly could and in fairness every time she did and got the opportunity to do that
It's a case that she did so really well and at one point she was even using moves from
That we normally see from other members of damage control which I mean we see this quite a lot
Where wrestlers will borrow each other's moves but being able to pull off one after the other after the other
Was quite impressive realistically
To pull some of them off better than Tokio Kaia as well was quite interesting
Yeah definitely but I've got a fair amount of notes here
I mean I've got one here that says, rear Ripley basically managed to pull off a massive angle slam
From the top rope but only managed to get out but sort of pull out a two count for that one
I've also got another one that says that EOSKY does a sunset flip powerbomb into the barricade off the apron
Which I mean looking at the size and weight ratios between EOSKY and rear Ripley
You wouldn't have thought somebody of EOSKY's frame and height would be able to do that to some of the absolute tanking comparison of rear Ripley
Exactly, you wouldn't expect EOSKY's, I mean at one point she had rear locked in with the Aska lock
You know like when you expect someone like EOSKY to be able to try and submit someone as powerful as rear you just don't expect it coming
And I think that's part of what makes EOSKY so dangerous as a competitor
Is that she's got the nickname of the Queen of the Sky, she is known for her high flying
So realistically if you're trying to play it smart you're going to go in and try and keep her on the ground
Take out a vertical base and that's how you win a match against EOSKY
But rear Ripley wasn't thinking this way, she just viewed EOSKY as another
I do think she sort of underestimated EOSKY and overestimated her own abilities in this one
That coupled together with something that happens towards the end of this match just not playing very well into anything that went on
Yeah Ripley, rear wasn't, for someone who was so confident going into the match
I think she realised she might have been in trouble sort of like three quarters of the way through
I'm not sure whether she was gassed or what the problem was
But you could tell that her body language changed and she was like shit, I could actually possibly not win this
Yeah
And at that point EO just turned the gas on
At one point EO was pretty much down and out
At one point during the match EOSKY narrowly avoids being ring out, ring out, ring outed
Counted out of the ring
But only managed to avoid it because of some encouragement from Bianca Belair
Which pissed rear off massively and got rear into Bianca's face
Yeah, I mean, rear has always thought of Bianca as an ally, as a friend
It's not a case that she's ever thought, do you know what?
Bianca, I mean, it's revealed later on that her and Bianca coming up through NXT were talking about the day will come when
Rhea Ripley vs Bianca Belair on the main stage of WrestleMania and you can't deny how this looks when you've got Bianca Belair there
Shouting encouragement to EOSKY who could potentially be an opponent at Mania after this match
Rather face EO than Rhea though
Yeah, and that's how it comes across for Bianca as well, I mean, either one are going to be a tough mountain to conquer sort of thing
Because they're both, well, one's a current world champion with former championship reigns behind her
EOSKY is a former world champion in her own right
And then neither of them are going to be sort of easy matches to get over
Well, no, exactly, they're both going to be very, very heavy intensive matches, so there's not something I'd want to be doing
During the argument that ensued, I actually questioned the referee's call on this
Now I know that referees get a modicum of discretion
It's basically what the referee says in the ring goes to a certain degree
And I question, because at one point Rhea gives Belair a shove
Then Belair gives Rhea a shove back
I like question, should the referee have called DQ at that point?
Should the referee have called DQ at that point to basically say, hang on, it's one thing for Rhea to put hands on Bianca as an outside shot
But Bianca then puts her hands on Rhea Ripley at the same time
And she's not involved in the match, she's out there as a spectator and DQ has been called for a lot less at the past
So I do question whether that was something that potentially we should have seen from the referee there for it
But the finish to this match, I mean the match in general, I couldn't take my eyes off it
Absolutely adored how this match played out as Ripley attempts a riptide from the top rope
But Io counters with a super horror kanrana, which was flawlessly done by the way
I mean we'd expect nothing less from the Queen of the Sky herself
And then we see Io Sky hits over the moonsault to win the match
Sticky icing on the cake to become, well I don't take it away
Yeah, she comes out of that match with the win, which was the one thing we didn't really expect to happen
This close to Mania, it is incredibly unusual for titles to change hands on that final run to wrestle Mania
It's not that it's never been done, it just doesn't happen very often
It's a common thing to have done
And we know now at WrestleMania, Io Sky will face Bianca Belair as a very first title defence of this reign
I'm going to be honest with you, I've got a feeling Bianca is going to walk out of WrestleMania with Io being the holder
I'm not going to count Io out, because they've got to be careful, they don't fall into the same traps that they've done before
Not saying it definitely won't happen, because there is still a very real possibility that Bianca Belair walks out of Mania with a title over her shoulder
But at the same time, it's a case that Bianca is embroiled in all of this drama around Jade Cargill, there's no chance, there can't be any
Can't rule out that that's not going to play a part in the WrestleMania match at the same time
There's so many variables here, but the big story out of this is that Rhea Ripley essentially has lost out on a chance of main eventing this Rhea's WrestleMania in Las Vegas
Which was something we honestly did not see come in, and she does not take this loss well
I mean would you?
I mean no, and ordinarily we used to seeing the champion blaming outside influence if there was outside interference sort of thing
So she could have sat there quite easily and blamed Io for beating her, or Bianca for getting involved or anything like that
But we see in an interview that was conducted once Raw had gone off air, I remember actually sending this video of it to you Richard
When I saw it on social media, it's a case that we, I've got an odd feeling that we're going to see a version of Mummy in the run up to WrestleMania that just has no self confidence anymore
There's definitely a very strong possibility
They needed to do some character development for Rhea
She's been a stable powerhouse for too long, not for too long, but she's been champion for a long time
But maybe Io can give us a bit of a change with her ruler, like with her being in charge of the division, we might actually get some different types of things that we wouldn't necessarily have got from having Rhea in charge
Yeah, I mean all's possible, but at the point of broadcast we are 47 nights away until the start of WrestleMania weekend
Now, I'm not and percent certain where that puts us for
21st of April
For when we're recording this as it goes, but it's a case that, so, 47, so when we're recording this we are 41 nights, I've got 41
We're 40-ish
Yeah, just over 49th away from the start of WrestleMania weekend, which I mean is already shaping up to be an instant classic, let's face it
Certainly is
But we will leave WrestleMania when we get to WrestleMania, we've got the build up to enjoy for the next 40 days, so that will be an incredible journey
The first one we've done on the road to WrestleMania was for finishes and factions
Yeah, definitely, and who knows, we may even come up with some ideas for some bonus content along the way, but we'll leave that as it goes, but it's a case that I think I've certainly run out of notes here, Rich, have you got anything else?
Nope, my notes are done mate, my notes are finished, so I think
Right, in which case, I think it's time to sign off this episode of finishes and factions does raw
We thank obviously every last one of you for making it through to the end, and it's a case that, yeah, I mean we've got our next episode that comes out will be
Finishes and factions does NXT, which I mean, we've sitting here recording this, we've both already watched NXT, we know what happens, but we're really looking forward to being able to talk about it a little bit more, because I think we're going to see some
We're possibly going to see some very opposing opinions of how this all plays out, and there's definitely some bits and pieces to talk to, so we look forward to seeing you then, but I think for now we say farewell and see you all soon
Peace out, enjoy. Bye