WWE SmackDown Review: Final Women's War Games Participant Revealed, Top 5 Prospects to Dethrone Gunther

What you're gonna do, brother, when the crypto bull run comes to you.
The ticker is SmackDown on Etheroryum blockchain. Brother, We're the first and
only wrestling theme crypto and we're bridging wrestling in cryptocurrency to make the most electrifying
meme coin in crypto history. O meme coins like Doge, Pepe and she
Be and you are leading the upcoming bull run and we got the juice to
turn our two passions into the next crypto phenomenon. Join the community at SmackDown
dot pro. The coin is Stone Cold Rock Scene, Amacho McMahon, SmackDown
ten in you, and the ticker is SmackDown. Just remember, brother,
it's for life. This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the
WWE podcast show, the one that everybody wants me. God's good through sixteen,
So I just list your ass is my eyn you can acknowledge me.
What's going on? Everybody, Guys and girls, Welcome back to another edition
of the SmackDown Review right here on the WWE Podcast. As always, I
am one of the hosts of this show, Michael Ritter. You can find
me on x at Michael five Ritter and also one of the hosts of the
Football Function podcast, available on all of your podcasting platforms, including on Patreon.
First off, I wanted to give a shout out to everybody who's been
participating in the Mailbag Show. Admittedly, I haven't been able to listen to
The Mailbag Show routinely. It's not a part of my weekly routine these days.
It kind of has its ups and downs for me in terms of getting
into my routine. A lot of other shows that I listened to I kind
of tell you guys, sometimes the podcast that I'm listening to right now,
I've been trying to catch up with all of my movie rewatch podcasts, TV
show rewatch podcasts. I listened to about four or five at a time,
so it's easy to have your schedule pile up as well. As you know,
the sports podcast that I listened to, you to stay caught up on
all my sports teams and just in general, you know, I like to
listen to other teams' opinions as well. I like to gamble, just being
completely honest, and obviously please gamble responsibly if you are choosing to do so,
but me personally, I like to put a couple of parlays down.
Whether it's on basketball games or football games. My record isn't exactly where I
would like it to be, but hey, you know, it is what
it is. Shoot or shoot and eventually you know the balls are gonna start
going in the net. But nonetheless, I really liked what I heard from
the Mailbag this week, just kind of getting back on topic there. It's
been a while, Like i't just mentioned, I don't listen to the Mailbag
as often as I good, but this week I made sure to make it
a part of one of the days that I was at work. I think
it might have been Thursday, And I will be honest, great questions,
a lot of good conversation that was going on. You know, you really
you forget what you're missing whenever you stop listening to to one of your favorite
podcasts, and then whenever you get back in you're like, man, why
the hell did I take this out of my weekly routine. But I'm gonna
try to get the mail Bag at least get the mail Bag back in my
rotation there. But thank you guys so much for choosing the SmackDown Review as
part of your day. And you know, obviously, I really appreciate that,
but we're gonna get into a pretty good episode of SmackDown today. I
really thought that this episode. You know, some people are more of a
harsh critic than I am, but I mean, personally, I like the
fact that we're taking steps forward in multiple different storylines. That's what it's all
about for me. I don't like the shows feeling like a televised live event.
You know, you guys have all been to those live events, those
house shows in WWE, where titles don't change hands, storylines aren't furthered.
You know, it's kind of just like, hey, we'll have some matches
here there. You might get a promo of a heel talking crap about the
local town. But other than that, it's not the same as going to
a TV event. I mean, I will say the crowd interaction, that's
one thing that live events definitely excel at. And they do have the actual
TV shows beat is you know, it's not on a crucial I mean,
don't get me wrong, It's all about a time schedule. Like WWE has
a very specific schedule that they do their shows, but the wrestlers are way
more willing to spend some time sign some things with the people who are sitting
there ringside and going down the ramp. I've seen it every time I go
to these shows, and it's just one thing you notice. But this episode
of SmackDown obviously felt like an actual episode of SmackDown, where we got crucial
promos, we got some developments in terms to the wargames picture. So there's
a lot of things that I guess happened on this show that I felt like
we're noteworthy. And that's not even talking about the Santos Escobar stuff. So
we'll kind of get into all these things as we roll through this SmackDown review.
But not only that. Last week I mentioned if I am going to
record my SmackDown review on Saturday, because my schedule kind of varies week in
week out, it's never going to be the same. So sometimes I record
these SmackDown reviews on Friday night. Sometimes I record them on Saturday morning,
sometimes early and Saturday afternoon. If the episode comes out on Saturday, I
am going to throw in a stack them up Saturday, a top five of
something at the very end of the episode. Well, I'm sure you notice
by now this episode was recorded on Saturday, so we're going to have another
one. Last week we did the top five years, just going through the
history books and seeing who had the best spear of all time. I gave
you my top five. Today we are going to rank the top five wrestlers
worthy or positioned to take a swing at Gunther's Intercontinental Championship. More So,
who is I guess worthy? Who are the top five wrestlers who have a
shot at doing it, Because, as I'm sure you know, there was
a report apparently Gunther had an interview and he mentioned that he thinks he's outgrown
the Intercontinental Championship, which I mean, he's the longest reigning Intercontinental champion of
all time. Nobody has had it longer than him. It clearly makes sense
for him to drop it at some point. I personally think that that could
happen. At the Royal Rumble. I I went out on a limb last
year. I was rooting for Gunther very hard at the Royal Rumble in person
to win it. He ended up not Cody Rhadse. I was very fine
with that as well, but I knew he has a shot gunter that is
next year to actually go all the way and win it. And I have
not wavered on that whatsoever. I know he's the Intercontinental champion. It doesn't
always make sense doing it that way, but nonetheless, I think that Gunther
could eventually drop this title very very soon, possibly at the Rumble, and
then go on and win the Rumble in the same pay per view, to
keep his momentum going and to make him still, you know, just as
credible as he is, and allow him to take that step forward which we
all expect him to do. Attack maybe Seth Rollins, who knows he's going
to be the on disputed champion. I feel like the winner of the Rumble
this year should probably go after that World Heavyweight championship. It just makes sense.
We can get into as to why it makes sense, but I personally
just think that Number one, it would make the championship mean more if the
Royal Rumble winner chose to go after it in the main event of WrestleMania.
BAM already makes championship feel more important. I mean, go back and look
in recent years, Royal Rumble winners have not fared very well against Roman Reigns
at WrestleMania, so you might take a different route. You may have more
success going after that World Heavyweight Championship. I feel like that would make sense
for Gunther, and because he is my pick to win the Royal Rumble,
and because it kind of ties in with his report, I'm somewhat reading the
room in a sense of Romans had an insanely long title reign, Gunther's had
an insanely long title reign. One of these guys has to drop it very
very soon. It just makes sense. Gunther seems more willing, and because
the Intercontinental Championship isn't the top of the mountain, he can drop this and
still continue to climb upward, which is what I expect to happen. But
because I expect him to make that leap, he's got to drop this title.
So I'm going to run through just a handful of names that I think
could have a shot. Some are from Raw, some are from SmackDown.
You know, I'm not going to allow the brand split to dictate this list
or keep somebody off of this list, because we all know they break their
own rules anyway, So I'm not going to restrict myself Whenever I'm thinking about
the roster and who is capable of taking this title off a Gunther. But
that's at the end of the episode. First off, we have a SmackDown
to cover here, so let's get into it and talk about the things that
happened on the SmackDown that aired on November seventeenth, twenty and twenty three from
the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. Location Breakdown brought to you per usual
by DJ Cuzmo. Now, this episode of SmackDown, it started off with
Damage Control. They came out to the ring. They kind of well,
first off, it started with a video package. There were a lot of
video packages here in this episode of SmackDown really throughout the show. But once
that was over, we get Damage Control coming to the ring and pretty much
they're welcoming Osca. They're welcoming her officially into the fold into Damage Control well
as one of the most dynamic and deadly factions. One I guess analogy I
wanted to use last week. You guys know, I like to bring in
the sports analogies. Well, thinking about how dominant this women's faction is.
When you're talking about Damage Control, they're already pretty damned strong before you know.
Obviously to code Ki was injured, so it was really just two active
wrestlers. But Bailey and Eosky are still a pretty dynamic duo. When you're
just talking about their entring work. You factor into code Kia whenever she gets
healthy, obviously she's going to improve the group. But then you add in
Kyrie saying and it's like, okay, not bad, not bad. This
definitely makes this group a hell of a lot stronger than Oscar kind of just
sends it over the top. It adds that credibility and just makes it feel
more legit. I guess is the word that comes to mind. But whenever
I was thinking about, you know, what can I compare this to what
additions to a sports team? Is somewhat synonymous with what happened, and you
know it's obviously it's not completely apples to apples. There is a little bit
of a you kind of have to cast a wide net and just generalize some
things whenever you're making these comparisons. But I guess I kind of was thinking
about, you know, the twenty ten era and going back to the Miami
Heat whenever they had Dwayne Wade and various other role players, some critical role
players. Dedannis Haslam was on that team, and they go out and they
sign Lebron James and Chris Bosh too phenomenal, all caliber NBA players to pair
with Dwayne Wade. They could have three peeded. You know, they could
have won multiple multiple championships. They ended up only winning two, but the
potential was there, the ceiling was extremely high. And I guess that's what
this reminds me of. Just adding this type of talent makes this group damn
near unbeatable. I'm already going to go out on a limb and say I'm
going to pick them for war Games. I know that the group officially announced
a foursome that's going to be going up against this group at War Games,
and I'm looking forward to that match. But I'm a believer in this version
of damage control. And you know this, this whole opening segment kind of
got interesting. It seemed like they were trying to tease Bailey's departure from the
group a little bit. We've been getting, you know, some some hints
at that in recent weeks and months actually, but this one was kind of
strange because Dakota Kai was kind of trying to deliver a line in a sense
of saying, not everybody in this group is in damage control and you know,
the crowd new the camera was panting to Bailey. You could see the
look on her face. It seemed like she was somewhat confused at what she
was saying. And then Dakota Dakota Kai quickly says, Oscar, come on,
we haven't officially welcomed her in to the group yet, we have to
do that, and yeah, okay, that's a great idea. Yeah,
you took the words right out of my mouth whatever, you know, it
was kind of sort of the idea was great. The execution, if you
go back and rewatch this segment, you could just tell Dakota Kai, you
know, she probably could have done a little bit of a better job selling
this. It seemed like the moment itself, just her delivering that line,
it just didn't come off as natural as you would have liked. You could
tell exactly what she was trying to do, and that's not necessarily a good
thing. You want to get the gist of what she's doing without knowing that
she's trying to do that. You know, I guess that sounded kind of
confusing, but if you understand what I'm trying to say, it just seemed
forced. I guess it just seemed like not as smooth as it could have
been. But that's my only complain about that. It's just the execution.
I feel like the idea was great, probably sounded awesome, and you know
it let us know what's coming. This friction is going to be there,
and I'm all for it because it is entertaining. It does have me hooked.
I guess I want to know what's coming next, and I feel like
if wwe can do that with this segment or with this, you know,
this program that's going on, it makes me not necessarily wonder where the bloodline
is or where Roman Reigns is. Obviously you want him there. You want
Roman Reigns on the TV as much as you possibly can. But at this
point, if you expect Roman Reigns to be on TV weekly or even multiple
times a month, you're fooling yourself. You know, you have to be
realistic. I'm not going to lose any sleep over Roman Reigns not being there.
I'm not going to wonder where he is. I know exactly the drill.
I'm used to it by now. It's just part of this title reign.
They've reached the point where they cannot have him on TV every week because
it would be over exposure and it would expose Roman Reigns to an extent his
weaknesses. The fact that they keep him so few and far between, he's
able to really polish his next move, and whenever he comes out, it
does seem like such a big deal. So that's pretty much why I'm not
worried about that particular thing, or I guess just you know, I'm not
gonna let it bother me. But in the meantime, if we're getting stuff
like this, these types of programs going into the Winner on SmackDown, you
know, sign me up for it because because it's pretty entertaining stuff. But
let's go ahead and move on here to another thing that happened on SmackDown.
We get the Street Profits versus the brawling Brutes versus Pretty Deadly in a triple
threat number one contenders match for the Undisputed Tag Team Championships next week against Judgment
Day, and the Street Profits win. I believe they should have won.
The right team got the opportunity at the Championships. In my personal opinion,
nothing against Pretty Deadly. Like I said, they they took an injury.
They were relevant before the injury. They came back, really haven't missed a
beat. They're starting to get over a little bit more with the fans.
The brawling brutes, they take the l here in this match. They're the
ones that get the pinfall in the street profits advance. But the brawling brutes
do have that you know that typical straight from WWE two K where after the
matches over, we see the losing team in the ring extremely disappointed. One
of them kind of pushes the other one leaves the ring. You know what's
coming. The brawling brutes are going to implode right before our very eyes,
don't. We don't really know where they're gonna go. I don't know what's
in store for all these guys individually. As a group, it really made
sense. But you know what's Rich Holland gonna do? You think he's gonna
stand on his own as a singles competitor. Doesn't really seem like his category
that he fits in. I think he's more of a lackey. If we
can get someone who is a hill champion that needs some type of support,
some type of muscle, or a heavy rich Holland would fit in. That
is a speculation, though obviously we're kind of going down a rabbit hole that
really doesn't exist yet. If you're talking about the implosion of the Brawling Brutes,
this was simply the first seed that was planted. But you have to
acknowledge it. You have to point that out, like we see this happen
time and time again with groups. Very rarely does it just not blow over.
You know, we just saw LWO completely blow up, and that just
came out of nowhere. I feel like I thought there was a lot of
juice still to be squeezed out of that faction, and it turns out they
felt differently and they went in a different direction. We'll see what happens here,
but I think that the Brawling Brutes days are certainly numbered as a group
here on SmackDown Up next, we get Dragon Lee versus Axiom in a one
on one match, basically a little tribute to Raymasterio, who did undergo another
knee surgery, which that's crazy. He's had over ten knee surgeries in his
career. There. I mean, if you've had one surgery in general,
you know how just brutal they are on your body, like you're not the
same, especially to something like your knee. For a wrestler. I mean
even can take it another layer. Look at Raymisterio's style, look at his
skills. Say what he does. It's a lot of explosion, it's a
lot of running, a lot of stopping very quickly, jumping off the top
rope, high flying. It requires him to really use his knees. And
the fact that he's this late in his career, people are already wondering,
you know, respectfully, why are you still here? Ray, Like,
what do you have left to prove you're a first ballot Hall of Famer.
You're already in the Hall of Fame. Let's be honest, Hey, You've
already gone one on one with your son, You've already won the tag team
championships with your son. What is there other than the fact that the checks
are still showing up in the mail? I feel like it's because he's still
going at an extremely high level. Whenever you look amongst the roster and you
say, man, I haven't lost a step, and if I have,
I'm still two or three steps instead of five steps ahead of everybody else,
I'm still two or three steps ahead of everybody else. And Ray Mastereo,
especially whenever you just talk about just being a pure professional does not get better
than him. He knows the business. He knows this industry like the back
of his hand. It's truly an art that he's mastered. And the fact
that he has you know, he's had this knee injury and it's this late
in his career, you do wonder how much time he's going to take off,
and you know what's what's going to be in store for him afterwards.
Whenever he does get back, he's already mentioned, you know, revenge for
Santo's Escobar. Will see if he actually follows through on that. I do
believe there are bigger fish to fry. But nonetheless, ray Masterio is going
to be out for quite a long time, so I wanted to give a
quick shout out to him and hopefully we see him back sooner rather than later.
This match was dedicated to him. A battle between two Lucha Libre wrestlers,
dragonly An Axiom. This is my first time getting my eyes on Axiom,
so I will say I'm not extremely familiar with him. His entrance is
strange to say the least. I mean, I feel like if you were
to put on drunk goggles or just look through some type of you know glasses
that made it seem like you were intoxicated. That's what it looks like.
It's real blurry, it's kind of you know, slanted moving cameras. It's
strange, and that's kind of what I I mean. I'm not saying that
it's a bad thing or anything like that. I'm just saying like, that's
what it reminded me of. As I was watching it, I was like,
man, it feels like I'm drunk right now, Like this is this
is an odd experience. But uh, Dragon Lee does get the win hitting
Operation Dragon, and he might have found a home here on SmackDown. It
seems like he's here damn near every week now. And I know that my
girlfriend some whenever he comes on the TV, he knows who he is,
and I do believe he's starting to become a fan of his, just strictly
because of the similarities to Ray Mysterio. But speaking of Ray, let's go
ahead and talk about this other segment. Santos Escobar pretty much just came out
and told us why he did what he did. He defended it nonetheless double
down. He said Dominic was right. Everything he said about Ray Mysterio was
right. And what you're gonna do brother, when the crypto bull run comes
to you. The ticker is SmackDown on the Theory blockchain. Brother, We're
the first and only wrestling theme crypto and we're bridging wrestling in crypto currency to
make the most electrifying meme coin in crypto history. OO mean coins like Doge,
Pepe and she Be and you are leading the upcoming bull run and we
got the juice to turn our two passions into the next crypto phenomenon. Join
the community at SmackDown dot pro. The coin is Stone Cold Rock Scene a
Macho McMahon SmackDown ten in you, and the ticker is SmackDown. Just remember,
brother, it's for life pretty much just you know, crapped all over
Raymisterio and his legacy saying don't meet your heroes, and we all say,
you know, I mean, everybody tells you don't meet your idols, right,
And Santos Escobar said that Raymisterio was his idol and he met him and
sure enough was not what he expected. So after he's crapping all over Raymasterio,
Lelenavega goes out to the ring. She gives him a nice slap right
across the He doesn't really like that. And then Joaquin Wilde and Cruz del
Toro come out and he pretty much tries to tell him, hey, man,
like it was us three, Are you guys going to leave my side
too? Are you guys going to join them and leave us rather than what
we had got? I mean remember LDF like Otto del Fantasma. This was
a very long running group on NXT, and even though up here on the
main roster. And then Santos Escobar actually attacked his teammates or should I say
former teammates. He attacked him from behind as they were trying to leave.
They were pretty much so don't know, like, we're not after what you've
done, we can't leave the LWO and join you. So Santos attacks him
from behind. He's putting him down and out of nowhere, Carlito comes out
and pretty much puts a stop to that. Santos eventually runs off, but
we are going to get Santos versus Carlito, hopefully a Survivor series. This
seems like a Survivor series match, you know, if you think of over
the years, all these heated feuds that have culminated at Survivor Series. But
when that comes to mind immediately, and I always reference this pay per view
a Survivor SERIESZH three, Cain versus Shane McMahon in that ambulance match, you
know, on that same card, Undertaker versus Vince McMann buried a live match.
Grudge matches happen at Survivor Series. Look at wargames for Christ's sake,
like they know WWE for the most part, they understood the assignment. Whenever
you're talking about putting matches on the Survivor Series card, and why not,
you know, why not give me one that you know has this type of
credibility. Carlito kind of opened up a can of worms whenever he pointed out
what Santo's did. Who knows how much longer he would have gotten away with
doing these heel tactics, these little you know, snake moves, just cheating
his teammates out of wins, screwing them over. Carlito puts a stop to
that. Shout out to Carlito, he did not think that was very cool
Santo's escabar, So I cannot wait for this one on one match. But
continuing on here in the show, we get Grayson Waller versus Cameron Grimes.
Austin Theory was a guest on commentary, which reminds me so was road Dog.
And I'm not really sure what they're doing, Like what's their plan with
all these former wrestlers and just popular figures coming and being guessed on commentary.
I mean even Theory, like I said, was on this one. So
I mean it seems like a two man boost just isn't enough for them anymore.
Not sure why you have a legend like Michael Cole, he only needs
one other person in there to kind of, I guess, give him a
chance to breathe and you know, a chance to take a drink of water
and get a word out here and there. But no way to bear it
tonight, and not really sure where he was. But let's continue on the
fact that Grayson Waller got this win was one hundred percent because Austin Theory got
involved, kind of flipped over Cameron Grimes on the outside of the ring and
Grayson Waller hits a finishing move. They road Dog said what the move was
called. I didn't catch the name. I know it's been done before.
It's pretty badass where he runs and does like a front flip over them and
ends in like almost like a razor's edge. Damn near A pretty cool little
move that Grayson Waller broke out to pick up this win. But I guess
that ended how I expected in terms of the winner and loser. Didn't really
expect Cameron Grimes to get a win. But I am happy that he's still
on the show. He's had some good moments here early. We just need
to get him a mic time. You know, every time we see Cameron
Grimes, he's just in the ring ready for a one on one match,
and that's his time from bell to bell to tell his story or to get
us invested into his character and to you know, make us want to see
him succeed and get behind him. You got to give him more time.
You got to give him more opportunities on the microphone. Let him come out
and say something like who is Cameron Grimes? Now? We haven't heard him
say anything since he's been on SmackDown. We got to see more from this
guy, and we got to know why he's here, what's his role on
the show. It'll give us a little bit, I guess a little bit
of a better idea as what we can expect from him going forward on this
roster. As I scroll through my notes here, we do get a one
on one match between Jimmy Usso and La Knight, But before the match starts,
we get Paul Hayman, Solo so Co and Jimmy Usso all out in
the ring. And this was a pretty you know, it was a lengthy,
a long winded promo from Paul Hayman. He even ran out of breasth
towards the end. You could hear him taking his deep breath, but he
was going and going and going, pretty much just putting over Solo Socoa,
reminding us how dominant of a win that was, because it really was.
He was pretty much just telling us, hey, it was a pretty big
win, the fact that he beat John Cena at Crown Jewel, and he
just wants to remind us all that. So he's going on saying the things
that John Ceno will not be able to do going forward, since he pretty
much got a spike right to his throat. There's not really a whole lot
he can do after that, at least in terms of promos and speaking into
a microphone, the things that he really does well and separates him from the
pack. But La Night comes out, which is nice because I really wasn't
sure what win and we were going to see La Knight how he was going
to be featured. He took the set back. Losing your championship matches without
a doubt. That's not anything, you know, that's good for a wrestler
by any means. But the fact that he's still getting featured in these big
time segments, that's what, really, I guess makes me feel okay that
they're still believing in him. He's probably gonna get another opportunity at Roman Reigns.
That's another thing he alludes to whenever he gets to the microphone. He
says, one by one, is he gonna take out members of the Bloodline,
starting with Jimmy Usso until it's just him and Roman Reigns left, and
then obviously you know, calls out Jimmy USO right there, say hey,
we have a match right now, so let's go ahead and do this.
We get Jimmy, we get La Knight. Pretty dominant win for La Knight.
He controlled this match probably eighty percent of it, really not a whole
lot of offense from Jimmy Usso and then La Knight wins with a BFT solo,
Soaka does not really find that too amusing. He gets in the ring,
they try to beat the leaving hell out of La Knight. They try
to put him through the announced table until he gets an unexpected ally Cody Rhodes.
Now, obviously I love seeing Cody Roads on my TV. Was extremely
excited. I was shocked when I saw him come out because you know why.
I know he has beef with the Bloodline, but it just didn't seem
like La and I on a show that he's not even on. It just
didn't seem like the moment for Cody Roads to come out. But I mean,
I'm all here for it, sign me up. The only person who
probably wasn't on board with this was probably Nick Altis, who tells Cody Roads
to leave immediately. So, yeah, you know what you gotta do.
Now, you gotta leave the arena Cody knows. I wonder if he's gonna
get fined for this, what kind of trouble he's gonna get into. Something
must happen, I imagine. But the fact that we got Cody Rhodes helping
you know, La and I, are you guys good with this? I
am These two dudes are popular as hell together. They're both you know,
some of the most over baby faces. The only issue is that they're not
on the same show. That it didn't make a whole lot of sense for
Cody Rose to come out in this moment. Why was he there? Was
he just back there waiting, just waiting for him to get jumped at the
very end of the show. I nope, Like, what if he wouldn't
have got jumped. What if Jimmy usso and so would have taken the l
and just left with Cody Roads has shown up for nothing. Would he have
been in Evansville, Indiana, just you know, going to the local ihop
getting a nice pancake special or something like that. No, So that's my
only issue is it wasn't like he was conveniently there and can just run out.
He was there in a fully dressed suit, a nice suit, I
will say, as usual. But he comes to the rescue, and I
don't know just the whole logic behind it is really the only thing I could
poke holes in. But for the most part, I am fine with Cody
Roads in La Knight forming a team together try to take out the bloodline,
because that's apparently really all all you can do whenever the blood line's against you,
you have to join forces with somebody. And it appears that this team
may have a chance to survive the bloodline, to say the least, maybe
even dethrowing him one of them, you know, at some point down the
line. But nonetheless that's extremely extremely far fetched. Let's move on to the
final segment that happened here. Nick Altis told shot See, Charlotte and Bianca,
y'all need to find your final teammate for war games before this night ends,
before the show is over. Okay, bam. They start asking people
one by one, all the candidates that they offer, you know, an
invitation to get jumped. Damage Control puts them out of their misery and they
eliminate them from even having an opportunity. So the end of the night gets
here and we get Bianca, SHOTSI and Charlotte in the ring and Charlotte's trying
to you know, tell us who she's inviting, who she reached out to
to be on their team, and as she's speaking, she gets interrupted.
She did not appreciate that, you could tell. She gets interrupted by Bailey
and the rest of Damage Control, who pretty much say who you gonna pick?
Come on, who you're gonna pick? Now, already took out everybody,
there's nobody else here for you to lean on, and sure enough out
comes Becky Lynch. Now this was another you know, where the delivery wasn't
as great as the plan. You know, the plan on paper phenomenal.
Becky Lynch runs in from the crowd. We get the nice camera view or
her joining, but I just feel like, you know, obviously, the
the audience, the people who were there in attendance, they kind of gave
it away like they always do. It's not a bad thing, but you
know, they got loud. We'd kind of hear them and see all their
heads turned to the back of the ring and you see Becky Lynch come to
the ring. It just seems like if her music would have hit, if
we would have got her theme, bam, we got a massive pop.
Damage Control turns around. They're looking at the top of the stage waiting for
Becky to come out, and then she comes in through the crowd. Bam,
the camera still shows her. She runs into the crowd. We got
four on four right there. They turn around, Holy crap, Becky Lynch,
she's in the ring. We still get the brawl that we eventually get,
which that's another thing, not the you know, smoothest brawl. Go
back and rewatch this thing. Especially towards the end we had EO Sky and
Charlotte having that little face off and they kind of just you know, ran
into each other. Michael Cole said, all hell breaking loose right here,
That's how SmackDown goes off the air. I felt like the execution of that
quote unquote brawl was the exact definition of all heck breaking loose. Not all
hell breaking loose, all heck breaking loose. I mean to be completely honest,
and this is a little bit of a ricochet shot. It seemed like
something that you would see on ADW, like with their women's division. So
I was a little bit disappointed in that. But nonetheless, we get the
progression. We know who the Wargames match is going to be, and I
guess on that note, we can rejoice ex hell and prepare for next week,
where we're likely going to get a pretty good go home show as we
creep into Survivor series, which is always a great pay per view. Now,
as I mentioned to you guys, it's stack them up Saturday we got
a top five to get to you. Now, let's run through this bad
Boy rapidly. You guys could let me know your opinions and who you think
has a shot to dethrone Goonther. Now, I just listed six names here.
I didn't rank them just yet. I wanted to do that on the
show Honorable Mention. I know that people are going to probably turn you turn
this podcast off right now after I say this name. He's not on the
top five, but he is an honorable mention. I'm going Dominant Mysterio,
and the reason why I mentioned him is because big things are probably going to
be in store for him. They're doing. This is a big arc that
we're witnessing. He's just on the very bottom half. He hasn't even reached
that middle yet. I think that if there's ever a point in time where
Dominic Mysterio goes back to being a babyface, there's a chance that he could
be worthy and the right guy to dethrone Goother. The reason why he's only
an honorable mention and not on the list is because time. I think Gunther
is going to lose that belt sooner rather than later. Dominic is I mean,
he's in the middle of his judgment day era, and there's no way
in hell they're going to pull him from that to have him turned baby face
to go after this belt. So the timing doesn't work out, but I
felt like at some point it would have made sense to have that happen.
Another honorable mention here Austin Theory, and the reason why I'm mentioning him is
because I truly believe that Triple H is going to eventually try to tap back
into the potential of this guy. Vince McMahon was already on that route.
He was already on the way to make Austin Theory the next big thing.
And I think Triple H is a little bit cooled off on that. He's
not as high on Austin Theory as McMahon was, but I think he still
understands the talent, and you know, there's an opportunity there where if it
was maybe like a tournament or something like that, we could get Austin Theory
be the new Heel Intercontinental champion while Gonther went on to bigger and better things.
So let's get into the top five now, And this is where I
really got to start ranking these things. And at number five. I think
I'm going to go Drew McIntyre. The reason why I think that he belongs
at number five is because he's kind of just like guon theory's a little bit
above that, and that's not a shot at the title. It's more so
just praise to Drew. He's a world champion, he's already kind of been
in that mid card. I don't feel like him being the interconminental champion.
I mean, if he went on a seventh eight or seven or eight month
rain, yeah, it would be phenomenal for his career. But I just
truly think that at the end of the day, like he's past that,
you know, like he is swimming in the World Heavyweight Championship see and eventually
he's gonna catch something. But you know, I think that at the very
least, it wouldn't be bad getting a one on one program with Drew and
Gunter to see who can come out with this intercontinental championship. Number four,
I'm gonna go with La Knight. I just think that it'd be a good
consolation prize. He's a babyface. The only problem is they're not on the
same show, so it does kind of foggy up the waters. I don't
want to lose, you know, I don't want to lose La Night just
so we can go there and be the Interconninental champion. I don't so if
it happened, if it comes down to that and a SmackDown guy has to
win it, I would like them to keep the championship on SmackDown, which
seems rare. I just don't. I don't unlikely maybe a better word.
I don't think that's gonna happen. So moving on to number three, another
SmackDown guy, Kevin Owens. The reason why I'm giving Kevin Owens this is
because I feel like big things could happen for him, Like why not.
I don't know if I've ever seen him have the IC title. I know
he's had the US Championship. I'm pretty sure. It just seems like Kevin
Owens fits the Interconninental Championship, like he would make that title feel cool.
He would make even if he was a babyface, it would make it relevant,
almost like whenever Dean Ambrose was the Intercontinental champion. We can get a
similar run from Kevin Owens. I feel like, and you know him and
gooonther would be a hell of a program. They tell a hell of a
story as well. Number two, I gotta go Seamus. Not really sure
exactly where he is. I'm maybe injured right now, but nonetheless, I
still don't think he's ever won it. The only title he's never won,
the Intercontinental Championship. It makes sense he didn't get a chance to win it
at Mania. He still wants to win it, obviously, so why not,
you know, why not let Gunther drop that title to someone who's a
veteran and obviously it would make him a Grand Slam champion. So I am
rooting for Seamus, and hopefully he could end up doing something, you know,
down the line that could get him involved in the Intercontinental Championship picture a.
Number one, I gotta go jay Usso this might catch some people by
surprise, but he's yet to win a singles championship. He's been a tag
team champion time and time again. He's won a tag team championship with multiple
different people. It seems like he was damn near swimming in Hey, Could
jay Us be the guy that he throwings Roman? I don't know. People
are starting to look in the bloodline for that next guy, and Jay's name
kept popping up. Well, if we're talking about him being possibly somebody who
could win that belt, you have to think he's worthy of winning the Intercontinental
Championship, ending another streak, a different one, and he's on Monday Night
Raw. He's a babyface. This has potential. But if this were to
happen, then I feel like it would, without a doubt, really separate
the USOS, like in terms of their you know, their rank all time,
Like Jay Uso beating Goonther would damn near build him a resume to have
another Hall of Fame induction, Like the ushos are going to be a tag
team Hall of Fame. Like they're gonna be a Hall of Fame tag team.
I mean they're going to be inducted together as the USOS. Now jay
Uso defeating Gunther and ending his streak, that damn near builds a resume for
himself to be a two time Hall of Famer. I'm just saying that.
So that's the only issue there is. If j Uso were to win that,
I do believe that Jimmy would be left in the dust and there really
would be no comparison anymore. And some people already feel like there's not one
right now as we speak, but that does do it for me here on
the SmackDown Review. Guys, thank you so much for listening to the show.
Hopefully you'll come back next week. Also tune into all the other shows
going on here on the WW podcast, and hopefully you will take your you
know your business over to the Football Function Podcast. We will definitely appreciate it
there. If we could get you to become a funky maybe tell a friend,
tell anybody and everybody that they should be listening to not only the Football
Function Podcast but the WW podcast as well. Thank you, guys, so
much of a damn good rest of your weekend, Walk passionately in the direction
of your dreams, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to
the WWE podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you
don't miss a show, or head to wwepodcast dot com and for all of
these shows add free head over to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until
then, we'll see you next time. What you're gonna do brother? When
the crypto bull run comes to you, The ticker is SmackDown on Ethereum Lockchain.
Brother, We're the first and only wrestling themed crypto. And we're bridging
wrestling in cryptocurrency to make the most electrifying meme coin in crypto history. Oh
meme coins like Doge, Pepe and she Be and you are leading the upcoming
bull run and we got the juice to turn our two passions into the next
crypto phenomenon. Join the community at SmackDown dot pro. The coin is Stone
Cold Rock Scene, Amacho McMahon, SmackDown ten in you, and the ticker
is SmackDown. Just remember, brother, it's for life.