WWE SmackDown Review: Damage Control Gets Advantage, Survivor Series Predictions, Top 5 Heels in WWE

This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to the WWE podcast show,
the one that everybody wants me tell stand for sixteen. So I just used
your ass is my arm? 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 and
Michael five Ritter and also one of the hosts of the Football Function podcast,
available on all your podcasting platforms, including on Patreon if you prefer an ad
free experience. Today, I'm going to be talking about the SmackDown that aired
on November twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, from Chicago, Illinois in the
All State Arena location. Breakdown brought to you, as always by djko's most
shout out to dj and shout out to you for listening to this podcast.
Hopefully it is before Survivors Series and you have enough time to add this to
your prep and get excited for the premium live event that we're going to be
watching tonight. It's one of the Big four it's a massive pay per view,
the final pay per view in twenty twenty three, if I'm not mistaken,
I don't believe there's one in December. If there is, then that's
on me. But uh yeah, I think that this is at the very
least the last big pay per view for sure until the Royal Rumble. So
you better soak it in, you better really enjoy it. I think I'm
going to have a pretty good time myself. Just the card seems like it's
a pretty fun card. I mean, you have to obviously think about the
war games aspect, like that's it's not necessarily a gimmick, but in some
ways it is because it's worked into the calendar, just like the old Hell
and a Sel pay per view used to kind of just be thrown in a
calendar and then all of a sudden we'd get Hell in a Cell matches,
whether it was worthy of the cell or not. Nonetheless, we got a
lot to talk about. I'm gonna try to get through several things. Obviously
we're gonna reduse SmackDown. In terms of go home shows. I don't feel
like this was a home run, maybe a double, maybe a triple that
really Furthered the women's Wargames match, which is Smackdowns Wargames match, So that's
understandable. Obviously, that's where their focus is. I don't really remember the
last time I've seen an episode of SmackDown where the bloodline wasn't even shown,
wasn't mentioned. I could be off, I could just be missing one.
It could have happened three four weeks ago or something and I just forgot it
or just slipped my memory, but it was pretty noticeable that today I don't
recall any sort of bloodline like airtime for sure. You know, they might
have shown some type of video package. I could have missed that, but
I was just looking at what happened on the show and I was like,
man, there's there's no Paul Hayman, there's no Solo Soka, there's no
Jimmy usso no Roman reigns obviously, so I thought that was a little bit
strange for an episode of SmackDown. But it does show that they finally have
a little bit of depth. There's finally a little bit of more juice.
There's more layers to what SmackDown has to offer now, and that has to
bode well for the brand. Going forward because the blood line is still there.
So once we get the blood line back and start featuring Roman reigns,
which we're getting into Royal Umbo season, I feel like that's about to really
ramp up once the calendar turns to twenty twenty four, and hopefully we still
have these storylines that we're doing right now that we're developing and elevating other stars.
You pair that with the bloodline stuff, and I feel like SmackDown can
really be a hell of a two hour show and I'm without a doubt honored
to be covering it for you here on the WWE podcast. But also outside
of the SmackDown review that we're going to be going through, we're also going
to be doing our predictions. I'm just going to run through the relatively small
card for Survivor series and give my quick winners, and you know why,
I might think so and so might win, and then at the very end,
we are going to continue our trend with stack them Up Saturday. Now,
we did have a suggestion in the discord. I apologize. I tried
getting back to you a little bit this morning. I wasn't sure exactly what
you meant as you said personal upsets. I wasn't sure if you just meant
my personal upset victories, as in someone who I didn't expect to win,
or something along those lines. So we are going to table that as soon
as I can get with you and we can figure out for sure what you
were referring to. I'll put that at the top of my list and probably
get to that next week. But today we're going to do a stack them
up Saturday, just strictly looking at the heels. I feel like WWE has
some pretty good heels that's not extremely deep, Like there's way more babyfaces than
there is heels least meaningful hills. So the ones that they do have,
I feel like are doing a phenomenal job. And I'm going to go through
and rank my top five hills currently in the WWE. But first things first,
guys, let's go ahead and get through this episode of SmackDown and talk
about what happened now. It obviously started with the opening promo from Bianca Bellair,
Charlotte Becky, and Shatzi, the four women on the Babyface team for
the Wargames match, time out really quickly. I will say Shatzi seems so
out of place with this team, Like I'm looking at the you know,
the women that are on this team when you just see Shatzi there. She
even had a little bit of a promo here where she talked about how Damage
Control really changed her, and Damage Control was what pushed her into being this
new character. You know, they cut her hair initially, they've mocked her,
they laughed at her whenever she shaped her head is center over the edge.
Obviously, Bailey was tied to that whole storyline, so there is a
connection there. I'm not saying that Shatsi is out of place from a storyline
reason. Clearly she has a more than enough reason to be in this match.
I'm just saying, whenever you look at the counterparts, like when you
look at the people who were in the ring with her, she does seem
a little bit like a square peg in a round hole. But nonetheless,
she's getting this spot. You know, all the women on her team have
already main evented WrestleMania, so that's nothing to sneeze at. Clearly, SHOTSI
getting the rub here, and hopefully it bodes well for because I'm a pretty
big Shatzi fan. I definitely was whenever she first got drafted to smack down.
I felt like there was some potential there. I'm just a fan of
her as a person. I follow her on you know, social media,
and I do see like her connections and her fandom and the horror realm,
which I kind of and a little bit similar. I mean, I have
a shelf up here that has a very big amount of figurines, and some
of the figurines are obviously, you know, Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees,
Michael Myers, Chucky, leather Face, Penny Wise, you know ghost Face.
There's a lot of horror themed representation up there, and I feel like
me and Shotsy are similar in that way. So I've always kind of thought
that she was a pretty cool WWE character to have. Obviously, this this
new version of her, it is different, whether you love it, whether
you hate it, whether you're indifferent. It's different than what we've seen her
do in the past. But she's arguably never been more in the spotlight than
she is in the last couple of weeks. And I just kind of noticed
that whenever I was watching her, and just I mean it was a little
bit Nicky Cross had a little bit of a sprinkle of NICKI cross in there
back in her sanity days and whenever she was just kind of losing her mind
whatever. I kind of noticed that with Shotzi, just the similarities there.
But their promo gets interrupted by Bailey, who pretty much just comes out there
to stir the pot, to pretty much be an instigator. She references times
in the past whenever they were all friends. She is, man, I've
known you guys for over ten years now. There were a lot of road
trips. There was a lot of a time. There was a lot of
time spent in the car where we got to communicate Charlotte. You know that
me and you had some conversations where you always had to take a little bit
of a shot at Becky. Becky, you know there were some car rides
where you took some shots at Charlotte. You know. I don't worry,
guys, I didn't tell. I didn't tell. Obviously, she's airing the
dirty laundry right there. But I just thought it was a little bit of
an odd tactic, I guess, because it just didn't seem like that would
be enough to cause friction. But it was. I mean, if you
saw immediately after that, the team really wasn't the same and it still hasn't
been We'll see what happens tonight. You can expect it to carry over.
But we even go to the locker room and then Charlotte walks in and she's
pretty much talking about Nick Altis and how she had a conversation with him and
she got the okay that Becky can compete here tonight on SmackDown. Becky immediately
gets confrontational. She's like, well, you wouldn't talk about me. Shouldn't
I be doing that? She'd not be handling my own business, you know,
I'm here to right then I was like, all right, well it's
clear who's I mean, look, whether she's right or wrong, Becky,
I feel like Charlotte wasn't doing anything. There was no ill intent. Charlotte
was trying to, you know, take things upon herself into her own hands
and make sure things were good for her team, and pretty much just say,
look, I'm gonna be the one that talks to the general manager.
I'm gonna be the one to make sure we're all good to go and ready
so we can take care of business and win this match. Becky's the one
that's kind of well, why you know she has she's causing the friction.
I feel like, obviously Bailey's the one that started it, but Becky,
without a doubt is the one that I guess built upon it made to go
further. But this does kind of continue throughout the night, even throughout the
main event, which does you know. We'll get to you obviously, but
there's just there's issues with this team and it's probably gonna cost him obviously.
We'll talk about that whenever we get to the full predictions, but let's continue
on here. In the show, we get an undisputed WWE tag team match
between the Judgment Day and the Street Profits, which the Judgment Day obviously win.
Rhea Ripley had played a big part in it, and then then Ballor
just finishes it off with a Kuda Grass. So, I mean, they're
not gonna lose those belts anytime soon. I don't anticipate this group is really
starting to build some steam. If they do lose them, I feel like
it's gonna be at Mania. It just seems like that's right, But I
could be way off. They could have plans on dropping those titles very very
soon, maybe at the Rumble. I'm not really sure, but they just
fit in a dominant faction in a dominant Hill faction, it seems like that's
a good way to kind of keep the titles on pause where you don't have
to just put a lot of focal point on them. Judgment Day as a
whole as a faction, gets the attention in of itself. So the Tag
Team Championships are getting attention without necessarily being thrown into their own separate storyline or
a tag team tournament. They don't have to be defended week in week out
because they are getting TV time and they're being shown pretty frequently whenever they're on
somebody like Priest and baalor so I just expect them to hold them, at
least for the foreseeable future. Continue on here, La Knight, Kevin Owens.
They have a tag team match against Grayson Waller and Austin Theory. Now,
this match stemmed from a Grayson Waller effect where we were supposed to get
Kevin Owens. I was actually looking forward to this. Kevin Owens just anytime
he has a microphone in his hand, he's becoming more and more meme worthy.
You know, he always says something. I mean, I think he's
pretty funny. Maybe it's just his style. His delivery hits me right in
the funny bone. But I'm a fan of Kevin Owens and I really enjoy
these types of segments. But we didn't get Kevin Owens. We got his
music and you know, shout out to SmackDown for having the Survivor Series theme.
It really jumped out or stage. I apologize they had the Survivor Series
stage already built because it's going to be in the All State Arena as well,
so every now and then SmackDown will be lucky enough. We saw it
happen when they were in Puerto Rico. You get the same stage as the
following day whenever the pay per views in that same event or the same venue.
So that was pretty cool to see. And it really jumped out whenever
Kevin Owens music hit and they showed his lighting and just his graphics on the
jumbo tron. It was pretty cool to see, just you know, something
I enjoyed. But it was Austin Theory coming out dressed like Kevin Owens,
and I thought this was pretty funny. Corry Graves obviously played into it a
little bit as well, and then Kevin Owens eventually comes out and immediately calls
him out for wearing his shorts he's liked, Dude, are those of my
shorts? I haven't seen those shorts in months? Whatever, And then Grayson
Waller tries to call out Kevin Owens whenever he was on commentary a couple of
weeks ago and he caused Grayson Waller to lose to La Knight. He says
La Knight's name actually twice, and then Kevin Owens was just as hilarious.
Whenever he does this pretty much breaks the fourth wall, and he says,
am I the only one that knows what's you know? Am I the only
one that knows what's going on here? Am I the only one that knows
how the WW works. You already said his name. You said his name
twice. Actually, usually whenever you say someone's name, they eventually come out.
Austin Theory says his name and then bam, l A Knight's music hits.
This might not be for everybody, this type of delivery from Kevin Owens
where they kind of break the fourth wall a little bit, but I do
think that this was funny the way that it happened. And obviously La Knight
comes out, they get the little bit of a tease of Kevin Owens maybe
punching them both at the exact same time. Again, that would have been
nice to see him pull that off twice. But we do end up getting
a little bit of a brawl where you know, Austin Theory and La Night
are going at it, and then Grayson Waller and Kevin Owens are going at
it. We end up getting a tag team match immediately after this, and
like I just said, La Knight and Kevin Owens get the win here,
which is pretty much what you expect. Both of those guys are on fire
right now. I feel like they work well together, at least in a
one off. I don't think that their characters mesh well enough where they could
actually be a tag team. I could be wrong about that. I'm sure
that both of these guys are professional enough to make it work, but just
throwing them together in a little segment here to shut two arrogant dudes up and
then just have a quick tag team match, get a pop go home show.
Yeah, I feel like they can definitely get it done up next.
Carlito and Santos Escobar, they had a little bit of a brawl which was
you know, started off with Carlito coming out and calling him out. He
called him out in Spanish, so I didn't hear pretty much most of this
promo, and then Santo's Escobar comes out. He has a promo in Spanish,
but pretty much what they were alluding to was that, you know,
sanchosesbar is accusing Carlito of being a rat, you know, being the one
who came in as an outsider and messed up the whole thing. He's the
one that ruined what Santos Escobar first to as his family in the LW.
I mean he has a tattooed on his hand. I saw that. You
know, a couple other members have a tattooed as well. I'm sure ray
does Raya's tats everywhere. Why wouldn't he get an LWO tattoo. But they
end up going at it pretty good. You know, they had a match
scheduled for tonight a Stuyver series, but we're not going to get it because
Santos cheap shots him. He ends up cheap shotting him again. Backstage,
Dragon Lee tries to come to the rescue, but he's just a little bit
too late. Carlito does get hurt. Nick Altis pretty much says he has
to call off the match for Survivor series, but Dragon Lee appears and says,
no, Santos needs to be taught a lesson. I want to be
the one to do it, and we're gonna see Dragon Lee in a pretty
big spot here. It might not seem like it, you know, one
on one with Santos Escobar on a pay per view, but this is,
without a doubt, his biggest match here in WWE, and I don't think
he's gonna win now. Santos has a lot of steak here with his new
Hill character. I feel like it just makes sense for him to kind of
get some you know, some momentum, I guess is the word to use.
It makes sense to see him start stacking up some wins so we could
have some credibility as a hell. But Dragon Lee could look decent in this
match, you know, maybe push him to the limit or something like that,
making a very interesting match that ultimately ends with Santos getting to win.
Another thing to talk about here on SmackDown is pretty deadly. They defeated Ridge,
Holland and Butch in a team match. Kay Wilson rolled up Butch to
get the win, but it was pretty much like a two on one.
You know, I will give a shout out to Butch because he put up
a hell of a fight. He really did. Typically, whenever your tag
team partner leaves, which is exactly what Ridge Holland did, he left him
hanging. We've seen friction between this team last week where they had the little
push and then Ridge left. I mean, I don't understand why, like
why they're doing this, but they are so I mean, we kind of
have to just let it all play out and see how it works. But
right then, usually whenever you turn around, the tag team hits you with
their move, Bam, you're out. Butch wasn't out. He kicked out,
he stood up. He tried to get the one on two disadvantage.
You tried to turn that into a victory. It didn't happen. But still,
man, because that would have really made pretty deadly look pretty soft if
they losed a one guy despite you know, being able to cheap shot him
and his partner walks out on him. But Butcher looks strong here, and
if he is going to leave the brawling bruts, or if the brawling brutes
are going to be dismembered. Then I think he's going to be the one
that really has a pretty solid run going forward on SmackDown, hopefully, because
I've always been a fan of Butch, even when he was Pete Dunn.
You know, just his character, the way that he is in the ring.
He's kind of that gruesome, grab your fingers, stomp on you.
He's got a little bit of shanea Basler in his game. They're very similar,
and I think that, you know, he could have a hell of
a singles run especially, I mean he's getting the baby face rub right now,
just looking at the way that they're split. No, this is a
hell move by rich Holland leaving him like this, So see how it plays
out. I know Seamus has happened. He has to have something to say
about this. Can we not see him maybe get a video promo or just
see him pop up sometime. Eventually we're gonna see Butch rich Holland go one
on one. But hopefully whenever, you know, push comes to shove and
they actually do start brawling in the ring, we can maybe see Seamus's music
hit he comes out. You know, who knows what happens from there.
We can maybe get him to try to be peacemaker, you know, save
the group, or at the very least he might be able to be special
guests referee, maybe just say whatever, Let these guys duke it out and
they all go their separate ways. So that could be a way that this
plays out up next week. Get the tag team match to close out the
show, which was decided in terms of damage controls representatives by everybody pretty much
voting that Bailey should be the one that represents damage control in this match.
Osca ends up being her partner, and I feel like that's a pretty good
pairing there. But the Bailey dynamic in this whole thing just makes so much
sense, Like it really does. The way that she just seems so clueless
and the way that they're pushing her out. At some point, they're all
gonna jump the absolute you know what out of her, and that's going to
be a moment right there. It's going to be the one thing that probably
can be the only thing that turns Bailey into a babyface is that type of
beat down. But I don't know when it's gonna come. It just seems
inevitable. This thing's been going on for a while now. And it's pretty
nice just the slow Burn women's storyline like this, the fact that they have
this dominant faction. The best days are ahead without a doubt, whenever you
think about damage control and where they're going. Hopefully we could at least keep
you know, Dakota Kai in there with the Kabooki Warriors and then Eo sky
Man. There's a lot of potential when you think about the names that we're
thrown out there, and Bailey being in the group does add But at the
same time, when you look at her, she does seem like she does
kind of she seems a little bit misplaced. She just seems like maybe she's
not the best fit in that specific group. So it does make sense that
they are going to eventually push her out. But they're making the most out
of it, man, they really are. They're squeezing that orange to get
all the juice out, and they're gonna have a nice, nice full glass
of pulp free orange juice. You gotta get the pulp out of there,
just gotta be honest. But anyways, we get a tag team match.
Becky Lynch Charlotte Flair versus Oscar and Bailey. Now look at those names,
pretty solid group. Like you think about twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when
these women were kind of breaking into the scene with the main roster in WWE,
and they were all kind of just young, upstart talent, and we
knew, man, the future is bright with these, you know, with
these characters, with these wrestlers, and here we are twenty twenty three.
They're running the show like they're they're handling business. Whenever the bloodline's completely out
of sight, when Roman Reigns isn't featured on the show, when what is
it? The United States Championship is somewhere with Logan Paul, I have no
idea where it is. But we aren't up in arms because the show is
being held together because it has some pretty good storylines. I'm pretty good wrestling
as well. It wasn't a terrible go home show, but obviously this show
ends with Bailey doing her damnedest well. First off, Charlotte hit a spear
that kind of broke up a pinfall. Becky Lynch really didn't like that.
They kind of get face to face and then Becky takes advantage Bam make them
to collide together, take Charlotte out. Bailey rolls up Becky one two three.
Damage Control gets the advantage in the Wargames match tonight, But the story
was really after the match when Becky Lynch left sort of you know, she
walked away super frustrated. Is that going to be what causes this team to
lose? Is that going to be the wedge, the little assist that a
team like Damage Control can really run with and still this win. I think
that it's going to you know, absolutely flare up. At some point.
We're gonna get a shove, We're gonna get a push, and hopefully,
you know, Becky Lynch is about to get attacked. You know, like
Becky Lynch is set up, and what is it. You know, Sky's
at the top of the cage or maybe just at the top of the rope,
whatever, one of the two. She's about to hit one of her
signature patented high flying moves on Becky Lynch and then bam, Charlotte catches her
mid air with a spear, similar to how Randy Jordan has done so many
times with his rkos. We can get Charlotte's probably not gonna be a smooth
but we could, mam see her get a nice spear, clearly saving Becky
Lynch a key point in the match. Maybe she can pin the champion there,
eliminate her from the match, or just you know, get the win.
Isn't it first pinfall? Isn't that? How it is like the match
doesn't start until all the competitors are in there, because I mean, the
match is going on. They're fighting, you know, one person goes in
there and then bam, two on one they're going at it, and then
the match actually doesn't begin until all the competitors are in there. I mean,
think back to last year, man, that was a great War Games
match with the Bloodline and sammy' zay finally turning on turning on Kevin Owens.
Expect some pretty good stuff tonight, I really do. I think there.
You know, it's gonna be pretty interesting how this whole thing plays out.
But I do think that Damage Control is going to somehow, some way screw
this up at the end, especially because they got the win last night on
SmackDown. You gotta go with you know, Becky and Charlotte, they made
it seem like they can't work together. Now's the time. Now is the
opportunity where we can get a solid you know, Charlotte saves the day,
Becky saves the day, one of them saves the other, and that team
ends up winning the match. On that note, we're well into our predictions,
so let's go ahead and get this bad Boy Rolling. Already gave the
women's or Games match, so I might as well just work my way through
the other matches and then get to the men's. So I'll start with the
What was supposed to be Carlito versus Santos ended up being Dragon Lee versus Santos,
and I do expect Santos to get to win because it means more to
his character and where he's going then it does Dragon Lee. Like I said,
Dragon Lee can have a phenomenal performance. Lose to Santos, Santos leaves
the ring, and then you know, Dragon Lee stands up, the crowd
gives them a nice, you know, round of applause. Maybe we see
a ray Myisterio wheel himself out there, you know, he just had surgery
on his leg or something like that. Maybe Carlito shows up, I don't
know, we might see Zelena Vega show out. The rest of LWO come
to the aid of Dragon Lee, which really sets Santos off because of how
much that group meant to him, and they're supposed to be his family,
yet they're checking on the person that he just beat, you know. So
there's ways that you can go about this and you know, really make this
a juicy part of the show. I'm not sure where it's going to take
place. I mean, are they going to open the show with one more
games match and then close it with the other. It seems like that would
be how they would want to do it, kind of how they do the
Rumbles when they have two World Rumbles. I don't know how they're gonna do.
That's gonna be interesting. I'm sure you know, it may be announced
at this point, but I haven't looked into it, so I guess we'll
see whenever we get there. Up next, we got Goonther versus the Miz
for the Intercontinental Championship. Although Miz is one of the most recognizable intercontinental champions
of the past decade, I think that Goonther is the most recognizable intercontinental champion
arguably of all time. He has the longest rain. That has to mean
something. He's extremely dominant right here, and that dominant streak's going to continue.
I do not anticipate him losing, especially to the miz that would make
absolutely no sense. This is probably probably the biggest lay up on the entire
card. I would love to be able to make a parlay that features,
you know, wins and losses of this card. That would be extremely fun.
Let's see here. Up next, we got Ria Ripley versus Zoe Stark
for the Women's World Championship. Rea Ripley all day, She's walking into WrestleMania
as the champion. Whether she loses there, that's gonna be determined by who
wins the rumble. What happens, you know, in the early months of
twenty twenty four. But right now, yeah, Ria Ripley's on fire and
there in no way in hell she's about to lose this championship. And to
close the show, I anticipate we get Cody Roads, seth Rawlins, Jay
Usso, Samme's a and and Randy Orton versus The Judgment Day, Damian Priest
and Balor Dirty Dominic Mysterio and j D McDonough and obviously Drew McIntyre in the
Men's War Games match. Now, this one's interesting. I really don't know
where to go in this one. I picked the babyface team to win the
women's I kind of want to pick the baby Face team to win the men's
as well, but I don't think the DWEW would do that to us.
It just seems like Randy Yorton coming back. You know, they got Cody
Rhodes, jay Uso and his momentum. This is gonna be a hell of
a match, the closest thing to an elimination chamber since you know, two
thousand and three SummerSlam whatever it was a triple h. Randy Jordon, Shawn
Michaels, Kevin Nash, Goldberg, Christiercho. I don't really know who's all
in that. Maybe Seawn Michaels might not have been in it, now that
I'm thinking about it, he might have need to go back and watch that
get freshened up a little bit. But with all the names in this match,
it just seems like it's destined to be a hell of a you know,
a main event, a way to close the show. But I'm gonna
go ahead and roll with the baby Face team. Screw it, I'll roll
with them. I'm not gonna pick the Judgment day against all those names,
that star studded All Star team that is you know, led by Cody Roads,
which there's a debate sparked up should it be Cody Road, should it
be the world Champion? It's not my decision. Obviously, it makes more
sense to go with the World heavyweight Champion. I'm not sure why they wouldn't,
but you know whatever, I'm not gonna get up in arms about it
at this point. But let's see here. So that's the SmackDown review,
and that is the Survivor series prediction portion. Now. You guys know,
it's currently eleven fifty one AM where I am right now, Saturday morning,
and we do things a different way around here. Whenever I get these episodes
out on Saturdays, I'm gonna go ahead and dish out a stack them up
Saturday. Top five Hills the current Hills in WWE right now. Now,
like I mentioned, it's a little bit lopsided. Whenever you look at the
roster from a big picture perspective, there's a lot more babyfaces than there is
Hills. There's not a whole lot of worthy babyfaces. And on that same
coin, you know, it's not like they're deep in either in terms of
quality. Guys, you know about five or six legit baby faces about five
or six legit hills, But I do think that there's a good quality in
those six hills. So I'm gonna go and give you a couple of honorable
mentions and then I'm gonna rank my five. Now I'm gonna do something a
little bit different. Some of you might think this might be discrediting the list,
right, but I'm not gonna include Roman Reigns. He's clearly number one,
like I mean, and that's you know, the universal belief is that
he's number one. I'm not telling you what to think, you know what
to believe whenever it comes to Roman Reigns because if I'm being completely honest,
he's hardly ever here, you know, So it's hard to actually think,
like, all right, dude, this is a dominant Hill right now.
Yeah, he's a dominant wrestler. His streak speaks for itself. I'm not
referring to him as a wrestler. I'm just thinking as a character. How
can you put him above some of the people who are here week in week
out and deliver brilliant performances as a Hill, Like, there's some people who
show up every single week and they carry the show with their character and you
know it's gonna be recognized here. So I'm gonna give Roman Rains a shout
out as an honorable mention. Without a doubt, He's one of the greatest
greatest Hills of all time when it's all said and done. But right now,
I mean, this isn't twenty twenty one. In his title reign,
you know, he wrestled like eleven times this year's hardly ever on TV.
This list has to be somewhat credible, and I feel like Roman Reign being
number one just kind of takes the fun out of it. So I'm going
to feature five other names on the list that I feel like, are are
you know, doing a pretty good job right now with what they're being given?
One more honorable mention. Santos Escobar. He slides in here barely as
an honorable mention because his He'll Run is barely getting started now. He was
a heel and the next tea. He's had some history being a heel,
so I already know he can do it, but I think that he's scratching
the surface for a really good He'll Run here. He's it's more of like
a grudge point of view, like with what's going on with the LWO.
He's probably gonna carry that grudge. You got a tattooed on him, you
know, So it's clearly a pretty important part of his career. It's really
meaningful. Why wouldn't they get the most out of this? And you know,
it just makes a whole lot of sense to think that Santo's Escobar is
going to have a phenomenal He'll run coming up, John and I might do
another draft where we forecast who's going to have a phenomenal twenty twenty four,
just you know, the stocking investment in draft and that's going to be an
exciting little little segment there, and you know, who knows, maybe Santo's
might find his name on that list. But speaking of lists, let's go
ahead and get into the official top five heels currently in WWE. Right out
the bat, number five. I'm gonna go Logan Paul And I know you're
saying, dude, what the hell you just said? Roman Rerains is hardly
here? How are you going to give Logan Paul a spot on this list?
And you just exclude Roman Reigns well, number one. They're different in
terms of you know, Logan Paul, I feel like he's finally got his
foot in the door where he's saying, ah, I had fun boxing,
It's time to really take this serious. He's a champ. At some point,
He's going to be featured pretty frequently on WW I don't have a doubt
about that. Number two, their styles are just a little bit different in
terms of, you know, Logan Paul is just a little bit more you
know, authentic. Whenever he's talking about stuff, you know, he's not
lying. I'm not saying Roman Rains is lying ever, but it's just specifically
with Logan Paul, it's it comes from a very real place, like you
know that he's not up there, you know, being a character. He's
literally Logan Paul. That's who he is. He's being himself. So the
fact that he is a heel in real life, I have to throw that
in there. Roman Rains is a hell of a dude in real life.
You see is his you know, his actual interviews that he does with you
know, Ariel Hilwane, people like that, just actual respective like ESPN interviews.
Roman Reigns is a hell of a dude, stand up guy. I
literally got a picture with him, Like I know for a fact, Roman
Reigns is a good dude, so it's hard for me to just, you
know, look at Logan Paul thinking this is a certified a whole. You
know, he is an a hole in real life, probably a good dude
as well, but still, you know, Logan Paul's known for being a
prick, and I feel like that's earned him a spot on this list because
he's somewhat carrying that with his RAYM of Stereo program that he had and what
he's going to do going forward. I think we're gonna see a lot more,
you know, some some brilliant stuff from Logan Paul. Number four Dominic
was I think he's kind of scratching the service as well. He's at a
point now where he has the most heat out of anybody on the roster.
You have to throw him on. Whether you know, you believe it or
not. It's Hill heat, you know. I mean, I know,
casual wrestling fan and Matt they had a little bit of a discourse about this.
Where is heat in general? Hill heat? You know, it's a
whole. There's a whole question about that. Whether you believe it or not,
I don't really know, but I know for a fact, Dominic mysterio
right now, he's got to be one of the best hills in the company,
So I'm gonna throw him there at number four. Number three Bailey.
The reason why I put her there longevity. She's been a hill for a
very long time now, since the whole Sasha Bank stuff, there was no
I mean, when you think about Sasha was you know, flippity flop back
and forth. Babyface hill, babyface hill. Bailey's pretty solid. When she's
a baby face, she's a babyface. When she's a hill, she's a
hill. And right now she's been on a very lengthy hill run. Probably
gonna come to an ensuing. I kind of alluded to it. Eventually she's
gonna get jumped by this group. You feel like that's going to eventually lead
to her because a babyface. You know, it all makes sense, But
I do believe that right now you have to give her her flowers because she's
done a pretty phenomenal job being a hill over the past few years. And
number two I put goother. He's another He's cut from the same cloth as
Roman Reigns. When you look at like he's on another level, it's just
elite version of being a heel because he's been the champ for so long,
Like, what can you possibly say to him. He's knocked down so many
challengers, He's pretty much stomped on everybody in his path to get to where
he is right now. So you just have to acknowledge that Gunther's on fire
and just his hill run is going to be remembered as one of the greatest
of all time as well. I truly believe that because I don't think it's
anywhere close to being over either. I think that his better days are ahead
of him, and he just has like imagine that his better days are ahead
of him and behind him is already the longest Intercontinental Championship reign of all time.
I try to try to fathom that what is his career going to look
like when it's over. If right now he already he has that on his
resume, he already has the Intercontinental Championship is hanging on his mount like on
his mantle. You know, Gutu's gonna be a hell of an all timer.
I truly believe that. So this is another person I'm just acknowledging,
but I just truly believe that. Right now in the company as we speak,
there's nobody who's being a hill better than Ria Ripley. Like she's dominating
this thing called being a hill. She has the crowd and just in the
palm of her hands that standing near the best kind of hill. Whenever you're
a bad guy, but the crowd still loves you. They can't, they
can't just see you come out and not cheer. You're damn near irresistible.
Like I've been to a WW show where Ria Ripley was this version of herself.
I was there last month in Oklahoma City with John. The crowd loves
Rhea, and she has a lot of stuff going for right now, you
know, being pretty much the leader of the judgment day. She's also a
world champion right now, gonna main event WrestleMania again. Maybe not main event,
I mean there's only two main events each year, but you still expect
her to be in the conversation, which is in of itself a phenomenal place
to be, and you're probably gonna be featured p heavily. She's pretty young
as well, like what twenty six, twenty seven. Nonetheless, her better
days are ahead as well, and that's kind of why I included her so
highly on the list as well as someone like gnther just because I'm factoring and
what they've already done and what they're probably going to do going forward forward.
But just to recap this list, Logan Paul at number five, Dominic at
number four, Bailey at number three, goon Through at number two, and
Riar Ripley at number one. I do want to hear your list who you
think is the best hill right now in WW not counting Roman Reigns again.
I left him out as an honorable mention for that reason. I want to
know some other guys. I want to you know, some other people get
some notoriety, some attention, and you know, give them their flowers for
what they're doing as a hill, because it's not easy to do to make
people hate you, you know, so I always like to give them credit.
But that does do it for me here on the SmackDown of you guys,
I'm gonna go ahead and get this bad boy sent to Matt asap so
he can get it out. You guys can listen to it hopefully before Survivor
series. If not, you can listen to it as a you know,
as a time killer background noise, and you can just hear how either wrong
or a little bit right I was about the card. We'll see how it
plays out, but thank you guys so much. Have a damn good rest
of your weekend, happy Thanksgiving, walk passionately in the direction of your dreams,
and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss a
show, or head to wwepodcast dot com and for all of these shows add
free head over to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll
see you next time.