WWE SmackDown Review: The Return of "Hollywood Rock", Styles & Jimmy Uso Accept WrestleMania Challenges, More

This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the WWE podcast. Stop
the show, the one that everybody wants me Godello stand for sixteen. So
I just used your ass is my ear? 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 or Instagram at Michael Ridder five and also one
of the hosts of the Football Function podcast, available on all of your podcasting
platforms, including the one that you're listening to this show on, and also
available on Patreon if you prefer an ad free listening experience. I am here
today to talk about the SmackDown that aired on March fifteenth, twenty twenty four,
from Memphis, Tennessee. Location breakdown brought to us per usual by DJ
Cuzmo. It does feel good to be back, I will say. Obviously,
I was gone last week. I was actually in Dallas, Texas attending
SmackDown that was covered by Grim Reefer. So I wanted to give a quick
shout out to grim Reefer for doing his thing, obviously coming in the clutch
and stepping up and helping me out. Honestly, I mean, I'm sure
that Matt would have been more than willing to either you know, record the
SmackDown review himself, or push it off a little bit and just not have
a SmackDown review this week. I didn't want that to be the case,
so I reached out to someone who I felt like would have been more than
willing and more than capable of providing a very good, thorough SmackDown review.
And you know, obviously Grim Reefer. He's been around here for the ww
podcast for a pretty long time, contributor on the Mailbag, and obviously contributor
on the Football Function podcast. Grim Reefer actually has his own show, his
own weekly show that's called Reefer's Rivalries on the Football Function Podcast. So he's
doing his own thing, and if you like what he did on the SmackDown
Review, then you will definitely like what he does on a weekly basis over
on the Football Function Podcast. I just want to give a quick plug for
our boy, Grim Reefer, thank you so much for helping out here on
the WWE podcast last week. But speaking of last week, man, that
was an experience. Now. Obviously in terms of the actual SmackDown itself,
if I were just at home covering it and just breaking it down like I
normally do, I probably wouldn't have been like, ooh, this was a
SmackDown for the ages, you know, this is one that really hit the
ball out of the park. So it's not like the show itself just on
an even playing field was extremely memorable or anything like that. But I will
say being there in person, obviously getting to take a six year old who's
never been to a wrestling show ever to his first ever event that was pretty
special, and obviously got to see a lot of his favorites. It would
have been nice to see La Night come out. That was probably him and
Raymisterio were probably the only two that were on this episode of SmackDown that weren't
on last weeks that he really would have liked to see. But it was
actually pretty interesting. Just really quick side story here. We didn't tell him
at all. Where I live is about a five hour drive from Dallas there
and back five hours each way, so he had to go on a long
road trip, but pretty much told him we were going shopping, right,
like, we're going to Dallas. He's been to Dallas several times, so
that's not that's nothing new, But this particular time, we just told him
we were going shopping, nothing really planned. We were gonna kind of just
play it by year and let the events kind of take place. Well,
he knew it was from cause that's the thing. We drove up there that
morning. So we got there a few hours before the show. We were
able to like hit up a mall, hit up a target, things like
that before we actually went to the arena, and we ended up running into
traffic. That's a whole nother story for another day. We almost, you
know, ended up cutting it pretty close making it there on time. And
I'll get into that once we kind of unfold this here. But nonetheless,
he knows that it's Friday, right like he knows that SmackDown is tonight.
So we're at the hotel and he literally asked me, Hey, can we
watch SmackDown? And I was like, oh, but he has no idea
that it's in Dallas. He knows we're in Dallas, but he doesn't know
where SmackDown takes place every single week, So that was our saving grace right
there, and I was like, we'll pause it right, we'll have it
recorded. We're gonna go run some errands and then we'll come back to the
hotel room and then we'll watch SmackDown. He was thrilled just do that.
He was like, awesome, you know, I can't wait. So we
get him dressed, We all, you know, throw on our wrestling shirts.
He really doesn't think that's anything too crazy because we wear wrestling shirts all
the time, so that's nothing out of the ordinary. But we're driving to
the American Airline Center and we're starting to get closer and closer, and then
we eventually run into a probably a thirty minute just bumper to bumper. You're
moving up an inch, there's only one lane open. Cars are trying to
pass you and then put their blinker on to try to get in front of
you way later. Like that's one of the more annoying things. Just another
side note, whenever you're in traffic and you know that two lanes are forming
down to one lane and you're already in the lane they're that they're forming into,
and you just keep seeing cars pass by pass by trying like them not
knowing, Hey, that lane ends up there, or they do know when
they're just trying to be an a hole and jump in front of you.
Either way, That's kind of what was going on whenever we were on our
way to the arena, So it started to kind of put a little bit
of dobt, like, man, are we going to get there in time?
The last thing I want, you know, to do, is be
late to this episode of SmackDown, because I had a feeling that it was
going to start and end strong, just because of the things that were advertised.
But as we're sitting there in traffic kind of just waiting to go in,
he's starting to see more and more people walk by with wrestling shirts.
He's like, Hey, that guy's wearing a ja Usow shirt. That guy's
wearing a Bloodline shirt. That guy's wearing a Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt.
We're trying to downplay it, right, like we're trying to say, oh,
you know, that's pretty cool, just you know, there must be
more wrestling fans in the area, or something like that. He doesn't put
it together yet. We finally find a parking spot. He thinks we're going
to Walmart or Target, or somewhere, and we start walking up to the
arena. Now he's just seeing you know, championship belts, he's seeing nothing
but wrestling fans. And then he just looks up and he says, maybe
WWE is here. Like he's still really innocent in this whole thing, Like
he's like he's still just not assuming, hey, we're going to a WWE
show. He just thinks that maybe WWE is here. But he's starting to
kind of put the pieces together, and obviously we got like video footage of
him finally, you know, putting it all together. Whenever we're getting up
there, getting into the tickets, and he says that, you know,
hey, we're here at SmackDown. This is my first ever event. This
is so awesome. It was just it was a fun little experience getting a
chance to see him walk into the arena and go lay eyes on an actual
WWE ring the stage, surrounded by wrestling fans. It was a crazy experience.
Like I'm sure any of you who are listening right now and you've gone
to wrestling shows, I'm sure you remember your very first one, and depending
how old you were, whenever you went to your very first show, it
was probably pretty special. Like I was probably the same age as him,
five or six years old in nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety seven, whatever
year it was that I went to this wrestling event, the WWE show,
that was my first event, and I can already tell you, like,
obviously, I hit my peak wrestling fandom when I was around ten years old
in the fourth grade, ten eleven years old. That's whenever I was at
my absolute wrestling peak as a child. And just from where he is at
six years old, I could already tell you that he's a way bigger fan
at six years old than I was at six years yars old. So we'll
see kind of how it, you know, plays out over the next few
years, but hopefully by the time you know, he turns ten and eleven,
he's an even bigger fan than I was when I was ten or eleven.
And that's something that I really don't take for granted, because I know
there's a lot of people out there that try to get their kids to have
similar interests, and they damn near try to force it on them. I
really didn't have to do that at all, Like he absolutely loved wrestling.
In fact, I have to tell him to take it down a couple natches
sometimes because that's all he wants to talk about. And I know it starts
to like annoy his mom, Like when we're on our road trip and he,
for you know, two hours straight, is just asking me questions and
just saying like, hey, remember this, remember that from the night before,
whenever we were at SmackDown. So there are times where we have to
tell him like, hey, you know, let's talk about something else for
a little bit. But yeah, it's it's a pretty fun experience. Obviously,
last week at SmackDown was phenomenal. I enjoyed it, but yeah,
I just wanted to kind of give the loyal listeners, those of you who
knew what was going on and why I was gone last week. I wanted
to kind of let you guys know how it played out. It was success.
It was a fun trip to Dallas. We went to the Wax Museum
as well, which if you were in the Dallas area you have to knock
that out just you know, a great tourist attraction. But anyways, here
we are eight minutes and forty five seconds into the show, so you can,
you know, comment under the post or whatever. Real wrestling talk the
SmackDown review actually starts at eight forty five or whatever, because you know the
pre show banter kind of I like to touch base with you guys. I
don't want to just come in immediately hit start and bam, Okay, here's
the first segment of SmackDown. I like to have a little chit chat with
you guys, especially if there's a story to be told about something that happened,
you know, from the weeks or from the week that went on the
last time that we talked. So thank you guys so much for tuning in
here to this episode of the SmackDown review. I am looking forward to breaking
this one down. I think this episode of SmackDown was probably a little bit
better than last week, just being completely honest. Obviously, I would have
liked for a couple of the people that were there tonight to be their last
week. But if I would have went to tonight's episode, I wouldn't have
gotten a chance to see Roman Ragins, Cody Rhad, Seth Roland. So
you kind of you pick and choose your battles. Great shows, both of
them, But as far as this one goes, I was actually excited almost
immediately out of the gate. Because the Rock comes out. He opens the
show with a new theme song, the altered slow down Hollywood Rock version of
his theme song, and that pretty much immediately told me, Okay, they're
listening, Like the WWE is is really taking into what the fans are suggesting
online. Maybe it was always the plan. I feel like it was,
or if it was, they probably would have done it in a couple of
weeks ago. So the fact that they're doing it now makes me think maybe
they caught win that it was a popular discussion amongst the IWC, right the
Internet wrestling community, or just you know, maybe various different podcasts that they
might just have somebody listen to to gauge fan reaction or something like that.
Who knows how they actually do that. But nonetheless, whenever I saw that
The Rock's theme song was back, I thought that was it. I thought,
okay, that's that was a nice little touch that they're going to give
us. I didn't expect him to go full on Hollywood Rock where you know,
back then he would have a guitar, you know, and he would
actually perform the music and sing the songs. This time, he was you
know, he was aided by the help of others, and we'll kind of
get into that because he references how he usually decimates each city that he goes
to, but this one is different because Memphis is where he actually began his
pro wrestling career. He even calls it home when he says finally the Rock
has come home. Obviously usually says the city, but with some help of
some local musical talent, he offers to sing them a little song, specifically
a blues song and the things that were referenced in this song, because it
was a pretty good one. I mean, it was long. I'm not
going to sing it. I'm not going to recite it, but I will,
you know, mention some highlights some of the talking points that he was
getting to. Mentioned Seth's back his own fanny pack, meaning you know that
picture, that viral picture that we've seen of the Rock from like the early
nineties where he has that fanny pack and the black sweater. That's the picture
he was talking about. He also mentions Cody's mom. He says that Cody
wasn't planned and he was a mistake, Becky being more popular than Seth,
John Morant's history with guns, and a lot more. And after the song,
he addressed what happened last week when he was slapped in the face by
Cody Rhodes, and then he calls out Cody for what he did afterwards,
going on raw and basically just crying whenever he was explaining that he wants to
hand the championship to his mother since he can no longer hand it to his
father. It's an emotional moment. I'm sure it was very touching for some
fans that maybe have been following this that relate to Cody Roads in that specific
aspect. But that's pretty much what The Rock was clowning him for, was
crying whenever he said that he wants to hand the belt to his mom.
After he beats Roman Reigns at WrestleMania forty, in which case The Rock immediately
turns his attention into Cody's mother. He looks in the camera and starts talking
directly to her, telling her what he's going to do to Cody at WrestleMania
whenever it's Bloodline rules. He breaks out a custom Rock weight belt, which
is very similar to what Cody wears every single week or every single match,
I should say, But he goes on in detail about going up to her
sitting in the front row at WrestleMania after seeing Cody lose, and he starts
whispering something in his ear. It was a very like cringey visual just picturing
what The Rock was talking about. But it was a decent little opening segment
here. The Rock was absolutely on point. It's just this version that we're
getting of him. I really, I can't say it enough. Soak this
up, like, soak these moments up that we're getting. The Rock actually
be featured weekly on wrestling because just think how long we go in between this,
Like when the Rock gets going shooting movies and things like that and he's
in his grind, especially you know the what is it now, the UFL,
the United Football League, I don't know what, you know, previously
the XFL. Whenever the Rock gets going in that type of stuff, you
know, he might end up being too busy to make these weekly appearances.
So yes, we're going to have it leading up to WrestleMania, but just
don't take it for granted, because man, this this really doesn't happen too
often, and The Rock being on our television screen is something that was dearly
missed for a very long time. And I know that we're in a new
era. We want to push new stars. All that The Rock is entrenched
in a storyline with some of the biggest current stars in ww right now,
and you can't tell me that it's not aiding them and that it's not benefiting
them, you know, with ratings and just getting over with fans. Specifically
Cody Rose like the fact that he's going bar for bar with the Rock,
Like that's very, very impressive and also a little bit of a side note,
this is something I forgot to mention. Obviously we're finished with that first
segment, so well, before I get into the second segment here on SmackDown,
I wanted to give a quick shout out because that SmackDown last week when
I was there in Dallas, one of my good friends here, Tino Valentino,
who's a professional wrestler and independent profession wrestler, travers all around the state
of Texas and even other states as well. I mean, I've seen this
guy go to Kansas, Cleveland, Ohio, many many other places. So
this is someone that you know, he's making the rounds and he was actually
on SmackDown last week as one of these security guards. You know, how
Cody and said The Rock. Everybody Roman Reigns. Everyone had their own group
of like security, who was wearing the black WW shirts. Well, one
of the guys that was there front and center was one of my really good
friends. I played flag football with him for years. And obviously the one
time that I got into a wrestling ring and did one day of training was
with Tino Valentino, who is you know, on his way to being you
know, a phenomenal, well known name in this industry. I truly believe
that, and they showed him so much, like he got a lot of
airtime. You probably saw his face and you just had no idea who it
was because you see these local enhancement talents every single week whenever they do these
types of things. When it were like with security and things like that,
or like a squash match. But seeing one of your own friends get this
type of airtime at definitely, you know, it's pretty cool. Nonetheless,
so I did want to give a shout out to Tino Valentino for sharing a
main event segment with The Rock on national television. But anyways, continuing on
here, let's get into one of the tag team matches that went on tonight.
There is a tag team you can call it a tournament, right,
because this one, in particular was a tag team championship qualifying match for the
six pack Ladder match at WrestleMania. So what they're doing here is, you
know, the winners advanced to the finals of Bracket one, like the winner
of this match advances to the finals, and then the winner of the match
at the end of the show tonight that is bracket won, and those two
teams that win, they make up the finals of Bracket one and Bracket two
is going on over a Monday night Raw, but the winners of each bracket
will join the judgment day in that six pack Ladder match at WrestleMania, which
is going to be phenomenal. I could already tell you ladder matches WrestleMania it
is always a phenomenal combination. But let's see here this match in particular Legato
del Fantasma versus LWO, and the only really I mean, because I mean
it was a really great match. I will say, like, go back
and watch this one. There's too many spots to sit here and point it
out. But if I was going to give you one spot that I thought
was phenomenal, was the standing Spanish fly from Cruise del Toro that he hit
on Humberto Koreo. Phenomenal move, just phenomenal spot in the match. And
obviously, just I was really impressed by both teams in this match. And
I can't really say that I've been impressed with Cruise del Toro and Joaquin Wild
like seeing them wrestle, it's never really moved the needle for me. I've
never really been interested one way or the other. But watching them tonight,
I do feel like it was a little bit different, Like I was like,
oh, these guys are really on their a game tonight, or maybe
this just this matchup in particular, right, Like, these two teams are
starting to build that chemistry where they can just put together a really good match
at the drop of the hat, and that's really what you like to see.
The more chemistry, the more work that they get together during live events
and every week on SmackDown, they're obviously only going to get better at their
craft. But obviously, like I mentioned, Legato deel Fantasmo gets the win,
Legatto del Fantasma gets the win and they advance to the finals. Great
match here. Up next, Caleb Braxton introduces La Knight for a quote unquote
interview, but there really was no interview here because La Knight just grabs the
microphone and he asks if he can quote unquote cook and that's exactly what he
does. Directed at AJ Styles, obviously, just calls him out for not
showing up tonight. He pretty much just looks around as Aj Styles here,
Okay, cool, it's not here. He pretty much calls him out right
there, and then he says he will fly to Australia to cheat me out
of the elimination chamber, but he won't even show up here to Memphis.
That just tells you how of a coward he is. And then obviously he
challenges Aj Styles to a match at WrestleMania, and then AJ actually sneaks up.
He was there the whole time. I'm sure none of you expected that,
right. He stinks up behind La Knight hits him with the chair boom
challenge accepted. We get Aj Styles, we get La Night one on one
at WrestleMania. And when you just look at the grudge matches, like that's
the thing that I gave a shout out, major shout out to WrestleMania twenty
because I will say this is twenty years since WrestleMania twenty, and you guys
already know how I feel about that specific WrestleMania. But the singles matches that
were on that car that had nothing to do with the championship. You know,
we're talking about Goldberg versus brock List. No, the match was underwhelming,
but the match up itself was actually pretty impressive. And then obviously Caine
versus Undertaker, like that match itself was just great, like just the build
up of Undertaker making the return to the Dead Man after he was buried alive
at Survivor Series in the American Airlines Center where I was just that last Friday,
But also matches like wasn't a Mick Foley tagging with the Rack going up
against Evolution? There was? I mean, no, there wasn't a singles
gruge match, but that was still just a pure grudge match. And I'm
sure there's others that I'm just forgetting here off the top of my head.
But hey, if you have any type of itch to go, you know,
just watch a previous WrestleMania. I will always tell you to go watch
WrestleMania twenty from Madison Square Garden. But anyways, let's continue on here.
In the show, La Knight finds or I'm sorry, Logan Paul finds Nick
Altis backstage and asks what the repercussions are going to be for Randy Orton's actions
last week whenever he rko'ed KSI and ruined Logan Paul's major announcement, the sponsorship
announcement, which I didn't really get my thoughts on that. I mean,
it is what it is. I don't you know, people are already trying
to reference big moments in the past, right like one if Undertaker Street got
broken on a Prime bottle or things like that. I don't think it hurts
UFC. I just think that because we're used to a plane canvas, we're
used to nothing being on the mat, that it would kind of throw off
previous events. But I think that going forward, we're so used. I
mean, look at the barricades right, like they sometimes have sponsorships. Like
you'll be watching a random match and it'll have a slim GYM logo on the
LED boards that are just along the barricades and the post. I've always thought
that they need to tone it down a little bit with the LED boards and
go back a little bit more old school, but that's just my personal opinions.
Some people might not agree, and I just think that, you know,
I mean, it's only on pay per views, so it's not like
it's going to be every single week. But you know, I understand the
people that don't want it because you know, if it ain't broke, don't
fix it. But if you're worried about this, you know, ruining some
big time moments in the future, I really don't think that it will.
I mean, WCW had these in the late nineties. I know that people
look at that and say, well, ww still in or WCW still in
business. The sponsorship logos on the ring have nothing to do with why WCW
went out of business, So that's, if anything, that was something they
were doing right and they were ahead of the game, because that's just you
know, obviously UFC took full advantage of that, and now we finally see
WWE doing the same thing. I just think that they're going to be very
very particular for which logos they put in the middle of the ring, and
I you know, obviously look forward to seeing what logos get put in the
middle of a WWE ring going forward. I mean, that's the ultimate goal,
right if you have a business, I want my freaking logo in the
middle of the ring for a WrestleMania right, like football function. I know
that'll that's pipe dreams, but that's like for anybody that has a small business,
that should be your goal. Like, imagine having the Plum Crazy Barbecue
logo there in the middle of the ring for Survivor series. You know,
that's obviously our buddy Howard Poole, another patron of the show, another contributor
of The Football Function, has a phenomenal barbecue business. And if you don't
already follow that page on Facebook, even if you live nowhere near Pennsylvania and
you cannot get access to Plumb Crazy Barbecue, I highly recommend following his social
media because, oh my good lord, Like it's just it's eye food.
You know, it's eye candy for you. And you know, if you
just like seeing that type of thing on social media, you know, you
follow pages that always tweet recipes and they treat or tweet videos of them making
food and desserts and things like that. This is right up that alley.
So shout out to Howard Pool and obviously Plumb Crazy barbecue because they got some
very good stuff going on over there. Let's move on here. Caleb Braxton
scares the piss out of Paul Hayman whenever she kind of sneaks up on him
accidentally as they're walking backstage in the arena, and she just simply asked for
an answer to j Usso's WrestleMania challenge to Jimmy, and Jimmy passionately answers his
challenge and says yes, like I'm ready for this, Like obviously, this
is another one I mentioned the Spanish Fly. Go back and check out that
spot. This is another one that if you didn't see, it's worth seeing
because you could just see in Jimmy Usso's eyes how much this match is going
to mean to him. So I very much. So you know, I'm
hoping this one opens the show like Night one Match one. Let's get this
bad boy going, although it's worthy of being higher up on the card because
everything that's going on here and that just brings me back to it. Man,
you know you got aj Styles versus La Night non title, just a
grudge match. That's exactly what this is right here with Jimmy and Jay Uso
So WrestleMania Fortyth certainly going to be one that's extremely memorable going forward. But
continuing on here in the show, we get Randy Orton versus Grayson Waller with
Austin theory at ringside, and Logan Paul, who was demanding an apology from
Randy Orton or pretty much you know, he was demanding repercussions. He wanted
Nick Altis to find some repercussions. But you know, Logan Paul takes a
shot at Nick right there too and says, hey, you can't even find
me a WRESTLEMANI opponent. Of course you can't, you know, punish Randy
Orton for doing something as stupid and chaotic as he did last week. So
whatever, and then Nick just pretty much says, hey, I want you
to try to get him face to face. Why don't you try to get
Randy Orton's apology? So you know, we think maybe he's actually going to
try doing this. Logan Paul comes out and just watches from ringside, which
he's always you know, pretty good whenever he's a guest on commentary. Logan
Paul is just very entertaining. But I also wanted to give a shout out
to Corey Graves because at first, whenever he was moved to play by play
from color commentary, I thought it was like trying to put a square peg
in a round hole. Like I thought that this is someone that is extremely
good at color commentary, why would you take him out of that spot?
But then I started thinking, right, if Pat McAfee's back, that's an
elite color commentator. Wade Barrett's doing a fine job. I feel like with
you know, them striking out with someone like Jimmy Smith, them not really
being sold on who was the more recent one, Kevin Patrick. So you
look at the disappointing tenures that they had and how quickly they were replaced,
you think that maybe WWE is starting to think, Okay, maybe it's easier
to fill the hole of a color commentator than a play by play. And
Corey Graves has been sitting beside Michael Cole for like what, damn near a
decade. I know, not exactly that long. JBL was there for,
you know, damn near ten years ago, but Corey Graves has been there
for a while. He's very polished on color commentary, and maybe they just
saw like, hey, let's give this guy a whack, like, let's
let him take a swing. And I think that I'm starting to finally get
used to it, and I think he's starting to do a you know better
job. I really noticed it in this match that he's just really got a
little bit of Michael Cole and him, like you could tell that that's who's
wing he was under. And I think that the more and more that we
see Corey Graves as a play by play guy, that he could be the
next one up, like he could be the one that passes the torch or
that gets the torch from Michael Cole. Because think about it, how long
was Jim Ross the play by play for Monday Night Raw while Michael Cole was
just playing second fiddle as the play by play for SmackDown for quite a long
time. And then eventually Michael Cole ends up getting that you know, that
push ends up getting promoted. That's essentially what it is. And you think
that whenever Michael Cole eventually it's not gonna happen anytime soon. He's still got
a lot of ears left, but you think that as soon as he's ready
to maybe move to a different stage, maybe not be the guy being the
voice of WWE, or maybe not be as reliable because remember it's pretty much
like it's documented that he's you can count on one hand how many shows Michael
Cole has missed in his entire ww career. He's been there for a really
really long time. So if he ever wants to just take a lighter workload
or something like that, I don't really know, but I just think that
Corey Graves is someone that they've already gotten the right path of development as someone
who could possibly carry the torch and be that next guy. And it really
didn't click, It really didn't sink in to me like that until this match
when I was watching. So that's just, you know, you always remember
moments like this, even though it's just, you know, a meaningless Randy
Orton versus Grayson Waller match. I got a lot more from it. But
back to the actual match, Randy Orton hits both Waller and Theory with vintage
Jordan, then RKO's Waller to get the win while looking directly at Logan Paul
while the ref is making the one two three, and then comes Austin Theory
with a little cheap shot after the match, attempting to set Ordin up for
Logan to get a knockout punch, but before we can, Kevin Owen's music
hits and he comes to the rescue, but nearly catches an accidental RKO from
Randy Orton. Randy just you know, obviously thought it was somebody else he
got snuck up on. That was a little bit of a teaser there.
Luckily that was avoided. But then Aults comes out and tells Logan Paul that
hey, I took your advice and I have determined your opponents for WrestleMania,
and it's going to be a triple threat between Kevin Owens and Randy Orton.
So a nice little bow on that, you know, that situation, that
encounter that we got earlier in the night, A nice little bow on what
could be between Randy Orton and Kevin Owens, because you know that they have
a mutual respect for each other. But that slight almost RKO kind of was
like, oh, hold on, what the hell's going on here? And
obviously it was a mistake, but still you you definitely are going to remember
that, and I think we're going to you know, probably hear about it
next week, probably going to see Kevin Owens and Randy Orton eventually have to
come to fisticuffs. Once that happens, you know that the story line's going
to be just off and running. But you think about what we're going to
get for that US Championship match Kevin Owens, Randy Orton, and Logan Paul
that has money written all over it, and I really think that it could
be one of these shows dealers of the entire pay per view. Up next,
Santos Escaba versus Dragon Lee. Santos sneaks out with the win. The
Legato delf Phantasma try to jump Dragon Lee after the match until Carlito comes out,
but the numbers prevail for Lagatto delf Phantasma until Ray Mysterio comes out to
get a piece of Santos and then tells him he's gonna smack that little arrogant
smirk off of his face next week whenever they face off in a one on
one match. I thought he was gonna challenge him WrestleMania, like he had
all the build up of what wrest like, what Ray Mysterio would say,
Like he had the same tone when he challenged Dominic last year, and this
just seemed like he was on the way to challenging him to WrestleMania, but
luckily it was just for smack Down next week. Up next, we get
a tag team Championship qualifying match for the six Pack Ladder match at WrestleMania.
This one is pretty deadly versus New Ketch Republic, and I think that the
right team won here. Dunn and Bait get a well deserved win, and
they're gonna be showcased at least next week against Legato Dell Fantasma in a one
on one match in the winner of that specific tag team match is going to
advance to that six pack Ladder match, and we'll just wait for the winner
of Bracket two to figure out who was gonna fill out the rest of the
six competitors. But that takes us to the main event here, which is
Bailey versus Dakota Kai with Damage Control and the match ends in a disqualification after
Damage Control gets in the ring and tries to take her out take Bailey out.
That is Naomi ends up coming out trying to be hero and that proved
to not be enough and they still get to have their way and do some
damage. No pun intended to the twenty twenty four Royal rumble winner in Bailey
and this is just perfectly being set up. You like the you know,
the dominance that comes from damage control. I guess somebody's gonna come out and
try to save you. It's not gonna be enough. This is usually whenever
we can get ran out of the ring. Nah, think again, we're
gonna take out Naomi. The crowd was channing est they want to Bianca to
come out. Not really sure if that would have made a whole lot of
sense given Bianca and Naomi's little interaction they had backstage where Bianco was pretty much
trying to tell her not to help Bailey. But the over the moon salt
is like their group move that they do that EO Sky does the back moon
saw off of the top rope onto Bailey. That was phenomenal work. They
stand over her to give you that visual as the show goes off the air,
and you know, it's this is one of the more important thing that's
going on in all of WW right now, Like just think about it.
On a show that had the rock, this is what closed. So that
tells you how Triple H and how you know, just everybody involved views this
storyline and views these characters involved and damage control with that video package or that
little promo before the match where they said to everybody backstage, we run this
show. I think that they're trying to cement themselves as the dominant faction in
WWE. And if Bailey can't win, if she doesn't end up beating EO
Sky, then maybe they're gonna have some stake in that and it might actually
have some legs because they're gonna have a lot more championships than not. And
I still think that we need a mid card women's championship. Is that the
new flag that we got a wave here? To get a mid card women's
championship, we will trade straight up for the women's tag team Championships. But
either way, that's just my personal opinion. Definitely let me know if you
guys agree with that, if you think that a women's mid card championship would
be better than having the tag team belts, because I'm curious what you think.
But thank you guys so much for listening. I am going to in
this show, get it sent to Matt so you guys can listen to it,
get it out in the internet in the interwaves, and we could just
continue talking wrestling this is the best time of the year and I try to
soak it up. I try to enjoy it as much as I possibly can.
Hopefully you guys are doing the same. Hopefully you will come back next
week to hear the SmackDown review, as I'm not really sure where it's coming
from. We'll figure that out. They're definitely on their way to Philadelphia though,
for WrestleMania forty. But thank you guys so much for listening. Have
a damn good rest of your weekkend 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
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