WWE SmackDown Review: Cody, Randy and KO Address The Bloodline, Waller & Theory vs DIY for Tag Team Titles

Listen is w w E superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the w WE
podcast show, the one that everybody wants me. So this is my We're
gonna acknowledge me. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Hello,
whatever time it is with you and wherever you are, thank you for downloading.
Once again, my name is Amanda. I want to start this week
by thanking people who have reached out to me, both through direct messaging on
X of Twitter or via other means, for the nice comments about last week's
show. I must admit it's kind of nervous. Never done a show by
myself before, so thank you so much, and I will do my best
to improve week by week. But thank you. It really means a lot,
Especially thank you for those of you who made comments about my accent.
This is my phone voice. I'm trying very hard not to drop too many
teas and sound too much like something out of Mary Poppins, and I'm trying
not to use too much British slang, so apologies if I do do that,
but so far it seems to be so good. It struck me when
I finished recording last week that I didn't really give you any kind of intro
to me or myself. It also struck me that you guys might not be
particularly interested in that. I think I was so excited to get into the
show it was so good last week at the Madison Square Gardens that I didn't
even really properly give you an intro. So obviously, I live in the
UK and it is currently typically a Midsummer's day here and it's absolutely peeing down
outside. So apologies if it sounds like I have a shower running, I
don't. I'm just enjoying the British summer. I'm about fifty miles outside of
London, so far enough outside of the city that sometimes my Internet gets very
ropey. I pretty much teenaged through the Attitude era and I loved all the
classic superstars of that time. I am a strictly WWE only girl. I've
never watched AW or any of the other excellent products that are out there at
the moment. Tend to stick mostly to Raw and SmackDown. Do occasionally dip
into NXT, but not not as a regular watcher. But I have got
a bit more time on my hands at the moment, so the next port
of call for watching a bit more wrestling will be to get a bit more
into NXT. I say strictly WWE, unless you count the wrestling that used
to be on ITV, which is a British terrestrial channel on Saturday afternoons when
I was about five. Please follow me on Twitter if you want to have
some banter or some wrestling chat in the week. I am on at Amanda
SD pod. I'm gonna say it again because I think a few people didn't
catch it last week. Again, probably my fault for gabbling on too fast.
I am at Amanda sd pod. So it's been a pretty serious week
over here in the UK with our football team or soccer team mostly sucking at
the Euros and a small matter of a landslide general election. We've all been
adulting very much this week, so we definitely want some wrestling to fun up
the end of our week. Did you guys catch the documentary yet, Behind
the Curtain, much anticipated documentary from WrestleMania. I thought it was good.
I watched it last night before coming on to record this morning. I thought
it was a good insight. I love anything that gives me a peek behind
the curtain and to have a look at what really goes on with these things.
I don't think there was that many revelations in it, but it was
really enjoyable. And it just turns out that for anyone who is suffering from
imposter syndrome, like I'm sure we all do I do in my day job,
sometimes you always think someday someone is going to figure out I don't really
know what I'm doing. Just goes to show that if Triple H and the
massive corporation that is wwe can not know what they're doing. Everyone is just
blagging it, so don't worry. But I mean, what a great blag.
Turned out to be an awesome WrestleMania, a great program, and we're
still reaping the rewards from it now. So if you haven't checked that out
on YouTube, do It's well worth an hour of your time, really enjoyable,
really good insight. And I must say one of the opening shots with
Cody out for a run with his dog did make me think, God,
Matt's gonna love that bit. He loves that dog. So, without further
ado, let's talk about what you're all here to listen to, which is
the SmackDown review, which aired Friday, the fifth of July, twenty twenty
four from the Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto. So we open the show tonight
with Cody, Ko and Randy walking together toward the ring and by way of
hyping the match at Money in the Bank, and we then get told that
Solo and the new Bloodline Modern Bloodline blood Line two point zero are here in
Toronto and they're gonna offer us an explanation into their actions last week where they
decimated Paul Hayman, and I think that's probably what we've all wanted all week,
dying for a bit of info on that. So we start off the
evening proper and with main event Jay So coming down to the ring. As
always, the crowd are super into him and Toronto is yitting its ass off.
He starts off making a joke about actually being allowed into Canada, which
I thought was quite funny because I guess he's got a criminal record in the
US and that prohibits people crossing the border into Canada. I assume I'm pretty
sure I've heard that before. That was that was funny. We do like
it when real life comes into our w w E. He starts hyping his
chances for Money in the Bank and then we hit La Night's music and someone
actually said to me on Twitter this week what they were expecting from this episode
was some kind of standoff of all the competitors, so shocking. Could this?
Could this be that moment as La Knight makes his way down to the
ring, so l A Knight cuts a promo on on J and he is
yearn and there is Jay yeating and they've the Toronto crowd get him very into
it. And the moment you know they're very serious is where they both take
their sunglasses off and give a ferocious Yeat and a ferocious year. It's a
nice touch, quite funny. Camello then comes down to the ring to play
the party pop. As I said last week, he's a very very very
confident young man. Toronto doesn't seems that interested in him. He says that
Toronto isn't interested in the yeats and the years, but the crowd definitely definitely
seem to disagree with him. And then we get Chad Gable coming down the
crowd giving the full curt Angle treatment. You suck, you suck, you
suck, and he starts telling his sad little story about his family abandoning him
and he's mentioned in the White Six. I'm thinking to myself, no one
has told Jack gave all the rules of WWE that if you mention other people's
names, they come out. And I was thinking, oh, man,
I hope they come. They didn't, but still so as Chad telling his
sad little story, he's mid Primo and out comes Andrade. I really like
Andrade, and he is right in the middle of talking about how dangerous the
money in the Bank match is when Drew comes out, and again the Toronto
crowd getting right into it, shouting, giving it the seat in punk seat
and punk chance, which seems to genuinely annoy Drew. And I've got to
tell you, despite Drew being from the UK or Scotland to be more specific,
not a big true Drew fan, which might be a bit controversial,
but I never have been. I don't know why. Just one of those
things, not a big fan. So the crowd giving it the full CM
punk CM punk and Drew says he expected better from a member of the Commonwealth
and I'm like, no, Drew, you can't say that. We don't
say these things. We are not cool with that. But he does,
and this is predictively met by huge booze and he's still showing off that bracelet
with AJ and Larry the dog name on it. Drew gets in the ring,
cuts promos on each of the other guys, and then Andrada has had
enough kicks off. A little brawl ensues, nothing too spectacular, and then
I guess they want to keep their powder dry for tomorrow night, just to
look like Drew is getting things in control in the ring. We get Jay
and La Night kicking him out. A kind of predictable opening segment, but
always fun and nice to see all the guys from the match together before the
Money in the bank, but as I said, really not a surprise.
We then go backstage where we see Jackie Redmond, who has an interview with
Bailey. We're reminded that last year she won the Woman's Money in the Bank
once again, Guys, Like I said last week, something just feels kind
of weird with Bailey's promo. It doesn't feel natural. No, I don't
know if that's whether she's not comfortable in her character or whether she hasn't got
much creative control at the moment. Doesn't feel right, and I know she
can do better a because she's a great talent So we get Chelsea Green appearing
here and she comes in giving it full on Chelsea, and I'll tell you
what here, I did not realize how much taller Chelsea Green is than Bailey.
Maybe she's got some mega heels on at the moment, but she is
much much taller. She is giving Chelsea the smack talk, and just as
they are getting into it verbally, Bailey gets jumped by Piper and Chelsea says
she's going to be miss money in the bank, and next time Piper jumps
out, it'll be for when Bailey. For when Chelsea cashes in on Bailey
and wins the title. A nice little segment again, great to see Bailey
on TV, but once again not really quite sure what they are doing or
where they're going with it, although I think maybe we get some clues a
bit later on. We'll circle back round to that. So this brings us
to our first match of the evening, which is some tag team action,
and we've got the Street Profits with Beefab against Pretty Deadly, which was set
up last week. But when we come back from the break, we see
Bailey coming out of Nick Older's office or Oblivion the Gladiator as I like to
call him bumming into Naomi and telling us that it's okay. She's got a
match with Piper Nivin later on and Naomi reminds Bailey she's got her back again.
A little bit awkward and weird, but storytelling. So there we go
back to the ring. We get Pretty Deadly making their entrance. I love
these guys. They are so much fun, even though it did look like
they were wearing outfits made out of my NaN's curtains, just such fun.
It was a good start to the match. Starting out pretty equal on the
street, profits start taking over. They're very athletic, but some healy behavior
by Pretty Deadly means that they get the advantage as we go into the break.
Randomly, when we get back, Dawkins has got one of Pretty Deadly
in a cover. I don't know how it works out for you guys elsewhere
around the world, but this happens to us with UK coverage quite a lot.
So this is not where we left it. Where before the break and
then we come back and it's completely turned around. It annoys me a little
bit. What happened? How did that happen? It just loses the thread
a bit, takes you out of the moment. I don't know if in
the US you guys have got like picture in picture so you can maybe see
what's going on while the breaks are on. It's just a small thing that
annoys me a bit. Anyway, Dawkins is looking for a tag and so
far we haven't seen montes Ford at all in this match yet he find Ford
finally gets into the ring and act you'd expect to get some pretty amazing offense.
This This guy is another level athletically. I'm really looking forward to if
and when he ever gets a singles run. He is, He's really challenged.
We get a blind tag and pretty deadly pull the super duperplex on Montes
but he's not the legal guy. And then that follows some pretty high flying
moves from the Profits, specifically montese Ford, and they take the three count
following a huge splash off the top rope. It's a nice match. It
was a good match like both these teams, and I really hope they can
both start getting a push. There seems to be a bit more behind the
tag team division as a whole now, so I'm really hoping that both those
teams, both those teams can get a push and hopefully we do get to
see montez Ford on a single run sometime soon as well. So we go
backstage for a segment. We see Grayson Waller warming up Austin Theory comes along.
He just wants to make sure they're both on the same page. He
says he's been thinking about what Johnny said last week that Grayson Waller is quick
to discount it, listing all the achievements that Theory has made since he got
rid of Johnny, which, to be fair, is a decent point.
Clearly, some seeds have been sown with Theory and he's obviously not quite sure
where he and that sets us up nicely for our Tag Team Championship match later
on, but definitely WWE sewing seeds of We're not quite sure where we are
with these guys. We then go out to the commentary team giving us a
build up to Solo and the New Blood line coming out and explaining their acts
from last week, which I think we are all very much looking forward to.
We come back from another break and we've got more tag team action,
this time with Candice Lauray and Indi Heartwell. We see them making their way
to the ring and they don't get a great crowd reaction. It's pretty mooted.
Then we cut to a recap of last week's actions surrounding the new Blood
line, and as always with WWE, their video packages vignettes for their look
backs are exceptional. And I'm reminded of just how rough Paul Hamer made himself
look last week. I hadn't realized this at the time of recording last week,
but apparently he actually didn't sleep and he was deliberately looking as disheveled as
he was, and what pro what a guy in storyline. Also, I
hadn't mentioned this last week, but in storyline he actually went to the hospital
after the assault last week, and as I said, only picked that up
after the show on Twitter. Again, a really nice touch. So we
had that recap and then we cut back to the ring where we have the
women's tag team match. So we already have Indie heartwell Candice Loray in the
ring and their opponents are Bianco Valet and Jay Cargill. They both get great
response from their entrances, as last week these two were both incredibly over.
We go to another break, and when we get back from the break,
the match is already underway. I really hope that they let Jade continue building
her confidence. As I said last week, I think last week's match was
really solid and probably gave her a bit of a boost after her previous slightly
botchy matches. So it looks it kicks off and Jade is getting some good,
good offensive moves in and the guys on commentary making a big deal about
Candice and Indy having veterans smarts and having the benefit of working together for a
long time, and that certainly looks to be the case. In the early
goings of the match. They're getting in some good moves, some good double
double teams. You can clearly see the chemistry that is there between them.
So then we get a double tag made Bianco and Candice come into the match.
At that point, Bianca has a head of stem built up and is
kicking the Holy Wow out of Candace. Bianker pulls off a pretty cool move
where she checks Candace onto Indye and we get a near fall as a result
off the distraction from Indy. Candace gets a nail fall on Bianca and then
we get that pretty cool double finishing move where we get the kiss of death
from Bianca and jaded from Jay Cargill, and this leads to Candy's Candace Candice
Larray getting covered and brings about the end of the app brings about the end
of the match. Again, not not bad at all, Another solid showing
from Jade. Hopefully she's benefiting from working with the experience of Bianca and they'll
allow her to continue developing her confidence, probably before they send her on too
much of a singles run. I'd say, hopefully they've got her back on
the right track now. She does seem to be improving and I think this
is good for everyone. But because she has absolutely looks like she has what
it takes to be a great superstar, so let's hope they keep her and
Bianca together for a wee while longer. We then get a very quick in
ring interview where Jade and Bianca tell Eila and Alba that they want their tag
team titles back. Kathy Kelly asks if she feels that this win has got
them back on track, and they say yes. We get a little bit
more posing and muscle moves, and then that segment ends another reminder of the
upcoming tag team Championship match tonight. They're pushing that that hard and a reminder
of Waller being a absolute Haley horror bag, pulling theory in the way to
protect himself. So they're obviously building on that particular area at the moment,
and they're trying to signpost us to that. So back from another break,
Ko is introduced as can his own. He gets a massive pop, as
expected on Home Territory, makes his way to the ring. He is followed
by Randy and this seems like a relatively new thing of the crowd singing his
song so loudly that you can hardly hear the audio from the from the actual
soundtrack, which is fantastic, and he gets he gets an amazing reaction,
and I just reminded what an absolute legend he is and how many titles and
the work that he's he's done over his time. I just think Randy's brilliant.
We then get Cody coming down, as always a massive pop, comes
down, does a baby kissing, signing posters and stuff on the way down
to the ring. Gets to the ring and he asks, Hey, Toronto,
what do you want to talk about? And he goes on to answer
his own question. Cody says, we've heard enough from this mudern mudern blood
modern blood line. They've asked for a fight, and they are ready for
a fight. We then get a bit of what I think is as Damian
Priest would say, real talk. Ko says he doesn't want to talk about
fighting the blood line, which he has done for the past four years.
He wants to talk about the last four days. He said he had to
rush home earlier this week because his mum has been taken ill to hospital.
He certainly looks a little bit shook up and not on usual form, so
I think it's real. That's pretty sad. I hope she'll be okay whatever
whatever's got her in hospital. He says his mom and dad won't be at
the match tomorrow, but Kao will be fighting like his mum always told him
to fight like hell. He seems absolutely pumped, furious, and ready to
rock and roll. If I was the blood Line, I'd actually be a
little bit scared because Kao does not look like he's taken any prisoners. So
then we've got a woman's match. Out comes Bailey coming down to the ring
with her quote unquote best friend Naomi, which is fun. We cut to
the crowd and we've got the sky looking pantomime Bill and Cross. And then
here comes Piper down to the ring silently looking mean and brutal, and then
we have Chelsea in toe chopsing off in the background. I love it.
I love Chelsea. She's she's great. Piper gets into Earlia and some early
offense. She's actually quite devastating. She's got the big woman abilities of for
example, Nia Jacks, but she's also pretty athletic and I think she's she's
a lethal mix. So I'm really enjoying watching Piper. At this time,
Bailey is trying to fight back, and Piper pulls off a pretty cool move
by sliding Bailey around the ring post and hitting her head on the ring post,
which is pretty cool. I'm not sure i've seen that one before.
We come back from the break and again Bailey's managed to turn things around,
and as I said earlier, that's annoying. We learnt no how but at
this point now she's getting some good moves in. We go to the crowd.
We've got Zoe Stark, We've got Lyre of Alcyia, and then Tiffany
Stratton comes strutting down straight down the aisle to the ring. So basically here
We've got the same set off as we had with the guys earlier, but
I guess you could say, in slightly more organic way, we've now got
all the competitors for tomorrow Women's Money in the Bank match, in and around
and involved. In this match, Bailey looks to be starting a fight back.
Naomi's trying to get the crowd wound off and ends up in a face
off with Chelsea. They trade some blows on the outside, and then we
get EO, Lyra and Zoe all getting involved. Tiffany launches an absolutely epic,
prettiest moon salt from the top top of the ring post to the outside.
It's absolutely, absolutely beautiful, brilliant. This distracts Bailey that she eventually
gets the upper hand, hits the rose plant and gets the cover on pipe
her and takes the win, probably quite quite correctly. Interestingly, hear Wade
mentions on commentary that Bailey can't really trust anyone at the moment, even her
quote unquote best friend Naomi. So I'm wondering, are we being lined up
for a possible heal turn from Naomi and then a subsequent program with Bailey.
Now I'm not sure. I don't have the greatest memory of all time.
But I'm not sure we've ever seen Naomi as a heel character, certainly not
in recent memory, so I think that would be really interesting. So does
Naomi at some point win Money in the Bank, get or get a title
shot against Bailey in the faith role? I hope so, and I hope
that's what all this weird, awkward backstage stuff has been has been leading to,
because I think that would interesting, and that's an angle that we haven't
seen before, so that is what my hope is with that. We then
get Naya Jack and I actually didn't see where she came from, but she
starts to beat Bailey down, presumably building towards their SUMMERSAM match and outcomes meeting.
She's got a new look, which I quite like. She is helping
out Bailey. She has a Kendo stick and gives Naya a bit of a
beating, which basically saves Bailey from getting put through the ring by Nya.
I'm always really pleased when the women's division is getting hyped up like this.
It's really nice to see the crossovers that we didn't just get the old Faithful
money in the Bank people standing in the ring, you know, one by
one coming out. It was slightly more organic with this. But I also
like, we've got Bailey involved, We've got Meeting involved, We've got Naya,
So it's it's broadening out the money in the bank picture, and I
think this can only only mean good things, So I think it's really positive.
I hope they're going to figure out a way they can use meaching better
than what they have previously. So I think things are looking good for the
women's division here. We've got a couple of matches being advertised ready for next
week, and we've got Corbyn and Apollo Cruz versus Angel and Berto being advertised,
which should be an interesting match. We then go backsta backstage with Johnny,
Gorgano and Champer reminding us how important this arena is to them, both
as a tag team and individually. For Johnny, who hadn't realized but this
arena is where he made his return to WWD WWE after his couple of years
away. So they then they're obviously making their way to the ring outcome the
champs a town down under Waller ripping up signs for d Y on the way
to the ring. I mean, he's just an awesome heel. It's just
such fun. I love good healery. It's a good laugh. So right
from the start of this match, it all breaks down pretty early. Both
members from both teams in the ring. As we come back from the break
again, it looks like somehow some kind of magic occurred while we were away
on the break and die Wire pretty much in charge momentum moves to the Champs
with some quick tags in in and out very impressive. Waller is very athletic
and Austin Theory obviously very talented, so these two are a really great team
together. We get Johnny outside the ring, and Johnny pulls off an amazing
move outside the ring, which Wade says is like a Cleveland destroyer, and
Waller selling that like an absolute treaper. Austin Theory comes to help outside the
ring and we get a couple of neo falls for they and one for the
Champions. Waller tries to get rid of Tomato Champer from the apron ring and
while the ref is distracted, they try and take advantage and beat down Johnny.
However, it only goes and happens again. Waller swings Johnny ducks and
Waller takes out Theory. This leads again to a super close call and another
couple in succession of really really close calls. This was really exciting. We
were thinking, surely these tag teams can't change hands on normal TV, but
maybe they will, maybe they won't. It was great, really good match,
loads and loads of back and forth, some really athletic moves from everyone,
these two tag teams working together beautifully. Once again we get Waller saving
himself and sacrificing Theory, and then we arrive at Gargano applying his submission move
to Waller Theory trying to stop him tapping. Then Champer applies the same hold
and eventually Waller taps and we have new tag team champs. The crowd go
off and I'm really pleased for Dry. They seem to me to be typical
of the Triple H era and the product that we have now, where we
have a very slow introduction and build. At first, when Diy we introduced
as a team, the crowd were cool. Then over time they've been allowed
to build and build and slowly getting support from the crowd, and now the
crowd are really hot for them, absolutely loving their work both inside and outside
the ring, and they've been given time and that's resulted in this tag team
champce win, which is which is brilliant, really really great stuff. And
one of the things that I'm really enjoying about the Triple Era is that we
aren't just getting people thrown at us and told love these people because I tell
you to. You really got chance to know these people. I'm really looking
forward to seeing Waller and Theory descend into a fun rivalry and presumably the face
turn of Theory, which I think that that whole thing is just going to
be brilliant because these two guys are athletic, they can both cut a great
promo, so I'm really looking forward to that. I think it's going to
be ace. And then we get to the moment that we've mostly been waiting
for where Solo explains or does he. We get a very moody lit,
moodly lit as I said last week, kind of sipy at Homes vignette,
and Solo is explaining that now he has the necklace that makes him the real
tribal chief. He says, this is not what he wanted, but Roman
Reins was not man enough to defend their title, and this is what the
family needs. He says he's coming for Cody Rhodes and he will show everyone
at the Six Man Tag it's how brutal he can be. And he says
there is nothing anyone can do to stop him, and he includes Roman in
that. So this looks to me like we're setting up the Roman return beautifully.
The only question really is when are the USO is going to reunite and
help and form the original bloodline and where does Rock fit him? Because in
the documentary and when you guys have an opportunit need to watch, it certainly
seemed to me that Rock is really keen to have the Rock Roman match,
So we'll Rock be on the modern Bloodline side when he comes back. And
is that how we get that match? What will happen? Will will Solo
beat Cody? How does this? How does this work? We have so
many questions. What we do know for sure is that WWE and SmackDown especially
is on fire right now and I am absolutely loving it. Can't wait to
see how this pans out and how we get on. So just to really
quickly talk about money in the bank, because as I record this on Saturday
morning, having just got up early and watched last night's SmackDown. Money in
the Bank hasn't happened yet. My picks would be Elaine Night for the men's
match, Tiffany Stratton for the ladies match, sef to get the title back
against Priest, meaning Priest leaves the judgment day, which sets up that rivalry
and some pretty awesome matches there, but also more importantly leaving the door fully
open for Live to side limb and then that opens up the whole Rear Live
program as well. I think bron Breaker will lose to Sammy, but I
think there will be some shenanigans. Could it be Brock? We know he
is around, He's back allegedly. Are we going to see Brock here or
are we saving Brock for something to do with Hayman? Will Brock come back
in defense of Hayman? I don't know. I think the Bloodline beat Cody,
Randy and Ko, and I think there is some nastiness after the match
bit of afters and is that at the moment where Roman returns or are we
kept waiting for Summer Slam, which actually isn't that far away anyway. Hey,
look, all I know is I think it's going to be another awesome
money and another awesome pl Money in the Bank. I think it's going to
be really exciting. It's always one of my favorites. I think it's just
a very fun concept and I really enjoy it. All in all, for
a go home version of SmackDown, I thought it was pretty good. Things
got progressed. We also had the massive tag team title change as well,
which is fantastic. So yeah, all in all, I thought a good
episode. Listen, guys, thank you for having me in your ears again
this week. Reach out on Twitter or x I am at Amanda sd pod
on there, so reach out and have some wrestling chat in the week.
Let me know what you think, let me know what your thoughts are for
Money in the Bank, both before and after. Once again, everybody,
have a great week. I will see you next time and remember to be
kind. 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.