1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,000 Welcome to the ring, it's rich and atom. 2 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000 Breaking down the fights with flair and passion. 3 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:26,000 Tag teams grappling belts are clashing. 4 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:34,000 Finishes and factions catching action. 5 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Welcome back to Finishes and Factions, 6 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,000 does Smackdown part 2. 7 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,000 We are going to jump straight back into the action 8 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:49,000 where we have singles match between Drew McIntyre 9 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,000 and Big Jim Uso. 10 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,000 On paper we have a nice little match here. 11 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000 In practice it turned into a not a bad little match either 12 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:08,000 where the action started as soon as Jim Uso hit the ring. 13 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,000 Which is what we like to see. 14 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 I'm not going to lie to you, sometimes it pisses me off 15 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,000 when they have these big feuds going on 16 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,000 and you just want them to get at it and they are stood around 17 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,000 waiting for introductions and stuff like that. 18 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,000 So get in that ring, get both of you in the same ring, 19 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 throw a punch, let the referee shout at the ringmaster 20 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,000 about ringing that bell when he's ready. 21 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000 You throw the first punch and you've got to throw it as hard as you can. 22 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,000 You want to throw that first one as though your life depends on that punch. 23 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,000 So yeah, the fact that these two jumped straight into it 24 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,000 and got right into it was an absolute bonus for me. 25 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:49,000 Jim Uso managed to pull off one of the smoothest ring entries 26 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,000 I think I've ever seen in my life to be quite honest. 27 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 Yeah, definitely. 28 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Yeah, we've seen a lot of different ring entries over the years 29 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:03,000 that have been pretty smooth. 30 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:08,000 Non-quite smooth as when Titus O'Neill decided 31 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:16,000 he was going to make a flying entry into the greatest rumble in Saudi Arabia. 32 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,000 I'm not sure if it's called the greatest rumble actually. 33 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,000 They did a 40 man Royal Rumble out there and Titus O'Neill tripped, fell over and landed underneath the ring 34 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,000 rather than in the ring. 35 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:32,000 So shout out to Titus O'Neill for that one. 36 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:35,000 But yeah, no, I say this was a great match 37 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:44,000 and basically once Druid kind of started off quite strong, 38 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Big Jim took control for a short section of the match 39 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,000 and then we get some spots here. 40 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:57,000 Jim Uso slams Drew McIntyre into the announce table at one point 41 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:01,000 and then slams him head first in and his Druids just coming back round like, 42 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,000 oh wow, but now he eats a super kick. 43 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:11,000 There was a couple of slow and drops in there from J.U.S.O. 44 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 Of course you get the obvious ones from Drew McIntyre. 45 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000 We get a couple of play more attempts, a couple of big kicks. 46 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:22,000 Lots of throwing him around ring ropes, clothes lines. 47 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,000 Drew's just a very high powered wrestler 48 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:32,000 and likes to show his dominance by pushing the buttons with his mouth 49 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 and then swinging for the fences and using every inch of that ring 50 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,000 to give him the advantage he feels he needs. 51 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:44,000 Normally he does it quite well to be fair. 52 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:49,000 This wasn't the longest match of the night by any stretch of the imagination 53 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:55,000 but I got quite sucked into it so my notes for this are actually quite minimal. 54 00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:03,000 It wasn't the ending that a lot of us saw coming I don't think. 55 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:10,000 Purely for the fact that McIntyre's been on a bit of a losing streak recently. 56 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:22,000 I think I'm a little bit unsure about where I think he's going to end up getting his WrestleMania moment 57 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000 because obviously he's not going to any of the main events. 58 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000 He's got eliminated at the Royal Rumble and at the Elimination Chamber by Damian Priest. 59 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:37,000 So I think at the moment that he's just kind of finishing off his I'm angry at everyone that's helped Roman Reigns angle off 60 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:44,000 and he's just going to start beating through everyone else that's helped him via different ways. 61 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:50,000 I'm going to sort of argue the toss here and say that I don't think he's quite done yet 62 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:56,000 it's not necessarily going to be he's upset and he's going to punch his way through everybody. 63 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:06,000 It's going to come up down to the fact that I think Damian Priest is going to end up punching his way through Drew McIntyre at this point. 64 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:13,000 I think Drew has started a fight that he really didn't have any intention of finishing. 65 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000 You mentioned Damian Priest so let me just roll it up quickly. 66 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Jey Uso-Mis is a splash attempt and it's a massive claim or where Drew McIntyre managed to pull off the three counts 67 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,000 to get the win over Big Jim in this specific match. 68 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:43,000 And then just as Drew is leaving the ring, we actually see Damian Priest come running out and attacking Drew 69 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:50,000 basically getting revenge for what Drew did to him earlier on in the day screaming at him that you should have killed me 70 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:53,000 because now I'm going to kill you. 71 00:05:53,000 --> 00:06:02,000 So we got quite a big, I mean those two have had a massive year in pro wrestling like obviously Damian Priest 72 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:14,000 cashed in on Drew McIntyre to take his title which is done the circle all the way through. 73 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:22,000 There's been a lot of uncertainty here around the two and there's definitely a lot of hatred between the two 74 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:27,000 so we're going to see a very strong finish to this storyline I think. 75 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,000 Will this one have the legs for WrestleMania? 76 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:38,000 I hope so but I'm not entirely sure how they're going to continue building it because we have been told a few times 77 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:44,000 through the course of this episode that we are only 41 days away from WrestleMania. 78 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:53,000 So yeah, they've got about five weeks, five, six weeks to keep this going. 79 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:03,000 It could be a push but it could get away with it if they do it correctly. 80 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:15,000 So we flew from Damian Priest kicking the absolute crap out of Drew McIntyre into a Shinsuke Nakamura promo in 81 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:25,000 a lot of it was basically just, it was all in Japanese basically just saying that this was LA Nights last opportunity at the United States title. 82 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:30,000 You know LA Nights had a fair few opportunities at the title, I say that. 83 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:44,000 Shinsuke Nakamura has defended his United States title twice including tonight's main event which is coming up in a few minutes. 84 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:59,000 Both times have been against LA Nights but there's been quite a lot of people within the wrestling community that have been really annoyed at the fact that Shinsuke has had this title and he's done nothing with it. 85 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:11,000 Granted he did lose his brother last week in real life and he's been going through some bits but I think this should have been dealt with a little bit earlier. 86 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:20,000 But it did save him, the way they've done it does save him the embarrassment I suppose of vacating the title. 87 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:30,000 I can imagine having to say look, I really don't want to have to give this up but circumstances beyond my control may not have to. 88 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:42,000 It's just been one of those sort of processes really. We went from this VT into a backstage segment with Byron Saxton. 89 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:54,000 He was talking to DIY about defending their tag team belts against street profits next week. 90 00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:12,000 And DIY claiming that they're best in the world at the moment and since the profits have come back they've had an attitude and they've not had a lot to do. 91 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:29,000 But next week in Spain they've got a match and it will be DIY who reckon they'll be coming out of that one holding the WWE tag team titles again, well retaining. 92 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:43,000 And then we went from there into our main event of the evening which is the men's United States title match between Elaine Knight and Shinsuke Nakamura. 93 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:48,000 Nakamura being the current holder of the men's US title. 94 00:09:48,000 --> 00:10:00,000 Shinsuke Nakamura's title reign so far has lasted just under 100 days. 95 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:13,000 Obviously we heard Rich earlier on about the fact that he's only had two title defences in that time and including this one and that is both of them fought against LA Knight. 96 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:21,000 Now I've got all the sympathy in the world for somebody that loses a family member I have. 97 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:40,000 But the family member thing was very recent and he just didn't realise, he just, yeah, the effort wasn't put there before he lost his brother. 98 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:53,000 His brother passed away within the last 20 days, which means they had 80 days before that to build some kind of arc for Shinsuke Nakamura and they chose not to. 99 00:10:53,000 --> 00:11:15,000 And Adam said this off podcast earlier, he feels that when the next set a series of contract cuts are made, we're going to see Shinsuke Nakamura being cut from the company because he really just hasn't made the impact that they feel he probably should have made. 100 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:23,000 Yes, he's had a few title runs and he's not really done much with them so it's just been difficult. 101 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:35,000 And we've said this a few times but for someone who's been in the company for nine years, his English has not improved and it just makes his ability to cut promo a lot harder. 102 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:47,000 It's a lot harder to kind of build a relationship with the character even in a heel term, like I know you're not supposed to but you can at least align with the heel if you're a bit of a prick. 103 00:11:47,000 --> 00:12:00,000 But you can't align with Shinsuke Nakamura on anything because you can't really understand what he's saying, still very broken and quite difficult, but it is for me anyway. 104 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:08,000 Yeah, and I feel very much the same way is that I've been very vocal about the fact that I'm not a big Shinsuke Nakamura fan. 105 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:19,000 He has his talents and he is a talented individual because he wouldn't have got to WWE without being in some way shape or form talented. 106 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:30,000 However, I just don't think the talent stretches far enough for him to have had the length of run in the WWE that he has had. 107 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:51,000 Bearing in mind that there were some superstars that probably have been more over than Shinsuke Nakamura has been in recent months that were cut in the last round of cuts about a month or so ago. 108 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,000 Yep, I would agree with you there. 109 00:12:54,000 --> 00:13:00,000 So I'm not sure why they didn't choose to cut him before. 110 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,000 I'm guessing that may have something to do with the fact that he was holding the US title at the time. 111 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:15,000 But yeah, it's just I'm not feeling the love for Shinsuke Nakamura at all. 112 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:27,000 But in this match for the first half of this match, it is Shinsuke Nakamura. 113 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:39,000 Yeah, LA Night does not get any offense going at all during this match and it's almost as though he's there to take the hit. 114 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:45,000 The point was that he threw Shinsuke Nakamura out and connected with the baseball slide. 115 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:52,000 And then we had a neck breaker and a suplex followed by a big elbow for a two count. 116 00:13:52,000 --> 00:14:02,000 And that's all I really had for LA Night for quite a while up until he hit the box jump suplex later on in the match. 117 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:06,000 Well actually to be fair, pretty much near the end of the match. 118 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,000 That was the beginning of the end for Shinsuke. 119 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:13,000 But Shinsuke, most of my notes here, you know, sliding German suplex. 120 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:19,000 There was, we don't refer to it as a botch on this podcast. 121 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:24,000 We refer to it as a, what's it Adam? A missed move? 122 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:26,000 Yeah. 123 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:34,000 So Shinsuke Nakamura pulled off a very questionable suplex. 124 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:39,000 Now commentary tried to say that, you know, they could see that he was trying to spike him. 125 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:50,000 I don't think he had full control of what he was doing, which made the suplex look a lot worse than a standard suplex. 126 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:59,000 Because LA Night landed basically on the back of his head and the top of his shoulders rather than on his shoulders. 127 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:09,000 And he didn't look too happy about it, I'm not going to lie, but he was definitely reeling on the floor of the ring in the Wells Fargo arena, 128 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:14,000 feeling that specific move. 129 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:20,000 But then, yeah, I said, you know, about the box jump suplex into the elbow. 130 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:27,000 That was the start of the end for Shinsuke Nakamura somewhere. 131 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:32,000 And I can't remember exactly where it came from. 132 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:42,000 There was a chair introduced into the match. Now this is a title match, so therefore, you know, a chair is a disqualification. 133 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,000 You're not allowed to use them. 134 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:52,000 And, you know, we've got to a point with this, this storyline that it needs to be done. 135 00:15:52,000 --> 00:16:05,000 We've had one match interrupted by Jacob Fatou after LA Night told him off using his outside voice inside and through him outside. 136 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:16,000 And then the previous match, I can't remember why that ended up being a no DQ or a no contest, 137 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:23,000 but it got to a point now with this being said third and final match in the trilogy. 138 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:33,000 The fans wanted to see an actual result that wasn't a DQ. They wanted to see a clean win. 139 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:44,000 And as Shinsuke Nakamura goes to use the chair to try and get the disqualification, the referee Charles Robinson actually takes it off him. 140 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,000 Well, just take it off and he grabs hold of it and pulls it down. 141 00:16:48,000 --> 00:17:00,000 And then the chair shop for me sort of slept a little bit of desperation on Shinsuke Nakamura's behalf is that he has played. 142 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:09,000 He played this entire match as the heel roll and did a reasonable job of betraying the fact that it was a heel roll. 143 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:19,000 However, it's Shinsuke Nakamura that initially introduces the chair as he dives to the outside, grabs the chair, 144 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:26,000 attempts to use it on LA Night, who manages to get him get it away from him. 145 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:36,000 I don't know if it was intentional, but does manage to give him a little knock to the noggin as he goes down on the outside of the ring. 146 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:42,000 And then brings the chair up, is caught by Charles Robinson, who basically says, 147 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:46,000 No, put that chair down, dickhead. 148 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:56,000 And that's when we sort of bring ourselves up to the point that we're at the moment where, yeah, Charles Robinson has essentially wrestled the chair off Shinsuke Nakamura. 149 00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:10,000 We then see, as Nakamura is trying to argue that, I'm guessing trying to argue the toss, is that LA Night comes to try to land a blow on Shinsuke Nakamura while his back's turned. 150 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:17,000 Some kind of fucking premonition hits Shinsuke Nakamura that he moves out of the way. 151 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:31,000 LA Night nearly flattens Charles Robinson, who then is really not having a good night tonight where he ends up getting hit by a missed attack from Shinsuke Nakamura, 152 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:47,000 which is something we see quite common in superstars from Asia who use this missed attack that is... 153 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,000 I don't even know what you would describe it as. 154 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:57,000 It's everyone that uses it seems to use a different colour. 155 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:05,000 I'm guessing it's just like a capsule they hold in their mouth that's just kind of like if food dies, something that's spray out. 156 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,000 But I am... yeah, not sure what the gimmick is. 157 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:13,000 It's just a pointless gimmick, I suppose, it's like, always got something in my eyes. 158 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:21,000 And then it allows LA Night to... 159 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:25,000 I'm just going to get to the bottom of my notes here. 160 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:37,000 Yeah, so LA Night goes, I didn't catch what happened between the missed attack hitting and then all of a sudden LA Night's got... 161 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:39,000 Go on. 162 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:49,000 Yeah, so Shinsuke Nakamura used to move Scorpio Rising, which was a homage to another wrestler whose name I did not get from NXT UK. 163 00:19:49,000 --> 00:20:03,000 And then I've got Shinsuke Nakamura chair in hand, Night Kicks hits into the face. 164 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:14,000 Yeah, Night Kicks the chair, it hits Shinsuke in the face and BFT onto the chair by LA Night to Shinsuke Nakamura for the three count. 165 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:25,000 Making LA Night our new US title holder champion for the third time. 166 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:36,000 I'm not sure how many times he's held the title, but the most important thing about this is that he is now the current title holder. 167 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:44,000 And the program basically fades out to LA Night celebrating with his title, which I think is a fitting way to be fair. 168 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:55,000 I mean, we wanted LA Night to get that title back for weeks and we've had to see him fight off multiple other competitors for his number one contender spot multiple times. 169 00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:14,000 And now he's finally got the gold, he's got that big target on his back that we're going to see him hoping really give that title back to the people and kind of open it up and offer it up as much as possible. 170 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:33,000 Yeah, which we've seen him do before, we know he's got the star power, the prestige to be able to pull that off. So we're not necessarily concerned that that's what he's going to be that he's going to continue on a pretty shoddy rain from from Shinsuke Nakamura. 171 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:44,000 And as I said, as I said previously, now that he's dropped the title, it really honestly would not surprise me in the next round of cuts. 172 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:50,000 The Shinsuke Nakamura finds himself on the chopping block. 173 00:21:50,000 --> 00:22:04,000 I mean, I wouldn't disagree with you at all. I wouldn't want to call any other names to put on the block next to him, but I think it is time for Shinsuke Nakamura to possibly call his time in WWE. 174 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:13,000 Even if he's got some time left within him with his wrestling ability, I think he'd probably better off finishing his career back in New Japan. 175 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:22,000 Yeah, I feel like the style of wrestling that he does is probably much more appreciated in that in that domain than and then. 176 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:29,000 Which he'd be able to cut those promos that we wished he could have bought to WWE. 177 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:39,000 Yeah, this is it. And it's just, yeah, it just, it ain't working anymore. And it barely worked when it did. 178 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:54,000 Right. That's my point. It's Shinsuke Nakamura's time in WWE has not been a part of what it has been. And it's definitely been a bit of a disappointment for me. 179 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:02,000 Yeah, very much so. But yeah, we've got a new US title, new men's US title holder in LA Night. 180 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:15,000 And I'm looking forward to seeing how that translates going forward. But in terms of notes for this, what felt like an absolutely colossal episode of Smackdown, 181 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:20,000 I've well and truly run out of written notes here. 182 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:33,000 Yeah, I'm done for notes as well. So I'm going to think we're better off wrapping this one up with a thank you all for listening to us ramble along for so long. 183 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:44,000 And we will see you next time when the finishes and factions does Monday Night Raw from Madison Square Gardens, New York. 184 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:52,000 Yeah, 100%. That's been it from me. And I've been it from you to Adam on it. 185 00:23:52,000 --> 00:24:05,000 Yeah, very much so. Just thank you everybody for listening. And yeah, we'll see you when we start when we report from or report on Madison Square Garden, not from we're not going. 186 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:09,000 Peace out guys. Enjoy. 187 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:14,000 Light is.