WWE SmackDown Review: The Rock Counters Cody's Challenge, Dakota Kai Turns on Bayley, Tiffany Stratton vs Naomi

This is WWE superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the WWE podcast show,
the one that everybody wants meet for sixteen So God us your ass, this
is my arm. You can acknowledge me? What is going on? Everybody,
Guys and girls, Welcome back to another edition of the SmackDown Review right
here on the Good Old WWE podcast. As always, I am the host
of this show, Michael Ritter. You can find me on x at Michael
five Ritter on Instagram at Michael Ritter five and also the host 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 coming to you on Saturday, March
second, twenty twenty four to talk about the SmackDown that aired on Friday,
March the first two and twenty four. Now, there's not going to be
a stack them up Saturday this week or next week. I'll explain why.
But I did get a suggestion, so in the coming weeks we will get
into the top five theme songs that was suggested by Grim Reefer. So I've
done this before. It's probably been like over three years since I've done the
Top five theme songs, so I don't think it's going to be an issue
to get an updated list out. But I do know that for some of
you longtime listeners you may remember the Top five Theme Songs episode I did.
I also did one for the Ruthless Aggression era. I just focused on those
specific theme songs. So looking forward to getting into another Stack them Up Saturday,
but I don't think I'm going to need one this week because of all
of the juicy things that took place on this episode. To SmackDown, it
felt different. Number one, the opening segment took forty minutes, and we'll
kind of break it down exactly what was said, what we can learn from
this and gain from it, because I truly do believe that there were maybe
some turns in this that I didn't expect, and then we'll get through all
of the other things that took place on SmackDown. But before we do that,
the reason why there's not going to be a Stacking Up Saturday next week
is because I am going to be live in Dallas, Texas for next week's
episode of SmackDown. So every single time that The Rock was mentioning to Seth
Rollins and Cody Rhodes. He was addressing them in his promo earlier, come
to SmackDown next week in Dallas, and then we'll get your answer. Give
us your answer next week. I couldn't help but get more and more excited,
and I kind of expected some big things to happen at that episode of
SmackDown for multiple reasons. Number One, the tickets that I was looking for
just a few short weeks ago, probably around mid to early February. I
don't know exactly when I had the tickets in my cart, but I was
looking for some tickets in the one hundred sections, meaning you know, the
lower level, and they were around two hundred and fifty dollars apiece. So
I thought, that's not that bad, honestly, Like, whenever you're thinking
about where your view is going to be, the fact that this is on
the road to wrestle Mania, it's going to be a great show regardless.
So I was like, man, you know, like two hundred and fifty
bucks for that grade of a seat, it's really not that bad, you
know, that's actually a pretty good deal. So I kind of put a
little bit of a bookmark there, and I tabled those tickets and I said,
I'm gonna wait a little bit. I'm gonna kind of let things play
out, and then I'll come back and I'll get these tickets. And sure
enough, this past week, I want to say, either Tuesday or Wednesday,
probably Wednesday, but one of the days I went back to Seat Geek.
That's where I get my tickets. I just always kind of you see
Geek from my NFL games, any type of wrestling event that I go to.
It's just where I where I go to first. And you know,
I was looking for the same tickets, and of course they were there still,
but not for the same price that they were. In fact, the
two hundred and fifty dollars tickets had jumped up to roughly four hundred and sixty
to five hundred and thirty, like just for you know, tickets that are
pretty much in the same row, but maybe just you know, a section
over with a slightly better view or angle I guess maybe point of view of
the ring, so you get a little bit of a discount. And I
was like, well, I'm not very interested in dropping five hundred dollars per
ticket because it's not just me, I have to buy three tickets to this
SmackDown. So I was like, okay, let's go look around, let's
go look elsewhere, And sure enough, the entire stadium just skyrocketed. Every
single ticket had jumped up over a couple hundred dollars, and I ended up
settling on some tickets that were around the same price. The tickets that I,
you know, had initially found were two hundred and fifty one dollars.
The ones that I ended up buying were two hundred and fifty four dollars each.
But the location is very different, Like I'm in the three hundred sections
now, so I'm you know, I'm not even in the middle. I
don't think now, I'm not at the very tip top. I made sure
that I didn't want to be like in Row N or something like that,
and whatever section I'm in, I'm in Roe B, but I am in
that higher section, so hopefully the view is still going to be pretty good.
I'm taking my girlfriend's son, who is a die hard wrestling fan.
This is going to be his very first wrestling show. Like he has more
wrestling figures than I do, and I have a shelf in here with ww
championships and you know, Wrestling Action figures. Where I'm in like the mid
to high seventies, I'm pretty sure he's in the mid to high eighties at
this point. Like he has a lot of Wrestling Action figures and he's only
been collecting for probably like five or six months. Definitely nothing you know,
like I have for the past few years now. So he's without a doubt
going to surpass me in his collection. But that just goes to show how
big of a fan he is. Like he loves Cody Rhoades, he loves
Raymastereo, he loves Randy Jordon. He's convinced that Edge is his tag team
partner. I'm not really sure where he got that, but he is pretty
sold on that, and that's just you know, what he believes. So
this is going to be his very first show, and it's hard not to
be a little bit jealous. My first show that I ever went to just
you know, a people behind the Curtain here was in like nineteen ninety seven,
nineteen ninety eight here in Emerlo, Texas, my hometown, the Civic
Center where literally WWE still comes from time to time, except it was a
WCW show. I've gone on record saying I was a WCW guy in the
nineties, not necessarily by choice, but because I was a very small child,
so I didn't get to choose exactly what's wrestling program my parents put on
the TV just so happened to be WCW, and I mean snow secret.
WCW was a great product in the mid to late nineties, so I was
a huge fan, and you know, I got to touch Steing that day.
I got to see Booker t go one on one for the World Tavorweight
Championship against Diamond Dallas Page in the main event. So that show really wasn't,
you know, nothing to sneeze at by any means, but I you
know, it wasn't a televised event on the road to WrestleMania. You know,
I didn't go to my first televised event until twenty seventeen, whenever I
went to the Royal Rumble, and I didn't go to my next one after
that until twenty twenty one, whenever, you know, COVID ended, and
the very first live show in front of fans was a SmackDown in Houston,
Texas, and I was, you know, in the crowd there and there
was a celebrity in my section. And you know, I'm not gonna say
the celebrity's name because this is a PG show, but she is a she's
an actress, let's just say that. But I remember that show very vividly.
It's where I learned that, you know, signs, whenever fans bring
signs to shows, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Like if you're sitting
behind someone who has a sign and they're holding it up for the you know,
the entirety of the show, you literally just wasted your money because you're
not going to be able to, you know, have a good view of
the show. I literally gave up my seat, which was on the floor,
you know, the floor seats. I was probably like row twelve,
thirteen, whatever. Like I only had to buy my ticket at the time,
so it's not like I had three to pay four. I was very
much willing to I'm gonna sit as close as I could possibly you know,
get here. But I literally gave that seat up and I walked up and
I sat in like the midsection, just an empty row. I was like,
is anyone sitting here? Cool? I have my ticket stuffed my pocket.
If somebody starts complaining about me taking their seat, I'll say, here,
you go, go take my floor seat there on the ground. You
know, I just wanted to have a good view of the show because I
had to go join Matt that night. I had to join Matt on the
ww podcast for like an in person experience for the first show post COVID,
and I remember I was sick, like I thought that I had COVID at
the time because the pandemic had just ended. And I went to In and
Out Burger and I got a burger, I got a drink, and I
remember getting a root beer and I took a drink and I could not taste
it, and I was like, oh, man, like come on this,
this cannot be happening here. I got the burger, took the burger
back to my hotel room. I ate that and trusted me. I tasted
every single bit of that. So I didn't have COVID, but I did
have like like my sinuses were acting up before I even left. And I
flew to Houston, so I had like a stuffed up nose. It was
kind of like a pretty bad experience. And then I flew and if any
of you guys have flown before. You know that, like your ears and
like your the pressure that's in your head makes it really difficult for like your
ears to pop and things like that, And there's a lot of pressure up
there, so you have like a sinus infection or if your sinus is acting
up, and you multiply at times that experience it makes it terrible. Like
I could not pop my ears for probably like five days. Whenever I finally
did, it hurt like hell. It wasn't ntil I was already on my
way back, but I literally couldn't breathe out of my nose and I was
speaking like with a headset on. So it was just a terrible audio experience
for anybody who listened to that show. I remember listening to it and just
I could tell that I was sick and it was just awful. And then
fast forward, like I said, that was July twenty twenty one to February
twenty twenty two. I went to another SmackDown and ok see on the road
to WrestleMania thirty eight, And then I went to WrestleMania thirty eight, which
was one of the best experiences of my entire life, getting a chance to
see Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was a bucket list wrestler that I hadn't
gotten a chance to see yet. Spoiler alert, I haven't gotten a chance
to see The Rock either, So I'm really looking forward to seeing Matt next
week just to kind of check that off the list as well. But you
know, since then, I've been to shows, and I've been to these
televised events, you know, for a you know, a long winded way
to get here is I'm excited to take my girlfriend's son to his very first
wrestling event because i know he's going to remember he's only six years old,
diehard wrestling fan. I've already gotten him a cameo of like a WW wrestler
saying his name, because that's the thing is he likes to say. And
the winner of this match is Jet the Threat because his name is Jet and
his wrestling name is Jet the Threat. So I got the referee to say,
and here is your winner, Jet the Threat, and you know,
that was pretty cool. He's loving that, He's gonna love this experience,
and I'm definitely looking forward to taking him there to the American Airline Center,
home of the Dallas Mavericks. But You guys did not come here to hear
about my history of live events. You guys came here for you know,
the SmackDown review, and that's exactly what we're going to get into. So
I do want to thank you guys for tuning in here to this show.
This is going to be my one hundred and eighty fifth SmackDown review. So
I am getting up there in terms of, you know, the show total,
and I'm proud to be a part of this prestigious team. Like I
know that we're not everybody's cup of tea. Not everyone's gonna come to the
ww podcast and be like, oh, you know, I absolutely love that
show and all the hosts that are there and the community that they've built.
But for those of you that do appreciate what we've built here, specifically Matt,
you know, I'm not going to take any credit from him. I'm
just simply a member of the relay team that's trying to keep this thing rolling
here. But I am very proud to be a small part of it.
So, and especially when we get to this time of the year, you
know, you get into the WrestleMania season, every show, every promotion is
trying to put their best foot forward. It's just a great time to be
a wrestling fan. So I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as
I am. But this is going to be talking about, Like I mentioned
the SmackDown that aired on March first, twenty twenty four from Glendale, Arizona.
I'm sure we all found out a little bit about Glendale that we might
not have known thanks to The Rock because he said that he was going to,
you know, say some gospel. He said that he was going to
preach to the people in attendance and you know the millions of people watching around
the world, and he did just that. Like this was some a one
stuff a clinic textbook in terms of promo, like for Roman reigns and you
know Solo and Jimmy Usso to just kind of be standing there in the ring
while the Rock was going on his you know, his tangent, I'm sure
they were like, man, like this is like this is a master of
work. It's almost effortless the way that he was doing that. I can't
wait to get into some of the things that he was saying. But I
mean, the Rock has been going crazy the past few days. Let's not
forget about the twenty one minute video that he posted where he was just you
know, going at Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins and kind of explaining a little
bit behind the scenes as to why he doesn't like how Cody Roads handled things.
It's worth a watch, only twenty one minutes of your time. It's
like an episode of the Office or something like that. So you can definitely,
you know, squeeze that in. Because the Rock, he's he's preaching
like he really is. He says, I'm gonna lay some gospel, but
that's exactly what he's doing. And I'm sure that you know, Paul Hayman,
someone who can also cut a promo with the best of them, was
an admiration of what The Rock was doing there. But let's go ahead and
get into it. Roman reigns in the Bloodline open the show. Of course,
we get an opening elimination chamber video package plus the Roman Reign entrance,
So that right there took up nine and a half minutes, so almost one
fourth of this massive forty minute opening segment of SmackDown. So that kind of
just set the stage for what we can expect here for this opening segment.
Although I still did not expect it to go all the way up to forty
minutes, but Roman Reign starts by telling the crowd to acknowledge him. He
actually says it several times because the first few times their reaction wasn't quite up
to his standards. And after he shouts it for the final time, he
tries to flat out leave. He says, he's already, you know,
fulfilled his obligation. He'll get on the jet and he'll get the hell out
of there right now. But before he can leave, he's stopped by the
special counsel, Paul Hayman, who tells him that he can't leave because after
the commercial break, the rock would be showing up. And that's exactly what
happened. Now. Up to this point, the broadcast was great, perfectly
fine. There was no interruptions, it seemed like there was no technical difficulties.
But as soon as the rock comes out, we get multiple, multiple
blackouts, probably like ten total or something like that, within the next like
twenty minutes. So it was pretty distracting, pretty annoying. It definitely like
cut a few of his lines short. You weren't able to hear the punchline
on a couple of you know things he was trying to say. But I
have seen from the Internet, the reliable Internet, that the reason for these
blackouts is because there was a sign in the crowd of a fan who wrote,
die Rocky Die. Now, I'm not someone that's going to get upset
and think, oh, that's too far. You shouldn't be doing that.
It's wrestling, Like, do what you gotta do as a wrestling fan.
But if it comes down to you affecting everybody else's you know, viewing experience,
Like because your stupid sign, we had to have the show blacked out
multiple times, Like that's whenever you should get a superkick right in the face,
Like come on, like, all right, do what you gotta do,
as long as you're not affecting anybody else. But the fact that multiple
people weren't able to enjoy this rock promo for at least a little bit of
it because of all those blackouts, Like yeah, we should shoves the sign
down your throat is what I'm trying to say, Like, don't be an
idiot in those situations. And also after the first like three or four blackouts,
does wwe not have someone in the arena they go confiscate that crap,
Like, yeah, dude, we'll get out of here. And if you
want to kick them out of the arena, you know, Like that's pretty
much how I feel about it. But at the very least, just take
the sign, go on with business, let them enjoy their show. They
spent money on their ticket too. But it's just one of those things.
Whereas it was going on, and I already knew why because I watched SmackDown
this morning on Saturday, and I saw the tweet last night, so I'm
like, Okay, well, SmackDown is going to be dealing with some blackouts
and I'm gonna try to get through that. But as you know, I
was watching it and trying to soak in and take notes for this rock promo.
I was like, all right, whoever has that sign? Someone you
know in the crowd. Take one for the team and give them a nice
slap in the moth. But anyways, the Rock comes out and he takes
major shots at Phoenix, like holy crab. I mean, he points out
that they're the number one city for cocaine and Matthews and I did not expect
him to go there, like honestly, it's a PG show. I thought
like he was listen legitimately, he's like Phoenix, Like we're in Glendale,
ten miles from you know, Phoenix, and everyone's popping. You know,
the crowd's loving it. He's addressing the hometown and out of nowhere, he
just really comes from the top rope, like I did not expect that.
He even calls him quote unquote cactus loving crackheads, like man, he was.
He was not pulling any punches here. He points out that the bloodline
is happy. They're all in a very good mood. Even Solo. You
might not be able to tell by looking at him, but that's his happy
face. And he actually almost got Solo or break character there. It was,
you know, genuinely funny the way that the Rock can kind of talk
to Solo and you know, like Solo's gimmick, his whole shtick, the
enforcer that doesn't work with the Rock, like nobody is going to believe Solo's
the COVID does to bow up to the Rock. Not only that, isn't
the dude on like a twenty match losing streak or something like that if you
count live events, like, dude, you haven't gotten a win in twenty
twenty four yet, so yeah, no one's gonna really take you that serious,
especially as like this quote unquote enforcer. But The Rock himself is even
happy because he said that for the first time in decades, wrestling is cool
again. It's quote unquote electrifying again. And then he references the recent sellouts
in Birmingham Salt Lake City. He calls Phoenix a cracked in with popcorn,
but then he even mentions the coming weeks like Dallas and Memphis, those are
also sellouts too, So I mean SmackDown doing very well. Pack in the
houses. The Rock clarifies that just because pro wrestling is cool, that that
doesn't mean everyone involved in it is cool, especially Cody Rhodes. He then
denies the challenge that Cody made at Elimination Chamber to face the Rock. He
says that's not how the real world works. You don't get to just go
one on one with the Great One because you want to. Everybody wants to
go one on one with the Rock, and then points out that every woman
in the arena wants to go one on one with The Rock, right before
he calls them crackhead Karen's and meth head. Mary's was just another you know,
hilarious, hilarious pull from the Rock. Like dude he was saying he
had his fastball tonight is selling him short, like this is one of the
best promos I've seen in like a decade. I'm being completely honest there.
This was literally from the attitude to era, the ruthless aggression era, Like
this was something that he pulled from the vault, like an old school version
of Rock, and I'm very thankful for it. And I'm not even the
biggest Rock fan, but being the businessman that is, he raises Cody's one
on one challenge with a tag team match on the first night of WrestleMania Cody
and Seth versus Roman and The Rock. But it's not an ordinary tag match.
There are going to be some stipulations. The Rock says that if Cody
and Seth can defeat the blood Line in WrestleMania, then their match in the
main event of Night two of WrestleMania will be quote unquote free of the Bloodline,
but if they lose, then it's Bloodline rules. And then he starts
to list some possibilities of you know what that could mean, such as Jimmy
being a special guest referee, the Rock sitting at ringside with the steel chair,
the wise Man breaking out of steel chair, or even solo Soka singing
the national anthem, which was, you know, a very hilarious visual,
got some solo chants going there from the crowd. But then he says that
if they don't accept the challenge, then he will do everything in his power
to make sure that they lose their championships. And there's not a man in
WWE that could stop him because he's on the board, and that's whenever the
crowd breaks out in a very loud a triple H chant, which makes me
really sad that we're very likely, like ninety nine point nine percent sure never
going to get a triple H match again. But man, the idea of
him and the Rock finishing what they started a long, long time ago at
WrestleMania forty, that would be one for the ages. But obviously don't even
like that's just simply me fantasy booking and saying what I would love to see
happen. I know that there's no shot in that happening, So don't come
from me saying, oh, that's definitely, you know, completely out of
the realm. Of possibility. I know, trust me. But the Rock
tells Cody Rhoades and Seth Rollins to meet them in Dallas, Texas next week
and give them their answers. He proceeds to do a signature if you smell
what the Rock is cooking, but before he could finish, he's stopped by
Roman Reins, who grabs a microphone and says that he needs something from the
Rock. He needs him to acknowledge him, and the crowd loses it.
They're wondering what is going to happen here? Me myself was like this,
this is interesting and obviously The Rock takes off his sunglasses, looks him in
the eyes and says, Roman Reins, my family, I acknowledge you as
my tribal chief. And then the crowd erupts and you sold out chance.
He explains that this is family and we will do anything for family. Now
go home and smoke some more crack. The way that he ended it,
the way that he started at my reverencing crack, like, oh my gosh,
this was so right. I'm not going to lie. This was hilarious.
Like I'm sorry if you live in Phoenix, I have nothing against you,
know, people in Phoenix. We all remember the Son's in four guy
a couple years back whenever the Suns went to the finals, and he was
knocking people out in the crowd. So I'm sure that guy's probably a pro
wrestling fan himself, baby, But yeah, the Rock was just grit,
Like I'm actually kind of nervous the fact that I'm going to be there next
week in Dallas, Texas, Like I'm wondering what he's going to say about
Texas. We all remember Kevin Owens was saying up to his stone cold Steve
Austin match, he was crapping on Texas for months. I expect The Rock
to really let us have it and please, please do do not hold back.
I would love to be able to say that. Yeah, I was
in the crowd that night the Rock came back and he absolutely obliterated the state
of Texas, Like I would love that. It definitely makes me understand why
they raised the tickets because the fact that we're going to get Cody Rhodes,
the Rock seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, many many other people. Yeah,
I would raise the ticket prices as well. So that was just a great
way to start it. But one thing I will say, is this is
the first little wedge because everyone's saying the Rock is playing, you know,
double agent, like the Rock is really going deep undercover to make this work.
They're pointing out again when he holds up the one, how he has
his thumb out and he's doing the l at first we'll see. You know,
I already told you guys how I feel about that. I did think
y'all were reaching a little bit, but you know, I was wrong about
something else that we'll talk about here a little bit later. But the way
that Roman Reigns stopped him and he even said, I need you to acknowledge
me. That kind of just plants a seed right there. Even the way
that Paul Hayman was looking at the Rock, it does seem like maybe there's
a little bit more to this, and maybe the fans are onto something.
The ones that are kind of predicting that this is all a work and the
Rock is actually against Roman Reigns like they could be onto something. I'm not
going to completely rule it out now because at this point I wouldn't be shocked
if the Rock turns on the Roman Reigns. And it's just interesting. It
really is to say the least like The Rock could absolutely screw over Roman,
which would set up a wild dynamic for the you know, the second night
of WrestleMania. But we'll go ahead and continue that, you know, the
next time we talk about The Rock and Roman, because the next time we
do that, I'll be there, so I'll have a much different opinion,
or maybe not a different opinion, but maybe a more thorough opinion, and
I'll be able to actually digest what's going on here. But continuing on in
the show, La Knight is shown backstage looking for aj Styles. He checks
the backstage locker room where Theory and Waller are having a good laugh watching highlights
from the elimination Chamber of pay per View. They get to the part in
the show where Randy Jorton got knocked out, you know, thanks to the
brass knuckles by Logan Paul, and they start to make fun of him too,
and then, unfortunately for them, they don't see Randy Orton standing right
behind him, who walks up and challenges them one of them to a match,
doesn't matter who it is, just one of you guys go to the
ring, and you know, I'll show you just how funny I really am.
Like, this was some great stuff by Randy Orton too. Like I
will say, maybe I was just not grading hard and I was just actually
enjoying the show. But I felt like, as far as comedy goes,
Randy Orton is, he's not somebody we get it from all that often,
but we definitely got it from him in this segment. And you know,
a lot of people made the comparison, myself included John Cena and Austin Theory,
like, oh, they really he really reminds me of John Cena the
way the Theory kind of come up, you know, out of n XT
and on the main roster just early in his days. I'm starting to see
a little bit of Randy Yorton in him too, now that I'm thinking about
it. Just the arrogance that Randy Jorton literally had, Like it wasn't a
character back in like two thousand and four, two thousand and five, Randy
Orton was a legitimate a hole. And I feel like I kind of get
those vibes from Austin Theory. You know, we'll see these two go one
on one later on in the night. But that's just one thing I kind
of pointed out. I was like, man theory does kind of remind me
of a younger Ordon. I wonder if Orton sees a little bit of himself
in Austin theory. But continuing on here, Naomi versus Tiffany Stratton. Tiffany
Stratton steals the wind with a prettiest moonsaw. Ever, after scraping the eyes
of Naomi, I saw a lot of fans were pretty pissed off that Naomi
took the loss here. They didn't even get a chance to see her enter
the ring because you know, her entrance was during the commercial break, so
they feel like she's jobbing to a rookie, just pumped the brakes a little
bit. She just got back. She's been you know, used prominently up
and till this point, I feel like, yeah, she got eliminated by
Stratton and the were rumble and now she loses to her. But it's not
like she lost clean. It's not like it was a squash match. You
know, like there was a commercial break during this match, so clearly it
went on for some time. And you know, I just think that Tiffany
Stratton is the right person to win this match. I don't think that it's
you know, it's far fetched to think that Stratton can beat Naomi at this
point in their careers, but you know, a lot of people really weren't
happy with that. So we'll see if it continues or if Naomi gets a
little bit more positive outcomes in her matches. We'll touch back on that anyways.
Up next, we get the Kabuki Warriors versus Bailey in Dakota Kai and
the Fixes In Dakota Kai turns on Bailey and it's damage control beat down.
After the match on Bailey and his damage control was walking backstage arrogantly, they're
stopped in their tracks by Jade car Gilso we'll kind of see what you know
comes from that. But first things first, I was wrong. I am
going to fully admit that. Last week. I was like, I don't
think that we have to worry about cod of turning on Bailey. I think
that you know that that's a whole nother layer that they don't need to pull,
But hey, they did it, and it did make this storyline go
deeper. So I was wrong there, and I fully anticipate me probably being
wrong about the Rock and Roman reigns too, But that's the beauty of this
is wwe is continuing to swerve us like they really are shout of Triple h.
This long term storytelling, man, it's it's brilliant stuff. But I
will say Dakota Kai did not do herself any favors. It's probably gonna be
tough for her to turn babyface now going forward, so she might as well
just embrace that hill roll because that's probably where she's going to be for the
foreseeable future. But right there in damage control, like it makes sense,
like Bailey was kind of like a square peg trying to fit into a round
hole in that group. Yeah, she was the leader, but I feel
like with all of this, this collection of talent, now with the Kabuki
Warriors, having Dakota Kai, who's clear to wrestle she was in this tag
team match, I think that this group still has a lot of juice left
to be squeezed. So you know, we'll see what happens there. Obviously,
with the whole code of Kai now having to answer to Bailey going forward,
that's probably gonna be the first person she goes one on one with.
But EO Skyer needs to watch it because if she does walk away with that
championship, there's a good chance she's gonna run into somebody by the name of
Jade very very soon. Moving on, we get bron Breaker versus Zion Quinn.
Apparently he's an nx TEA wrestler. I've never seen him nor heard of
him. But this match is about four or five seconds, and that's counting
the one, two, three, like including the pinfall, which is three
seconds. This match was about five seconds long. One spear and that's it.
This bad boy was over and yeah, it's I guess I expected it
because it's a bron Breaker, but I thought that because it wasn't like a
local talent, that it was actually an nx TA wrestler, that they might
give this guy a little bit of offense, Like even if there's just one
little series of punches, you know, like bron Breaker gets you in the
corner, he's punching you, kind of get a little bit of an edge,
thumb to the eye. Maybe you do something that kind of puts you
on top and we have to see bronbra or overcome something. But he didn't
have to overcome anything in this match. It was a very easy day's work
for him, and I'm sure that he enjoys that type of a day at
the office. But we get a street fight up next, Carlito versus Santo's
Escobar, and I'm sure that the thing that everybody's noticing here is that chair
shot to the head. Tell me, I'm not the only one that saw
that and that was alarmed by that, not in a bad way. I
think that if you do it safely like they did Santo's and Carlito headshots with
steel chairs, they are very impactful, not just to the wrestler, but
to the viewer who's watching the match. Like it does something to me whenever
I'm watching a match and I see somebody get whacked with a steel chair.
Like, I'm not saying ooh, I start salivating from the mouth or something
like that. I'm just simply saying that it adds a twist to the match
and it does almost bring a sense of nostalgia. So if you can do
it safely, then yeah, let's do this. But obviously I'm not advocating
for real steel chairs to just be swung at full force against somebody's skull like
we've seen for decades. There's safe ways that you can do this type of
thing, and I think Carlito and Santo's proved that. I'm not sure if
it was meant to happen, it seemed like it was, but yeah,
that was That was something that I definitely wrote down here. I didn't expect
to see a chair shot to the head, just why I'm watching smack Down
in twenty twenty four. But as you would expect, LWO and LDF both
interfere. But the one thing that we didn't expect was a returning Raymastereo who
came ready to fight using those crutches as weapons, and he aided Carlito to
a win. Here, the LWO and LDF, they're just gonna have to
continue this slow little build until we get like a five on five, four
on four type of match at WrestleMania, probably on Night one. Like if
we were to get Andrew Garza, Humberto Coreo, and Electro Lopez along with
Santo's Escobar to go up against Carlito, Joaquin Wilde, Cruz del Toro and
Zelina Vega, we could like say, Ray Masterio is still not medically cleared,
like he can come beat the hell out of people, but not clear
for an actual match. We could get that four on four mixed gender match
that you know, would be you know, fitting for WrestleMania. We've seen
gender matches before, right, didn't we get Tris Stratus and Chris Jericho versus
Lita and Christian or something like that. I forgot exactly what we got,
but something like that in on WrestleMania twenty. I know that Trish was involved
for sure, because that's whenever she turned on Jericho and she entered her probably
the darkest era in her career if I'm you know, being honest there,
but shout out to Carlito forgetting the win here. Moving backstage, we get
Nick Altis. He's approached by a new Catch Republic. They're just pointing out
like, hey, you know, we feel like we kind of got screwed
out of the tag team championships. We want something to happen. We want
to go to WrestleMania and fight for these belts. Nick Altis says that he
and Adam Pearce are working to come to a resolution regarding the tag team titles
and they'll have an announcement very very soon. I mean I expect him to
just split them again, probably, like at the very least we need to
condense them and make only you know, two belts. We don't need to
have the red and the blue like that was a fun era. It was
fun whenever we had the Raw titles and the SmackDown titles. But that era
is over. We no longer see the We don't see the red Raw Women's
Championship or the blue SmackDown Women's Championship, the universal title that has a specific
color. We're past that colorful era. It's a little tough one to spit
out there, and we're into this new era. So yeah, if you're
going to condense them, let's just make one championship. But dude, I'm
sitting here looking right now at the World Tag Team Championship belts that used to
be held on Monday Night Ross specifically, but like the Dudley's Law, Resistance,
Kine and RVD held these titles like those. I know you know which
ones I'm talking about, because there was a pair on SmackDown, the ww
Tag Team Championships that were held by you know, the Guerreros, the Basham
Brothers, amongst many many other tag teams. I feel like you need to
get back to history, like you need to lean on history to usher in
this new era of tag team wrestling. But even if not, even if
you have a completely new belt with a big fat WWE logo in the middle,
I still think that you can make it work. And you know it
would look dope, But I think that you do need to tag team belts
like they've done it in the past. The roster's deeper than it's ever been.
You could do it now as well. Just one set of tag team
belts whenever you're supposed to have a brand split clearly is not enough. But
let's get to this main event, shall we. Randy Orton versus Austin theory,
we get Kevin Owens on commentary, Grayson Waller a ringside. One thing
I wanted to point out here is whenever Randy Orton was coming out, the
announcer said weighing in at two hundred and seventy five pounds. You know,
Randy Orton, he mouthed it with the announcer and he wanted to make sure
that we knew that that's pretty crazy, right, two hundred and seventy five
pounds for Randy Orton, and he still looks pretty damn skinny. Number one,
it tells you how great of shape he's in. That he's making two
hundred and seventy five pounds look skinny like, he makes it look muscular,
and he makes it look damn good. Like shout out to rand Yorton because
I'd be proud of that too. Man, two hundred and seventy five pounds
and you got abs, Like, yeah, that's that's very, very impressive.
But as far as this match goes, there were some impressive moments too.
There was a scary spot. It looked like a botch that you know,
they were in the top or the corner of the ring on the turnbuckle.
Austin Theory was on the top. It looked like Randy Orton slipped.
Austin Theory still jumped. But both of these guys reacted well like they reacted
in the moment, and they made it work and everybody less safe, which
is you know, all that matters at this point. We saw Austin Theory
have a little bit of a scare not that long ago with him and Carmelo
Hayes. So I'm glad that he's able to react like a veteran and take
care of his opponent as well as himself. So great moment there. Randy
Orton does win with an RKO and then a two one two brawl ensues after
the match, where Austin Theory got a stunner and he sold it better than
I've seen someone sell a stunner in so damn long, probably since the rock
like that was a hell of a cell. Go look it up if you
haven't seen it, because Kevin Owen's just hit that stone and he literally jumped
up probably three or four feet like brilliant stuff. It looks like it springs
in his legs. But that does do it for us here. That is
the episode of SmackDown in its entirety. I do want to thank you guys
for tuning in. Like I said, I probably won't be here next week.
I will figure out a way to get the SmackDown review to you guys
one way or the other, whether I record it from Dallas or if I
have somebody fill in for me. There's several things that could happen. But
I do want to thank you guys for you know, tuning in every single
week. It means the world to me. I know Matt appreciates it as
well, so you know it's all good here. And definitely let me know
if there's any feedback you guys have any ways I can improve this show.
I will definitely take that into consideration. You know, do what I can
to keep the listener happy, because that's what it's all about here. But
thank you guys so much. I will definitely be talking to you guys about
what happened in Dallas next week, whether I'm here or not. The next
time I come on the SmackDown Review, I'm looking forward to talking about what
transpired in the American Airline Center. So one more time, thank you guys
so much. Have a damn good rest of your weekend and a good week
while 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
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