WWE SmackDown Review: The Rock Returns! John Cena on Greyson Waller Effect, AJ Styles vs Finn Balor

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Stop the show, the one that everybody wants me. Step three sixteenth
says God, just whist your ass is my n You're gonna acknowledge me what's
going on? Everybody? Guys and girls, Welcome back to another edition of
the SmackDown Review right here on the ww podcast. It's always I am one
of the hosts of the show, Michael Ritter. You can find me on
Twitter at Michael viv Ritter and also one of the hosts of the Football Function
podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. Today, we're going to be
talking about the SmackDown that aired on September fifteenth, twenty twenty three, from
Denver, Colorado. Shout out to DJ Kuzmo for the location breakdown. Well,
first things first, obviously it's a great episode of SmackDown. We're going
to get into it and its entirety and we're gonna break this bad boy down.
But I did want to apologize for last week. I think it's pretty
obvious that there was not a SmackDown review, and that is because I was
out of town. I was actually in Atlanta watching the Falcons season opening game
for the twenty twenty three campaign, and it's something I do every year.
I'm sure if you're a longtime listener of this show, you know by now
that I will go to Atlanta and other cities from time to time to watch
the Falcons play, and whenever I do that, it usually interferes with my
SmackDown review schedule. Unfortunately, I believe this was the very first time that
it actually caused there not to be a SmackDown review for the week. I
cannot remember the last time that there wasn't a SmackDown review on the ww podcast.
So I do apologize for that. It's definitely not something that I wanted
to happen from the whole situation. But I am back and I'm here to
talk about the SmackDown. Like I mentioned, that just aired on the fifteenth
of September, and boy, oh boy, was it a good day to
be in Denver. Like if you actually went to this event, if you
were there in attendance for this SmackDown, you witness history because it was finally,
if I can steal somebody's catchphrase, time for the Rock to make his
return to the WWE. And we're going to get into that because it happened
pretty much right at the top of the show. They knew what they were
doing, they got the electricity early, and holy Canoly. As someone who
was just watching, you know, real time on my couch, I lost
it. I kind of knew, you know, whenever Pat McAfee because he
opens the show welcomes us to SmackDown, and he's interrupted by Austin Theory and
they kind of go back and forth a little bit. We'll talk about what
was said and all that good stuff. But first things first, whenever Pat
McAfee had that pause, whenever Pat McAfee said, it's the people show,
you know what that means, And it was just that little bit of silence
that took place, and I kind of said to myself, like my girlfriend
was sitting right next to me, I said, is this the Rock?
Like I mumbled it very silently, and then before I could even finish saying
it, his music hit. And then I lost it just sitting right there
on the couch because I knew how big of a moment it was. He
finally showed up. I wanted to hear what he had to say. The
look on his face, it just looked different, the lighting, something about
it felt really special. You know. It wasn't just a holy crap,
it's a legend coming back to make an appearance on SmackDown. No, this
was a pretty monumental moment. Like The Rock hasn't been back on SmackDown in
a pretty long time. I can't even remember for sure. The Rock has
not showed up on SmackDown since I been doing the SmackDown review, and I've
been doing this since October of twenty twenty, so I knew that this was
a huge moment just because I haven't gotten a chance to talk about the Rock,
you know, like whenever I went to WrestleMania thirty eight in Dallas and
I got to see Stone called Steve Auston wrestle for the very first time,
when I thought I'd never ever get to see him wrestle, That's something that
just felt really good in a different way. But seeing the Rock appear on
this show that I've been covering for well over two years going on three.
We're really creeping up on three out. Actually it's like three weeks away,
so pretty much three years and I have not seen the Rocks show up on
SmackDown, And this meant so much more because we've been waiting for the Rock
for a very very long time. I can speak for myself, I gave
up. I didn't think it was happening. Why would it, you know,
I mean to be completely honest. If the actor's strike wasn't going on,
if the writers strike, whatever is happening in Hollywood right now, that's
not something that I am an expert in, so I'm not even going to
try to be. But if that wasn't going on right now, would would
we have John Cena and The Rock? I mean, John Cena has made
apparents. We just had the Summer of Sina not that long ago. But
The Rock is a little bit different, you know, like we've been really
clamoring for this. There's been a storyline, a WrestleMania main event that's pretty
much just been floating around there waiting to happen, that's been writing itself and
they haven't been able to pull the trigger on it for whatever reason. We
actually got some news today because The Rock was on the Pat McAfee show.
Go figure, Pat McAfee, always coming and clutch breaking news like this is
having an interview with some type of icon and whatever industry they're in, and
just because the conversation is happening so organic, so natural things come out and
things are said that end up being headlines and they end up getting clipped because
it's such a big moment. And whenever he asked him, like how close
was it? When Pat McAfee asked The Rock, how close was that to
happen? In you and Roman Reign's actually going at it, he literally said
Roman Reigns in the Rock WrestleMania thirty nine and Sofi Stadium was literally locked in.
He said he sat down with Nick con and Vince McMahon and they had
a conversation and they talked about it, and they pretty much agreed that it
was going to happen, and for whatever reason, it didn't happen. They
really didn't go into specific the specifics as to why the match fell through,
but obviously it fell through. We got Cody Roads in the main event,
and I feel like WrestleMania thirty nine was pretty good, but I truly think
that WrestleMania forty makes a little bit more sense. I'm a huge WrestleMania twenty
fan, That's no secret. I will mention that and reference that any chance
i'd give if you guys allow something to creep up where it reminds me of
WrestleMania twenty obviously I'm going to bring it up. And now here we are
twenty years later and we have an opportunity for another massive match. The Rock
was on that WrestleMania twenty card. He had a handicap tag team match,
the Rock and mcfole versus Evolution, the Evolution being Randy Jordan, Batista,
and Rick Flair. Obviously, Triple Ates was busy that night in the main
event, but The Rock could be busy for the WrestleMania forty main event against
Roman Reigns. Now, it has to be built up because obviously the title
is involved. We can't just have them set themselves up with this match and
just keep that title pretty much pushed to the side, you know, and
not have it actually be defended in a meaningful program, because we all know
that if The Rock is the one who's going up against Roman Reigns number one,
he's not going to win the championship. That would make absolutely no sense.
I know that Matt's commented on it and said that if you know wrestling,
if you're familiar with the way that they do WrestleMania title changes, and
especially one like Roman Reigns, they're not going to give it to a guy
who was over in the nineteen nineties. They're going to give it to an
up and coming star, somebody who can take that torch, take what Roman
Reigns has built, and carry the company for years to come, maybe even
the next decade. There are some people that are already on the roster whether
it's a next young people that are on the roster right now that I feel
like I have an opportunity to be worthy enough to give Roman Rains a run
for his money and possibly be the one who dethrones him. As far as
the Championship goes, I don't think that the Rock is that guy doesn't mean
that we still can't have this match. It doesn't mean that it's still not
going to be extremely well booked, I guess, or just it doesn't mean
the story isn't going to be badass. I don't feel like this story has
ever really needed the championship, but because it's there, you almost expect that
they're going to make it be on the line, which makes sense in some
ways. I just explained why I don't think that it's necessary to have the
championship on the line, But if you were to knitpick and split hairs,
I could understand why they put the championship on the line, but that just
pretty much ruins the unpredictable factor. I guess it makes me feel like I
know who's going to win at the Championships on the line, but that's neither
here nor there. We don't even know for sure if it's going to happen.
But I know I'm not alone whenever I saw the Rock up here on
SmackDown to think, whoa, this means something. You know, this is
the foot walking in the door, not the whole body. You know,
this is just the foot going in the door. To set us up there,
we didn't get any indication that, you know, I mean, we
didn't see Paul Hayman approached the Rock or anything like that. We didn't see
any Bloodline members have an interaction with the Rock. So it's not like it
was just pretty much set up for us to you know, run with it
that Hey, it's starting right now. They're setting it up in September.
We're gonna have about a seven to eight month build and we're gonna get to
Mania. I don't think that's going to be the case in this specific program.
I think it's going to be more Survivor Series to Royal Rumble time frame.
If we are going to have a long term build for The Rock,
that's whenever he can come out, you know and challenge Roman Reigns or just
bump intoing backstage or something like that, we could do something to get these
guys to end up locking horns, but September is a little bit early,
especially with how little we expect the Rock to be on TV, So they
are just planting that seed, and I really appreciate that because I know I
can speak for a lot of other people. They were waiting for this day.
They were waiting for that music to hit. And really, other than
Stone Cold Steve Austen, there's no other music that can have that effect.
Maybe the Undertakers if he wasn't here, you know, like we've seen the
Undertaker enough over the past seven or eight years, whether it's i'm gonna say
it, his cringe worthy matches that he's had late in his career where I
personally didn't really enjoy them, where they're talking about the tag team match in
Saudi Arabia, the one versus Goldberg, even the bone yard match against aj
Styles. His final match wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, although it's better
than some of the other stuff we've gotten from him, even like the stuff
he did with Brock Lessner after Lessner broke the streak. There's just certain wrestlers
that absence makes the heart grow extremely fonder, and whenever you look at the
Rock, like our hearts were already fond for him. There was no need
for the heart to grow fonder for the Rock. But just imagine what that.
You know, whenever you miss somebody, whenever you see him for the
first time, you just have that urge just run up and give him a
hug, especially if it's like, you know, a family member or something
like that. And that's pretty much how we view the Rock is a member
of our wrestling family, you know. So seeing his music just that that
elated feeling in your you know, in your body where you're just like,
man, it felt like a little bit like a payoff that pop was in
insane. Just shout out to everybody who was in Denver in attendance for SmackDown
that contributed to that, because that's what it's all about, man, you
know. And when his music hits, what I was saying is like,
if The Undertaker took like four or five years off and never came back,
then yes, his music that the gong would hit a little bit different than
what it does right now in current time, which I don't want to try
to undersell it anything like that, because trust me, I understand the Undertaker's
music still hits ten times out of ten. But there's levels to it,
like the Rocks music. Whenever that comes on, just go back and watch
the video, go back and watch the Rock come out. And there's even
a little behind the scenes footage of the Rock in Gorilla, just pretty much,
you know, jumping up and down, getting himself psyched up for you
know, coming out and he hears his music. Here's the pop and he
can't help but just grin, just get that little smirk on his face,
knowing like, man, you heard that right, that was a massive pop
And that's something that's always going to happen for the Rock, no matter where
he goes, no matter what show it is, SmackDown, Raw, TLC,
WrestleMania, Survivor Series, it really doesn't matter. The Rock is universally
loved. He's like Michael Jackson out there, like the acting world, the
movie watchers out there. Everybody loves the Rock. And you know, whether
you love Dwayne Johnson, that's a little bit of a different discussion. You
know, people have their opinion on him, so be it. But the
Rock, which is his WWE persona top two, top three all time,
and man, just when you talk about this SmackDown as a whole having the
Rock on here, having John Cena on this show, having La Night on
this show, Paul Hayman getting some airtime, We had a nice women's match.
There was a lot of stuff to enjoy about this show. There really
really was even aj styles, Like if you could wat it's probably five or
six years from now, you can go back and look at this SmackDown.
Look at every wrestler that had their image shown, their picture shown on this
or got any type of airtime on this episode. It's pretty damn impressive.
Man. I will say, Pat McAfee another one, like, come on,
dude, great show. This was a phenomenal SmackDown, probably my favorite
one in a very long time. I honestly can't remember the last SmackDown that
I've watched and had to come on here and talk about that had me feeling
like this, and I felt great after some go home shows, some shows
where I knew that I was going to an event that weekend or something like
that, so my you know, my energy levels were just higher. My
excitement was on a different level. This is a little bit different. This
is a regular SmackDown, but it was anything but a regular SmackDown. If
you actually watched it because just the things that happened, that's what makes wrestling
so great. Is any given Friday, if I could just tweak that saying
a little bit, any even Monday, even obviously, any even Sunday,
if it's a pay per view or an old school pay per view now that
they're on Saturdays, I guess I'm getting a little bit my head on myself.
But you know what I mean, it doesn't matter when the calendar year
you're in. This is supposed to be kind of the dead time, right
I'm not necessarily dead. That's more so really towards the end of the calendar
year. But right when football season starts, you know, getting into the
fall. It's not WrestleMania season. It's not a Royal Rumble season. It's
not even leading up to SummerSlam. Like this could be a time that you
really take your foot off the gas. You feel like you do have the
luxury to not feature your champion like Roman Reigns. So the fact that SmackDown
and WWE in general decided to deliver a five star show like this in the
month of September, I have to tip my hat to him, and I'm
extremely happy to be breaking it down for you guys. So let's go ahead
and get into it. Like I mentioned, Pat McAfee opened the show,
so that just kind of starts it off on a really good note for me.
Really wasn't sure how it was going to start. To be honest,
I kind of expected John Cina. Maybe those were the reports that I saw
earlier today, was that John Cina was going to say hello to some familiar
friends or some old friends. Clearly they were talking about the Rock, but
you didn't want to get your hopes up, you know, you really didn't
want to get excited. I heard those rumors, I saw those reports,
but I really wasn't trying to buy into them. And I guess be a
full onbeliever until you know, I believe it when I see it when it
comes to the Rock. And sure enough, that is what happened. But
first Pat McAfee welcomes us to SmackDown, you know, just kind of given
the crowd of shout out talking about how he was in town for obviously college
game day, and he just pretty much knew that he wasn't going to be
able to miss out on this show. So Pat McAfee gets interrupted by Austin
Theory, who says that the two of them have unfinished business. He says
he's going to drop Pat McAfee and pretty much whoop is you know what.
He even references Aaron Rodgers, saying that he's going to injure Pat McAfee and
all Pat's going to be able to do is sit at his desk and talk
all day, which is pretty much what Pat does all day. So it's
not really kicking him where it hurts, but I mean, I guess I
understand what he was saying. Austin Theory goes on to say that this isn't
SmackDown, it's Austin Theory Live, and of course Pat McAfee disagrees, says
that this will never be his show because it's the people's show, and you
know what that means, and this is whenever the rock comes out. There
was that pause, you know, that little bit of silence that just let
the crowd kind of build up a little bit so that pop was fresh.
You know, you don't want to let his music heate it. Right when
Pat McAfee's talking and the crowd's kind of you know, all right, it's
time to give a huge shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, Happy
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products that I've ever come across. And if you guys aren't familiar with the
kradam is, it's an herbal substance that has many different uses, everything from
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wife and I over the last couple of weeks have tried out some of their
products and I have to say it has improved her sleep. Specifically, she's
very anxious and her mind runs at night and it has helped her fall asleep
and stay asleep. She actually was using one of the powders that comes a
pouch from Happy Hippo and just dropped it into her water, and you know,
off she went and she was just she she was very happy. Let
me just put it that way. And so myself during the work day,
if you guys didn't know, I have a big boy job. I work
in contract management and I need that balance. I need the energy during the
day. And they have something called hyper Hippo and an energy shot those energy
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Whether you're trying to relax or whether you're you need energy or balanced during
the day, Happy Hippo dot com involved a little bit, is the way
that I could phrase it, or maybe just being somewhat interactive with pat They
wanted to wait till the crowd was silent, and then they dropped that and
it went from zero to one hundred real quick in the decibel section. Whenever
you're talking about that stadium that they were in, because man, I couldn't
even imagine what I would do if I saw the rock come out, how
loud I would sheer. I was in Atlanta last weekend, and man,
my voice was dawn by the second quarter. I feel like it's still kind
of gone, like it's not all the way back yet. Honestly, just
from talking throughout the week if I had to record other podcasts, so my
voice has been somewhat busy over the past week. You'll have to bear with
me a little bit. The chance that we got whenever The Rock came out,
they were a one almost like mid season form from the Rock. Theory
does ask the Rock if he knows who's ring that he's in, and then
The Rock tells him to shut up, Theory that he clearly doesn't know how
all this works, and then says that he's finally come back to Denver.
Theory goes on about how great he is, and The Rock looks to speak.
Theory cuts him off and tells him that it doesn't matter what he says.
The Rock corrects him and says it does, but more importantly, what
the people say. He asks the people if they want to see him beat
down Austin Theory, and then he calls him an a hole in The crowd
rallies behind him and pretty much just joins in. The Rock says he has
a Theory of his own about Theory and says that he'll attack him in three
seconds. Theory is the one who ends up going after the Rock, but
the Rock catches him with a spinebuster and the People's Elbow. The Rock then
calls for McAfee alanda People's elbow of his own, and McAfee does just that.
And that's pretty much how that segment is about a twenty minute opening segment.
That's how the show started. Was Pat McAfee, Austin, Theory and
the Rock and it was just electrifying. Even John Cina says it at the
very end of the show when he's going out there and he's talking to the
camera right there at the top of the stage. He says, man,
they still got some energy. They've been witnessing a lot tonight. Let's see
what Grayson Waller has to say. It was just a nice little moment for
John Cena, just acknowledging that, hey man, this has been a loaded
show for this crowd. I'm glad they still got some juiceful maybe being here
at the very end of the show. Up next we get a beautiful match.
This is another thing like whenever a match like aj styles versus Finn Balor
is kind of buried in the things that you talk about on a show like
Man that must have been a pretty damn good show, because whenever I remember
the things that happened from this night, AJ Styles versus Finn Balor is probably
gonna be like the third or fourth thing that even comes to mind, maybe
even like fifth or something, but just a great, a great match to
kind of sandwich in between all this show or everything else is happening in the
show. Dominic and Damian priests obviously try to interfere, but they get sent
back to the locker room by the referee, and as they're starting to leave,
Jimmy Uso comes out, pretty much comes out of nowhere and gives AJ
a cheap shot that does cost him the match, so Finn Balor ends up
walking away victorious. Here let's see we hear from LWO next pretty much just
a little bit of respect. Santos asked for a United States Championship magic It
Raymastereo out of respect, and of course Raymsterio accepts, and then Bobby Lashley
and the Street Prophits come out and call them out for a little bit of
a awkward love fest. They were having in the ring there, and this
sets up LWO versus the Street Profits, which the Street Profits win, and
then they try to attack LWO after the match, specifically Raymsterio. He was
instructed by Bobby Lashley. The Street Profits were instructed by Bobby Lashley to attack
Raymisterio. So yeah, they're just pretty much trying to make a statement.
That's all that the Street Profits are doing right now along with Lashly as they're
trying to remind us, hey, we're not the same Street profits. We
are a little bit more brutal. We're coming for vengeance and we're trying to
take over the SMA down roster. So starting with a team like the lwoh,
I guess that's a good little stepping stone there to get them to another
group or maybe you know, some championship gold who knows, who knows what
the Street Profits are up to these days. But up next we get another
match here La Night versus the Miss and I'm gonna be honest, this was
a pretty good match, like I truly think, and I could be wrong.
Although it's a subjective thing that I'm saying, I'm not saying that it's
universally going to be agreed upon, but I truly think that this match was
better than their Summer Slim match. Like the selling was on point, they
were landing some pretty good shots. There was a kick to the face that
I saw multiple times miss due to La Night. One of them when La
Knight was standing on the outside of the rope, standing on the apron,
and he was like about to kind of, you know, throw himself up
over the top rope, similar to what like aj styles and Seth Rollins and
many other guys do, but the mis caught him with a big boot and
it was just a nice little connection there. And then the codebreaker that the
is did on La Night late in the match, that was another good spot
where it's like the selling that La Knight was doing was just completely on point.
And it's just the little things, you know, It's the little things
that make his package so complete. Whenever you're talking about just La Knight and
his stock being so high, it's things like that, because he could really
do everything that you ask him to do. But after this match was over
and La Knight grabs the win, he also grabs a microphone and says he
wants to talk to Denver. He says that from the day he set Foot
and SmackDown, he promised to come for gold. He says that he sees
all of the difference options and it doesn't matter if it's Ray Mostereo, Gunther
Seth Rollins, or even Roman reigns. He says it's not just a catchphrase
because he is in the top two percent and he is not number two.
And then we head backstage to Solo, Soco, and Paul Hayman discussing Jimmy
USO. Hayman tells Skoa that he'll be forced to fight Jimmy's battles, but
Jimmy isn't in the bloodline and Solo only handles business. Whenever Roman reigns,
he gives the orders. Solo says that he knows what he needs to do
and he's going to finish things tonight. We also hear from Pretty Deadly backstage
with Adam Pierce. Adam Pierce says that he hears that Elton Prince's shoulder is
healing and that the tag team should be back in no time. Let's see
here we get another match. This is kind of just a rapid fire portion
of the show after the show started so long Obviously with that twenty minute opening
segment, we were able to kind of rush through some things like matches happen,
backstage segments happened. There was just a lot of stuff going on throughout
the show that allowed these matches to not take up a whole lot of time.
Like I said, the La Night and mismatch, that match actually really
surprised me, Like it really blew my expectations out of the water because we
already saw him go out it in Summer Slam. I thought, well,
I mean, this is their second match, could this be where they give
miss Awan a minute? It's not a pay per view, but it was
a really highly rated show. Like I wouldn't mind seeing the ratings whenever they
come out because hearing the Rock being the opening segment of the show, wouldn't
that bring more eyeballs? Like once it gets to Twitter and people start testing
their friends. I know, I send out a few videos I recorded on
my Snapchat. Once I saw the Rock, I was like, oh my
gosh, if you're not watching SmackDown, guys, go watch SmackDown. This
is a pretty big moment here. But during the women's match, which actually
ended up being the final match of the night, we see Shatzy appear in
the crowd, and that's pretty much what throws Bailey off, causes her to
run back in the ring, which allows Osca to successfully get the roll up
pin. Here she is able to get the win, so it's really all
that matters, but Shatzy Blackheart deserves an assist and Bailey clearly has some issues
there. Her Dakota Kai had a little exchange backstage as well that really didn't
seem promising. Bailey's definitely going to get that that Edge treatment, you know,
whenever Edge got jumped in the Judgment day and Finn balor Damian Priest,
where really they all just beat the living hell out of Edge. I could
see something like that happened into Bailey, where those two Dakota Kai and EO
Sky once Dakota is actually cleared to wrestling in and she could be more of
an impact player here on this team. I feel like it wouldn't be out
of the realm of possibility for Bailey to be the one who ends up getting
that baby face turn, because if you get jumped, you're not really going
to be a hill, you know, Like if Dakota Kai and EO Sky
decide to turn on Bailey, then I don't necessarily think that Bailey would still
be a hell. I don't know. That's just pretty much like formulae because
as to how they've done it in the past, and I believe they did
it not that long ago with Sasha Banks. Maybe it might have been somebody
who had a weird baby face turn. It really wasn't as natural as it
could have been, and it was pretty forced. But let's go ahead and
move along to the main event here, the Grayson Waller Effect featuring John Cena,
and this being in the main event slot, I had a feeling that
we were gonna get some fireworks. I really as to what to expect,
I had no idea because we got a lot to start this show. The
Rock was in the building. I wasn't sure if they were going to really
try to squeeze every last bit of juice out of that by getting the Rock
on TV as much as possible, And you know, I just figured maybe
we can get some type of interaction there with him and Grayson Waller, but
that ended up not happening. But let's get into the actual interview here.
Waller says that he asked Sina on the show for a reason, and then
tells him he thinks he needs some help and some advice. He tells Sina
that he needs to be more like him, and Sina looks to speak,
but Waller continues to talk. Sina has had enough and takes off both his
hat and his shirt. Waller finally gives Sina the chance to speak, but
before he came, Jimmy USO's music hits and he makes his way down to
the ring. Jimmy tells him that nobody wants him here and everyone came to
see him instead, he says the scena tries to embarrass him again, then
he should take his shot while he has it. Solos of Coo and Paul
Hayman then marched down to the ring and stare down Sina as Jimmy runs his
mouth. Solo then goes after Jimmy and looks to hit him with a Samoan
spike, but opts to superkick Sina instead and beat him down. Jimmy fires
off stomps in the corner before aj Styles runs down to provide Sina with a
helping hand. The Parson's solo crashing out of the ring and Sina gets Jimmy
up on his shoulders, but Solo saves Jimmy and the show goes off the
air. Shout out to AJ Styles for coming out like that was just an
og not oc and OG moment for AJ Styles because obviously him and John Sen
are cut from the same cloth. And whenever it happened, I was trying
to explain to my girlfriend who was sitting there. She's not really familiar with
anything outside of WWE. I mean, she knows what AW is, but
she really looks at them as like the step child in a sense of like
wrestling. She knows that WWE is the superior product. That's not a shot
at AW it's just fact it is what it is. I'm just saying that
whenever this show happened, I was trying to explain to her, Like man,
Aj Styles is pretty much the John Cena of the independent scene of TNA
wrestling. Just the same era that John Cina was dominating, AJ Styles was
dominating as well, and he was one of the best wrestlers in the entire
world. So seeing these two compete together and team up to help each other,
and you know, AJ Styles coming out to try to save the day,
that was just pretty cool to see. I was definitely on board with
AJ Styles and John Cina working as a team because you know, I've seen
them compete against each other. I was there at the Royal Rumble in twenty
seventeen San Antonio, Texas, whenever those two went at it for the ww
Championship, and John Cina actually won his sixteenth World Championship. He's still going
for that number seventeen, still trying to break that record. But I was
in attendance when he won that sixteenth against AJ Styles, So I'm all four
seeing these two together, and that's just adds to how elite this show was
when you look at it top to bottom and you just read it out,
like because I watch Ruthless Aggression, pay per views and things like that all
the time. Like I transfer and I switch what my good night show is.
You know, when I go to sleep, sometimes I'll watch something like
you know, The Office or it used to be South Park for the longest
time. Here lately, I've just been going on Peacock and I'll literally just
pretty much still a dart at the wall and I'll land on any type of
paper view, whether it's no mercy, unforgiven Judgment Day, no way out,
and I'll go to a random year anytime in the late nineties or early
two thousand and that's my thing. If it's past like two thousand and six,
and I don't really ain't trying to watch it, But that's some good
cards right there, man, Like you want to talk about some of the
stacked cards that were going on back in the ruthless Aggression era. Out of
this world and seeing a SmackDown have this type of show, man, I
just I had to just give him a little bit of a round of applause
because, man, that was just a great show. It made me say
multiple times, man, I love covering SmackDown because it's so different. You
know, it doesn't feel as I know it is. It's obviously all of
WWE is like under the corporate umbrella and all that good stuff, but SmackDown
feels a little bit off the grain because Fox has their hand in it so
much that you know, it's just a little bit different. And spoiler,
I'm not sure if you guys know, we're not but Fox, from what
I heard, is not interested in renewing their contract with WWE and SmackDown because
I heard the WWE's asking for a pretty penny for this, since Fox is
likely saying no, thank you. It was a fun what four years while
it lasted or whatever it was, But I think it's time that we move
on down the road and go our separate paths. I heard Disney and Amazon
I think is something along those lines trying to acquire SmackDown. It's going to
be interesting. I'm a Fox guy. I was not gonna lie whenever I
heard this news. I wasn't excited. I was like, come on,
man, Fox is what the Falcons games come on mostly damn near every week
because we hardly ever played in primetime because spoiler alert, we're not that almost
cussed, we're not that good. So yeah, we get buried in the
noon slot on Fox with like the fourth best commentary team, and I love
that. I love being kind of buried a little bit. But the Fox
connection is why I really loved covering Smacknow not the only reason why, but
it was just like a bonus, like getting Pat McAfee on the commentary team.
I was like, man, this is like a bonus here, like
this couldn't be any better. And the fact that pass gone and now we're
leaving Fox too. It's like, what did I do wrong? Man?
What's going on here? Just kidding. Obviously, I'm gonna watch it.
I'm gonna enjoy it pretty much, no matter what I'll get used to it.
I am enjoying this three man booth with Corey Graves coming over to SmackDown
obviously, Michael Cole being there already. And you're gonna have to forgive me
because I cannot remember the other guy's name, the one that's usually in the
middle there, and as soon as I stop record, it's going to come
to mind. I actually know his name. I've said it multiple times,
but for some reason, it's extremely late. It's eleven twelve, where I
am. I recorded there show after SmackDown went off the air because I was
extremely excited to get on here and talk to you guys about it. It
was a great show, and I do feel I get delivered, and hopefully
we can get more of this going forward, because man, this is what
makes you love wrestling, these types of shows, So hopefully we get a
lot more of these in the coming weeks and months. But guys, thank
you so much for taking the time out of your weekly schedule to talk wrestling
with me to break down this SmackDown and obviously talk about some of the big
moments that happened. The Rock is back, we don't have to wait forever
and to speculate, Man, when is he ever gonna just come? And
I guess break that break the ice a little bit, like, let's just
get him in the door and then possibilities are gonna start flowing in. I'm
pretty confident WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia Roman Reigns versus The Rock storybook right there,
it makes so much sense. So I hope that it happens. But guys,
thank you so much. I hope that you guys will have a damn
good rest to your weekend, walk passionately in the direction of your dreams.
I'll talk to you next week. All right, it's time to give a
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