WWE Smackdown 5/2/25 Review | BLACK FRIDAY Releases Hit The Roster And A BORING SMACKDOWN - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I gotta show you, guys. I had a care package
that was delivered to me earlier today from Seagrum's Escapes.
I got to give them a shout out here. They're
not a sponsor, although hey, I'm open for business. But
they have these new spiked WWE drinks. I don't know
if you've heard about these things, and I decided to
try one during the show tonight forgetting that. If you

(00:23):
look at the label there, it is ten percent alcohol
by volume. And I tried the Rumble Punch, but I
think I may have had a little too much because
I'm definitely feeling it right now. So this is going
to be a very interesting review here. I didn't drink

(00:45):
the entire can. That's the one in the middle. It's
pretty good actually, but yeah, I don't think you want
to be uh, you don't want to be guzzling too
much of that Sola Monster might be a little spiked
here during the review. I don't know. But look, WrestleMania
is over, and unfortunately, what we have almost every year

(01:05):
coming out of WrestleMania, maybe with a few exceptions, is
the mass wave of spring cleaning that WWE tends to
do with its rosters. We've seen this time and time again,
and sometimes there are moves made that are not really
all that surprising. There are other times where you have
some really head scratching ones. WWE has also occasionally released

(01:31):
one person here or there, or make the announcement like
they did with Sonya Deville a few months ago, that
they weren't going to renew her deal when her deal
was done. I don't know if this is a case
where people have been immediately released or and I think
in some cases the answer to that is yes. In
other cases, it could be that some people maybe were
informed their deals would not be renewed when they expire.

(01:51):
But we already have talent that are online putting out
their email addresses for bookings in the next thirty days,
for example, because if you're a part of the nxster,
you have a thirty day noncompete instead of a ninety day.
So there are people who are officially gone. But unfortunately
the Black Friday cuts are back. Why do they do
these on Friday? For the same reason that sometimes when

(02:13):
there's bad news to be shared, you get a Friday
news dump because you hope that it'll get lost in
the noise of the weekend and it won't make big headlines.
They've done this time and time again. So unfortunately, today
it was yet another Black Friday in WWE. As I
am sitting here talking to you right now, fifteen talents

(02:33):
between the WWE and NXT rosters are gone from the company.
Fifteen and we don't know if there may be more
to come later tonight, at some point this weekend, early
next week. We don't know that the door has been
completely shut on additional releases, but we know of fifteen
so far. I'm going to get into this here in

(02:54):
a little bit, give you the names and share some
of my thoughts on that. As for smack SmackDown sucked.
That's really the big takeaway here from tonight. It was
a very boring show. We had Randy Orton on the show,
No John Cena, but we had Randy Orton coming out
and talking about his upcoming match next weekend at Backlash

(03:17):
against John Cena. Didn't really have a lot to say
that was too different from what we've heard him say recently,
although it was a fine promo, but he did what
he could given that he didn't really have anybody to
bounce anything off of. We had the US Championship match
for Backlash. Announce it is going to be a fatal
four way with Jacob Fatu defending his title against three

(03:40):
different challengers. I will tell you who those people are
going to be. Alista Black had his first match in
a WWE ring in five years tonight. In fact, that
was the only match announced in advance of tonight's show.
I looked at the lineup for smack Down, I'm trying
to put together the preview for tonight, and I go
to WWE dot Com and I'm looking at and I'm like,

(04:00):
is this possible. They've only announced Randy Orton is making
an appearance and Alistair Black is wrestling the Mize, And
that was literally the only thing they announced with this
three hour show. We'll just put one match out there.
We won't tell anybody else what's going on on tonight's show. Ridiculous,
and we didn't get much more than that, to be
honest with you. Although in the main event tonight, we

(04:23):
did have a tag team match with the Ladies, all
revolving around the WWE Women's Championship, which is nice, but
there was not a whole lot to get excited about
with tonight's showed. There was an item in The Observer
this week from Dave Meltzer who said that he has
been told June sixth appears to be the date that

(04:44):
we will be back to two hour smackdowns. I'm gonna
clasp my hands together and pray to the wrestling gods
above that that is the case, because that day cannot
come soon enough. Now that date is not confirmed. It
is supposed to go back to two hours. Maybe it's
not June's, maybe it's the week before, maybe it's the
week after, but it should be coming up in the

(05:04):
next month or so. We have another month of these
three hour shows, and it cannot come soon enough because
these three hour smackdowns are just insufferable. But I got
news for you, which shows like tonight, if this show
was two hours, I'd still be sitting here complaining about
the same exact things. It's not just an issue of
oh well, if it's two hours instead of three hours,

(05:27):
everything goes back to being great or all of their
problems are solved. No, you still need to have the
creative and the matches to support a two hour show
to keep people engaged, and right now, SmackDown is not
keeping this fan engage, and I know I'm not the
only one. So even when they go back to two
hours in a month, they're still gonna have to shape

(05:49):
up here and give people a show to get excited about.
Right now, there's really nothing exciting about SmackDown, but going
back to two hours will certainly be a big help
and I cannot wait for that. This is your Friday
Night SmackDown review. Yes, Sasolo will drink to that. If
I still had my Rumble Punch here, Yes I would.
I would drink to that. This is your Friday Night
SmackDown review, your first one here for the month of May.

(06:12):
It is May sewid twenty and twenty five. I am
the Sola Monster. Thank you for hanging out with me
here on a Friday night to kick off a brand
new month. Like and subscribe super chats are open. They
will in fact be popping up on your screen. There
he is King Kong Bundy with the five. I'll be
reading all your messages a little bit later on. I

(06:34):
want to give a quick plug here. If you are
in the live chat, you will notice that there is
a link that is pinned at the top of the chat,
and that is a favor to our good friend David,
who does this occasionally. He has composed a poll of
one hundred and seventy seven matches that I have booked
in our be the Booker segments over the last several months.

(06:56):
And so you need to go vote. The polls are
going to be open on Hill tomorrow, and so what
he's going to do is he'll compile the results. He's
going to boil it down to fourteen, the top fourteen,
and then he puts together his little solo Mania card.
This is a fun thing that he does. So shout
out to David. But go ahead and vote in that
poll for him, and he'll be sure to tally up

(07:19):
the results of that. So before we get into everything
that happened on this SmackDown Show tonight, we have breaking news.
And the breaking news is that, yes, call it a
bus flip, call it spring cleaning, call it whatever you want.
Fifteen WWE and NXT talents are gone from the company.
They have gotten their walking papers. And as I look

(07:39):
at this list here, there really is just one name,
if we're being honest, one name, maybe two that really
jump out at me as being very surprising, one very surprising,
one maybe mildly surprising the very surprising name. The biggest
name on this list is Braunz Stroman. This is his
second time now being fired by WWE. It's actually two

(08:03):
people on this list who had previously been cut by WWE,
but braun Stroman he was released once before Triple H
brought him back to the company. This surprises me because
I think that what they have had Stroman doing in
the time that he has been back has largely been good.
You know. One of the highlights of Raw last year

(08:24):
was that push that Bronson Reid got towards the end
of the year, late summer, early fall. And I had
a lot of fun with the Bronson Reid braun Stroman stuff.
They had their little you know feud there for however
long a way, maybe a month or so. But I
thought the segments and the matches they had Last Monster
Standing and all that was really great stuff. And Stroman,
you know, he was busting his ass. Remember he hurt himself.

(08:46):
I think he tore his growing whatever the injury was,
kept going, you know, he kept working the match, trying
to put the other guy over, even with a torn growing.
So yeah, he got hurt, you know, once or twice.
But I thought he you know, his output was very good.
And in fact, they used him in a similar role
recently on SmackDown, just like he was used to put
over Bronson Reid on Raw. He's been used in the

(09:09):
last several months on SmackDown to help get Jacob Fatu over,
which not to say Jacob Fatu wasn't over, but to
give him a monster that Jacob could slay, you know,
which is what he did. You know, in the end
he went over in that feud. So you know, they
had their use for him, and I guess he used
up his usefulness and they decided, well, we don't really

(09:30):
have another role for him, and so we're just gonna
get rid of the guy. And you know, I feel
bad for him because not only do I think he
was putting in good work and you could certainly find
roles for him and things for him to do on
the show. But they had that roast of WrestleMania a
few weeks ago after WrestleMania Sunday, and there was a

(09:53):
moment during the roast where Stroman was there and Stroman
asked the Ques question why he wasn't on the WrestleMania card,
and it was Paul Haman who piped up and said
something to the effect of because you're shit. Now it
was a roast, but you know, you look back on
that now and it's like, all right, Well, first of all,

(10:15):
this guy wasn't on the wrestle Media card, and the
last thing of note that he was involved in was
a roast coming out of WrestleMania, which he was not
a featured part of, where you had Paul Hayman say yeah,
because you're shit, and then a few weeks later he
gets fired. That's pretty shitty, you know, for that to
sort of be the punctuation on his run here in
this company, that's pretty shitty. And I do feel bad,

(10:37):
you know, for him as far as that goes. You know,
he's somebody who will absolutely do well on the independent
scene if he wanted to, you know, try his hand
booking his own independent dates. I don't know, you know
what he'll be charging for that. He'll likely end up working,
you know, signing a contract somewhere. Could you know, could
it be AW you know, where else would he would

(10:58):
he sign with? You know, he could go to TNN.
TNA has a working relationship with WWE. Maybe he looks
at that and says, well, you know, maybe it's not
such a bad thing to go work for TNA a
year from now. Maybe they bring me back again. I
don't know. I mean, this is if I work for
a company that fired me twice, my attitude would be
fuck you, I'm not going to give you the chance
to do it a third time. That would just be me.

(11:20):
That would be me. I know me, and I know
that I would be very upset about this, and I
certainly would not, you know, give them the opportunity to
fire me for a third time. So I don't know
where his head is at about this. If he was
to go to AW It's like Tony Kahan does not
have a great track record of booking big men traditionally.
I mean, you can find maybe some examples where he

(11:42):
did there for a while, but you know, let's not
pretend like he's the greatest booker when it comes to
booking men of the size of a Braunze Schrowman. But
if you were to go there, I mean him working
with a big bill or a powerhouse Hobbs, that could
be fun. There are people there for him to work
with where I think if you know you matched him
up with the right people. It could be fun. I

(12:03):
just don't know that that's someone that Tony Kahan is
going to look at and go, oh, I need to
have him. I got great ideas and great plans for
someone like him in my company. I think it's just
a diametrically different way of booking wrestling in terms of
the talents that he pushes, and I don't know that
Braun Stroman really falls into that category. But maybe they'll
have a conversation. I don't know. I don't know where

(12:25):
his head is at. But that to me was the
most easily the biggest name and the most surprising name
of all the ones here on this list. Now I
mentioned that there was another name that I would say
was also surprising, maybe not quite as surprising as Stroman,
and that is Dakota Kai. And Dakota Kai is the
other one who also was previously let go by WWE.
So this is the second time now that she has

(12:47):
been fired by this company. And I feel bad for
her too, because she's had injuries. She had the issue
with her knee. She may have had another injury, but
I know the knee injury was pretty serious and she
was gone for a while. Did the injuries play a
role in her release, in the way that they may
have played a role in the release of Tigan Knox.
I do think that it's very possible she hasn't been injured.

(13:10):
And she's been in the news this week because people
were bringing up the fact that, well, you know, Nick
con is out there talking about benching people, and where's
Dakota Kai, you know, And she even tweeted or posted
something on ig saying, hey, guys, I'm not hurt. So
they haven't been using her lately, and now she's gone
for a second time. And I know we have a

(13:31):
lot of Dakota Kai fans out there. I know we do.
I saw you guys in the chat before, and I know.
So this is gonna be one of the ones that
upsets a lot of people. I'm not totally surprised again,
because you could just tell they weren't doing anything with her,
right I mean, you can kind of get a sense
with a lot of the people that I'm going to

(13:52):
be naming here on this list, it can't come as
a complete and total shock to you the WWE would
part ways with them because if they saw real value
in them right now in investing television time in them,
they would have been actively on television and really pushed
in some meaningful way. The fact that Dakota Kai has

(14:12):
been off camera, off WrestleMania, not doing much. I guess
when was the last match she even had. I mean
it might have been the Intercontinental title. It's not a
huge shock that they would say, Okay, you know what,
we're not doing anything with her, so we're gonna let
her go. It's unfortunate because there were things that you
could have done with her, even in a tag team.
Since I'm gonna talk more about the tag teams here

(14:34):
in just a second, Clearly WWE does not give a
fuck about their supposed women's tag team division, for which
there is none. Let's be honest here, there is no
women's tag team division. You have belts that exist that
are held by people, and even the people those that
are currently in possession of these tag team titles, they're
singles wrestlers that were put together in a tag team,

(14:56):
as most of these teams are. They have so many
women on the roster between WWE and NXT, they could
take any two women at any given time and schmoosh
them together and say, hey, you're a tag team now
and they know they can do that, and so they
don't give a shit. So, for example, I miss so
Dakota Kai moving on from her here, Shana Basler gone

(15:19):
from WWE. You mean to tell me that you shocked
to find out that Shana Basler is gone from the company,
because I'm not was the last time Shana Basler was
pushed in any meaningful way. The last truly meaningful thing
I could think of that she was involved in was
probably when Ronda Rousey left the company and they had

(15:39):
Shana be the one to basically give her her sendoff
because that's what Ronda wanted. Ronda wanted to help put
her friend over on the way out, and they had
that summer slim match I don't remember being very good,
and she really hasn't done that much of note they
put her together with Zoe Stark, who's safe for now.
But Shana and Zoe they were used as a tag team.

(16:00):
Guess what, That team is gone no more. There is
no more Shana and Zoe. Sonya Deville's already gone. So
the whole PFC thing, I mean, that ended a long
time ago. But Shana Basler and Zoe Stark had been
a tag team for a while. And now that tag
team is gone. Caden Carter and Katana Chance goodbye. They're
gone now too. That sucks because Cayden Carter and Katana

(16:23):
Chance together were actually a very good team. I used
to talk about them even right before they were called up.
They were still an NXT. I said, you know what,
they were put together. They'd been together at that point
for a few years. They were the closest thing to
a real tag team in that division. They were coming
up with tandem moves and stuff. It wasn't just two

(16:44):
women that were just put together out of nowhere. They
put the time in and they really tried to make
that team work and they were fun to watch. Then
they got called up to the main roster and they
it was never quite the same. They had a little
bit of success there for a while. If you're going
to have a women's tag team division, you want to
have some real teams there. I look at this list,

(17:07):
and the fact that they got rid of these two
right here tells me that they truly do not give
a shit about that division. And if that's the case,
then I really don't see the sense of even keeping
the women's tag team titles around. I mean, we've talked
about this before. The women's tag team titles are used
as like a plot device, you know, to basically get

(17:27):
people over in certain stories, like they were telling the
story with Bianca and Jade for example. Right, that's really
what they were using it for. It's not needed though.
You can still tell those stories without the Women's Tag
team title. You could do women's tag team matches until
you turn blue in the face. The titles themselves don't
really mean anything because you know, the level of competition

(17:49):
there is virtually non existent. So they took their one
real true tag team and they fired them. Liv Morgan
is one half of the Women's Tag Team Champions right now,
she's gone for at least a month. She's off filming
a movie in Japan. They didn't bother to take the
titles off of her and Raquel Rodriguez. What does that
tell you? Because it doesn't matter. So they got rid

(18:12):
of So Shana and Zoe are does. Zoe's still there,
but the team of Shana and Zoe now is done.
Cayden Carter and Katana Chance are done live Morgan is
gone for the next month. Alba Fire and Isla Donn
are done because Isla Don got fired months ago. All right,
I mean the proof is in the pudding. This is
what they think of their supposed women's tag team division.
It doesn't exist, it's nonsense. Maybe they could resurrect it

(18:36):
because they've got a ton of women waiting in the wings,
and you know in developmental they got plenty of women
down there. They can create new teams if they want to.
But guess who else they got rid of. Jakara Jackson
from NXT, who was a tag team partners with Lash Legend.
There was even talk that maybe they would be called
up soon to the main roster and they would be
a tag team on the main roster. But no, no,

(18:58):
no no, because Jakara Jackson and is gone. Lash Legend
will do her own thing, but there will be no
tag team there. So she was another one who was
let go. Gigi Dolan gone, courage Ade gone from WWE.
Cmpunk is not going to be very happy about this.
I know. CM Punk was a big Corrige Aide fan.

(19:21):
Coura j Aid is another one who you know, she
was only twenty years old when she got signed. She's
twenty four now. She's still very young, very very possible
we will see her back in this company in the
next few years. In fact, I would be very surprised
if we don't see her back working for WWE in
the next few years. But she's already on social media
saying thirty days she's back to her old ring name,

(19:44):
Elena Black. That's going to be her name now going forward.
She's another one who suffered a pretty significant knee injury.
There's a lot of women out of developmental, out of
that performance center that have torn their acls. There's something
going around down there. I think Nikita Lyons tore her twice, right,
I think she tore it in each one of her legs.

(20:05):
So Ruka like, it's not just a Coora j aight thing.
But Cory Jade also had some injury issues. Did that
play a role in things? I don't know. I don't know,
you know, when they sat down to make the decision
about who they were going to release, I don't know
what went into the decision for Kora Jade Corey j
to somebody who I think is very marketable. I think

(20:26):
they saw her, at least for a while, they saw
her in the same way. So that one also, I
mean kind of like the Dakota Kaiwan mildly surprising to me,
but she's young enough that I would fully expect her
to be back at some point. She's someone who I
think is going to go out there. I think she'll
do well, I think on the independent scene and you know,
make a name for herself there. In a couple of years,

(20:49):
I'm sure WWE will give her another look. She'll still
be in her mid twenties again, unless her knees and
her health can't hold up for some reason, if she
becomes injury prone, then that's a different story. Bscorrige, aide
gone from WWE. I mentioned Gig, I mentioned Jakara Jackson
actually a Jakar and last they just broke up on

(21:11):
NXT on Tuesday, so they had to have some sense
from the beginning of the week at least with some
of these names about who they were gonna let go,
because that's not a coincidence that they broke those two up.
They were going their separate ways. That was on Tuesday,
so this was not a decision that was made in
the last twenty four hours. She was not, by the way,
the only member of the Metaphoor to be released or

(21:33):
Mensa is gone from WWE, so that makes two members
of the Metaphor. That leaves no m Dar and the
Lash Legend again the Metaphor they had just split up
on Tuesday, so they're not even a thing anymore. Or
Mensa is gone. Eddie Thorpe who just had a big
feud with Trick Williams. Eddie Thorpe is gone. All three

(21:55):
members of Gallis are gone, Gang Mark and Joe Coffee.
They've been there for many years, going back to the
NXT UK days. They are gone from WWE. Riley Osbourne
who was part of Chase University. Then they remember they
broke up Chase University. I believe just this week after

(22:18):
they disbanded them months ago. I think they just got
the band back together. Riley Osbourne is gone. And Javier Bernal,
who has been featured as well in NXT not not
in what I would say is a prominent role, but
he has been featured on TV. Javier Bernal is gone.
That is fifteen so far that we know of. There

(22:39):
may be more, I hope not. I just made a
comment recently. I just talked about this recently after the
Nick conn comments Wrestle many a week Nick Con did
an interview, I think on the Bill Simmons podcast. He
was talking to me. He was taking shots and digs
at Tony Kahn and AW, and Simmons brought up the like,

(23:00):
do you worry about roster bloat something that AW was
gone through. Do you worry about that? And Con he
said something to the effect of, you know, roster bloat
is a real thing. But yeah, then he gave some
corporate answer. But I said at the time, I said, look,
this is something that WWE is going to face. They're
going to face a reckoning very soon, much in the

(23:22):
way that Tony Khan did. Tony Kahan took great pride
in the early days of AW not having to cut
people and release people. But he kept adding so many
names and signing so many people that at some point
you have no choice but to either just let their
contract run out or get rid of them because you
can only sign so many people and they're just sitting around.

(23:44):
There's only so many hours of television. Yeah, this is
back before they even had Collision. It was just Dynamite
and Rampage, and Rampage went away. Now it's just Dynamite
and Collision. Well, now WWE signed Ricky Starks, and they
signed Alistair Black, and they signed russev Right. There's talk

(24:08):
about them potentially signing Mariah May when and if she
becomes available sometime this year, which I think is very possible.
They signed Penta, they signed Ray Phoenix, Jeff Cobb likely
on his way in if he hasn't already signed a deal.
You're gonna sign all these names. It was just common

(24:28):
sense that at some point soon the damn will break
and WWE is gonna feel like, well, we have to
get rid of a whole bunch of people, not because
they can't afford to pay them. And I want to
make that distinction very clear. This is a company that
loves to gloat about how much money they're making and
all the gate records they're setting, and right, I mean,
we hear about this every single week. They're selling out

(24:50):
buildings and we just sent this gate record and this
is the highest grossing WrestleMania of all time. Nobody is
doubting the WWE is making money hand over or fist here.
That's not really the issue. You can make a gazillion dollars,
It doesn't matter how much money you have. You still
only have so much TV time, and what you don't

(25:11):
want to do is constantly sign people, and then you
have scores of wrestlers who have nowhere to go but
sit in the back and wait their turn, and maybe
that turn never comes because there just isn't enough time
for them. We got to get Alistair Black over, because
we just brought him back, and Russep is back, now

(25:31):
we've got to get him TV time. Ricky Starks eventually
is going to make his way up from NXT and
he'll be on the main roster, and all these people,
so of course cuts were going to have to be made.
Here we are post WrestleMania. You can almost set your
clock to it. Nearly every single year, this is what happens.

(25:54):
But especially now when they're bringing in all these all
these names, it's like, well, what are you gonna do
with all these people? These people all of the sudden
become expendable. When you sign an Alistair Black, all of
a sudden, the Oro Mensa or Riley Osborne feels expendable.
And they're the low hanging fruit. They're the ones. They're
going to be first on the firing line. That's why

(26:15):
somebody like a braun Stroman really surprised me. Now, maybe
it was a case where Braun was also making a
shit ton of money. I don't know that he was
making the same you know, salary that he was making
the first time he worked there when they brought him back.
If he came back for less money, I don't know,
but I'm sure you know he was getting paid whatever
it was he was getting paid. Maybe that factored into

(26:37):
the decision they said, look, we're not featuring him in
any prominent way, and we're paying him all this money.
Let's just let him go, you know, for him. That
may have played a role in this as well. My
attitude about this is very simple. I don't like hearing
about people losing their jobs. I think it sucks. There
have been releases in past years that really make me

(26:57):
angry because there have been people. Ray Wyatt was one
of these people many years ago. Okay, not the only one,
but I can remember that one distinctly where it's like,
are you fucking kidding me? Because you have people that
have the potential to be so much more? Or they're
a pretty big name in the company, but maybe they
haven't been featured in a while, and then they would

(27:17):
get they would get cut and maybe it was a
Vince McMahon call. He's not there anymore doesn't mean the
cuts aren't going to be made. There are some cuts
that have really gotten me very angry because of a
lot of wasted potential and just dumb decisions, dumb booking,
you know, whatever it may be. But my attitude is this,
if you do not have any plans on using someone,

(27:42):
then they should not be working for your company. Now,
maybe they're content to make that money. Maybe they're making
good money and they're content to just make that money
and sit in the back. I'm sure there are some
people like that, But I believe that a lot of
these wrestlers they want to work. They want to get
their face on TV. They want to be out there,
they want to be active, they want to be doing something.

(28:02):
They want stories of their own because that's why they
became a wrestler in the first place. They didn't become
a wrestler to sit on their s and do nothing.
And then when they get cut, people go, who that
I don't know who that is. I don't know who
that person is, right because you know, but a lot
of people are gonna be looking at some of these

(28:22):
names Rightley Osborne. Who's that Shakara Jackson? Oh yeah, is
that woman they brought up on TV for a few
weeks a few months ago. I don't watch NXT. Right,
you want to become a star. And the higher your
star goes, the more money you'll make, the more prominent, right,
you become, the bigger deal you become, that's what you want.

(28:46):
You don't want to sit in the back. You don't
want to sit in catering. Nobody wants that. If you're
not going to use these people, then the best thing
for them to be let them go somewhere else where
they can actually work, make a name for themselves, get
their name out there, so that way, if they ever
aspire to come back to WWE one day, And this

(29:06):
has happened before. Drew McIntyre is like the biggest example
of that, where they fired him and he left and
he completely reinvented himself, his physique and his character and
he went out there and he fucking killed it. When
he came back, he was a much bigger star. He
left a joke, He came back basically a main event player,

(29:28):
and he's making a hell of a lot more money
now than he was when he was in three MB.
Remember when he signed his new contract, The Rock I
think gifted him a fucking sword or something like that.
So that, I think is the best thing. If you're
not going to use some of these people, if you
truly don't have any plans for them where you don't
see the potential there, well, we really don't see it,

(29:49):
so we're not going to really, you know, maybe we'll
use them to get other people over. Then, you know what,
it may be the best thing for them to allow
them to leave and go somewhere else and try to
make a name for themselves working somewhere else, so that
one day, wwe will realize, shit, we made a mistake,
or shit, we got to give this person back. Some

(30:10):
of these people will end up back here, not all
of them, but some of them will absolutely And a
lot of these people I'm looking at these names here,
not all of them, but there are a decent number
of them who really were not being used in any
meaningful way. You know, Eddie Thorpe is someone who we
did see, you know, pretty prominently recently in NXT, you know,

(30:34):
in the last few months. I can't say that I
expected him to get the call up imminently that they
had a role for him on Raw SmackDown. Evidently they
felt the same way, you know, Sewn Michaels maybe had
ideas on how to use him in NXT, but I
guess Triple Ah didn't on the main roster. That's what
I got out of this, because if they wanted him
on the main roster, he'd be there right now. But

(30:56):
if you're not going to use some of these people,
then you know what the best thing to do is
to let them go, because you can't bring in people
constantly and not have other people going in the opposite direction.
You can't just bring in and not have people leaving.
It just doesn't make any sense. And they're signing a
lot of people right now, and they're going to continue
to sign people from aw or from Japan, you know,

(31:21):
from other places. Look at all the talent they have
right now in NXT. Maybe they're getting ready to make
some main roster call ups, which they should do because
a lot of people down there, frankly, who are ready
to make that jump to Raw or SmackDown. Has been
talk of maybe another draft happening soon. Maybe they're getting,
you know, prepared for that. We're going to get some
call ups. So it's a shitty situation when people you

(31:44):
know get fired and lose their job, but in this case,
not a lot of surprises. And again my attitude is,
if you're not going to use them, lose them, because
it's not fair to them. It's not fair to them.
And you can't tell me that if they're really not
being used, that they're just happy doing nothing. I don't

(32:06):
believe that. And I said that in aw and Tony
Kahan would have people that he wouldn't use, and they
clearly were miserable, you know, if they were tweeting and
saying things on social media. It's like, yeah, okay, I
get it, they have a contract. But at the same time,
if you're not using them and they're miserable, then you
know what, shake hands and part ways and let them go,

(32:27):
let them leave. That's the way it should be. Hopefully
we won't have any more names announced. I don't know
if they're done yet though, So if there are more
names announced, then even tonight, which I'm guessing at this
point at midnight, we're not going to get any more names.
But if they are, I'll break in and let you know.

(32:49):
And obviously I'll talk more about this on the sound
off this weekend. Giovanni Vinci, My god, I forgot about him. Vinci, Yeah, Vinci.
Vince's another one. Vinci is another example of what I
was just talking about. Whatever that guy did, he obviously
rubs somebody the wrong way. Somebody had it out for him.

(33:10):
His career was on the fast track to nowhere still
is right now because I don't even know where. I
don't even know if he's out of his non compete
or where he's been. I haven't heard his name mentioned.
But he's another one where if you're not going to
use him, lose him, what the hell are you keeping
him around for? Is not the days of Superstars and
Wrestling Challenge, where well, you know, we have enhancement matches

(33:30):
on TV every week, we could at least use them
for that. Is that like they do that anymore? You know?
It's like, what the hell are you going to keep
people like that around for if you really have no
plans for them. Let's get into this SmackDown show. SmackDown
open with Damian Priest walking in the back and he
spots the bloodline and he makes a B line for him.

(33:54):
He gives Jacob fat to a shove, gets shoved back
by Solo Sokoa. Here come referees and agents to intervene.
As all of this commotion is happening, you see in
the background, La Knight comes walking by. He's kind of
watching this and he just keeps on walking and the
camera follows him on his way to the ring. He
talks about Priest costing him his number one Contenders match

(34:17):
for the US title last week against Drew McIntyre. So
Knight said he understood what Priest was doing and he
doesn't have a problem with him. He started to say
that Priest needs to pick his spots, but he was
interrupted by Priest, who made his way down to the ring.
He made his way for Remode. He was walking with

(34:38):
a purpose. Man, I wish I had my can of
rumble punch here. It's still it's in the fridge downstairs.
Oh it's a direction. You can fuck hey, Brandon Proctor,
thank you. I feel the buzz is wearing off a
little bit. So Priest told Knight that we don't have

(34:59):
a problem you and me, and last week everything I
did was all about Drew McIntyre. He noted how McIntyre
mentioned Priest family, and he couldn't let him get away
with that. Knight said Priest picked the wrong time to
get back at McIntyre because the only reason the bell
rang on his match was because of Damian Priest, and
Priest said that he saved Knight from taking a pin.

(35:20):
Knight told Priest, don't put your loss at WrestleMania on me,
and Priest responded by saying, the only reason things happened
the way they did is because you lost your championship
at WrestleMania, which is true, by the way both of
them ended up coming out of WrestleMania losers. Knight admitted
that he lost. He said he wants to fight his
way back into the title picture, and the reason he's

(35:41):
not champion this week is because of Damian Priest. Priest
said that all of Knight's frustrations are because of him
him being Knight, not Damian Priest. He said, even though
their match is set for later tonight, because evidently they
were scheduled for a match, god forbid, they should post
that on the fucking website. But instead of waiting until
later in the show to do their match, why don't

(36:03):
we have our match right now? And night like that idea.
We saw referee jogged down to the ring and they
went to a commercial. Not much to say about this here.
It was a means to get them in the ring early.
It's a credit I have to say to La Knight
that he is still as popular as he is. If
you don't believe that this guy is over, just look

(36:24):
at the fact that he still gets the reactions that
he does when a lot of what they've had him
doing over the last several months is a whole lot
of nothing. He's certainly not involved in the main event picture.
He's not really doing anything that I would say is
on the level of what he was doing late last year.
And yet the fence they still cheer for him, they

(36:44):
still love him. Maybe one day they'll circle back around
to him in a higher spot on the show. Right now, though,
he's firmly planted right there in the middle of the car,
But so is Drew McIntyre, so it's not like Knight
is the only one. So they joined the match in
progress pre setup for his old school. Knight pulled him
off the top into a soup plex. Knight went for

(37:05):
an elbow drop. Priest caught him though, and tried to
set up a South of Heaven. Night worked out of
it and Priest closed lined the hell out of him
for a near fall. He lifted Knight for a razor's edge.
Night got out of it, though, and he did ted him.
Knight went to the middle rope. He hit his jump
up elbow from the top for a two count, and
they went to another commercial break. Priest lifted knife for

(37:27):
a razor's edge. This time he tossed him. Knight barely
kicked out before three. Damien went for south of Heaven.
Night countered out of it, only for Priest to hit
a broken arrow. Priest went to the top, Knight did
his jump up, he nailed it, hit a super plex.
Night clotheslined him out over the top. He went for
his drop kick through the ropes. Damien moved out of

(37:48):
the way. Night landed on his feet, but then he
got caught with a flatliner onto the apron. When Solo
Socoa showed up and he attacked Priest. Referee for the bell.
Solo turned his attention to Night in the ring. He
was setting up for a Samoan spike, and then you
see Damian Priest. He kind of rises up like a

(38:08):
sea monster and he grabs a hold of Solo before
he could hit the Spike punches him. Knight then drops
Solo with a BFT. So now Priest and Knight they're
eye to eye. They're staring each other down in the ring.
Then they turn their attention to outside the ring and
Priest leaves the ring. He goes and clears off the
announced desk. He rolls Solo outside. Priest was gonna hit

(38:31):
South of Heaven when Jacob Fatu showed up. He hit
a dive through the ropes onto Damian Priest, and then
he gave a simo and dropped to La Knight onto
the announced desk. Hip attack to Priest up against the barricade.
Fatu pose with the title and the crowd cheered because

(38:51):
they love Jacob Fatu, Uh Knight and Priest. I thought
they were putting together a pretty good one here until
the shitty finish, and I thought, well, we got another
two and a half hours left on this show. I
guess we're getting a tag team match in the main events.
Since we had no main event announce at this point.
We are getting the tag team match, but it's on
next week's show. It didn't happen tonight. Bianerton Saxton. I

(39:17):
almost called him Brian, but I caught myself there Byron Saxton.
He interviewed Phraxium in the back. Nathan Frazier said they
were excited and they plan on flipping the SmackDown Tag
Team Division upside down, although I don't think they will
be able to flip it upside down quite in the
way that WWE has flipped the Women's tag team division
upside down. After tonight, pretty Deadly walked in, Saxon left.

(39:41):
Kit Wilson told them the SmackDown Tag Division is the
hungriest division. Elton Prince said that he enjoyed having new
European blood on SmackDown and said opportunities on SmackDown are earned,
they are not given. They wanted to see how good
Phraxium really was. They said they talked to Nick all
this to make the match. So we got pretty Deadly

(40:04):
taking on Phraxium here, Phraxium, they got hot tag. Fraser
did late in the match hit a dropkick on both
pretty Deadly members. At the same time, Fraser landed a springboard,
So this was the spot that went very much awrye
here in this match. So he does a springboard off
the ropes and he lands, and when he lands on

(40:27):
the way down, he grabs Elton prints in a scorpion
deathlock or scorpion deathlock scorpion death drop position, and he drops
him and after that he lands a running shooting star.
Press Prince came up bleeding. I don't know if it
was from the mouth or the chin. It looked like
maybe it was the mouth, but it was somewhere somewhere

(40:48):
in the mouth are you can see the blood on
his chin. And he gets covered and he forgets to
kick out because he's still I don't know if he
was just woozy or he was just so focus on
the fact that shit, I'm bleeding. He didn't kick out
when he was supposed to, and so the referee she
held up her count even though he clearly did not

(41:09):
kick out, clearly did not get his shoulder up. It
looked terrible. I think what happened is Fraser's elbow struck
him as he came down on that running shooting star.
I think that's what did it so pretty deadly. Though
they took control back of the match, Wilson tagged in
Wilson and Fraser. They traded elbows until Fraser placed Wilson

(41:30):
on the top rope. Axiom hit a Spanish fly. Fraser
followed that with a Phoenix splash, and the former NXT
Tag Team champions picked up the win. Outside of the
awkward spot with the referee, I thought the match was fine.
You know, they need to start feeding Fhraxium some wins
here on this show to build them up. They're brand

(41:50):
new on SmackDown. The eventual match, I think with Fraxium
and the MotorCity machine guns should be a lot of
fun once we actually to get there. B Fab and
Meechen they were in the back talking to Nick All
This in all This's office when Chelsea Green showed up

(42:10):
along with her secret hervis Piper Niven in Alba Fire
and they were dressed in black. Chelsea looked like she
was in mourning, like she was on her way to
a fucking funeral. Maybe maybe she maybe she knew something.
Maybe she was wearing it in uh the spirit of
these Black Friday cuts. I don't know. She said last
week's loss was due to collusion, and Niven called Green

(42:34):
an American hero, which I thought that was amusing. All
This tried to walk away, Green bargained with him for
a rematch for her US title instead. All this said,
Zelina Vega is going to wrestle Piper Niven tonight. Andy
said that if Niven wins, she'll be the number one
contender for Vega's US title, and hey, if she goes
on to win the title, then maybe Chelsea could be

(42:56):
a part of Piper's secret. Hervists and Chelsea almost fainted
at this news. Naya Jacks she made her way out
to the ring to address the fans, and she said
that while she was gone, she was at home getting
refocused and regrouping so that she could come back and

(43:17):
take what's hers, that being the WWE Women's Championship. Tiffany
Stratton's music hit and she walked out. She had a microphone.
She was cutting a promo in the stage area, said
that I'm not the same Tiffany Stratton that you used
to bully around when I was friends with you. She

(43:37):
went toe to toe, she said with one of the
greatest of all time in Charlotte Flair. Stratton said that
if her and Jack's ever locked up again, Tiffany would
beat her too. So Nya asked if Stratton was offering
a rematch, is that what I hear, and Tiffany said
that she wouldn't ever shy away from a fight and
she would defend her title anytime, anywhere. So then Naomi's

(43:58):
music hit and she walked out with a mic as well.
She said that it was funny to see Tiffany and
Naya fighting because she remembered when she tried to take
the title from Naya, it was Tiffany who got involved.
It was Tiffany who screwed her over. Naomi questioned whether
Tiffany really was a change person and said that she
didn't believe that. Naomi said, Jade car Gill ruined everything

(44:21):
that she worked for, but even still she's not done
going after gold. Yeah. She was on Nicki and Bribella
have a Show and Naomi was their guest in studio,
and she talked about how her in ring career. I
don't know if it's over soon or just putting a

(44:43):
pause on it because she's getting older and she would
like to start a family, and that's something that you
kind of forget sometimes, you know, especially with some of
the women on the roster that have been there for
ten years or more. Charlotte Bailey, Naomi, they've been doing
this a long time. You know, they're the veterans now
of that women's division. Some of them are moms, Becky Lynch,

(45:05):
Alexa Bliss, Alexa Blissmoth's two years. Carmela had a child.
I had a baby boy with Corey Graves and got injured.
They're in pregnancy. Never came back, got released by the company.
Don't know she'll ever be back in the ring. So
there are some women that have stepped away to start

(45:27):
a family, and there are others who probably would like
to and they realize that they're they're on borrowed time
here because at some point, you know, they don't have
the luxury of waiting. I mean a guy, shit, I mean,
a guy could have a kid whenever he wants. To
Look at some of these Hollywood the friggin types, My god,

(45:47):
what al Pacino, Robert de Niro. There's like a common
thread here between some of these actors. Fucking Bill Belichick
has been in the news. There's a fifty year age
difference between Bill Belichick and his I guess their girlfriend
and boyfriend, right, I don't think they're married, or maybe
they are. I don't know, But like a guy, you know,

(46:10):
no issue doesn't matter what age he is. He could
if he wants to lay down pipe any time he
wants to, he can do that. But if you're a
woman and you want to, you want to start a
family of your own, you know, you have certain considerations
that need to be made. Charlotte has talked about this recently,
So you wonder what some of these women, you know,
at what point do we no longer see them on TV?

(46:34):
Ria Ripley, right, Buddy Matthews just did an interview with
Chris van Vliet. I think it was in that interview
he talked about how I think Rio would like to
have children. They want to start a family. Rhea Ripley
right now is at the peak of her popularity. She's
legitimately one of the most popular performers male or female
in the entire industry right now. And I can imagine

(46:57):
looking at that and going, man, I'm not ready to
give that up yet. I'm not ready to step away
from that because if I do, I'm gone for a
year and a half, two years, you know, am I
still going to be able to regain that level of
stardom when I come back? Because the business moves so
fast and other stars are made and now there's a
new top star, and I can only imagine, you know,

(47:20):
all of the stuff that goes through their minds with
this stuff. But you know, even even he brought that up.
So Naomi is I think in her mind looking at
this heel turn and really hoping that this could be,
you know, before she steps away, perhaps to start a family.
This could be her last big run here. I'm sure

(47:43):
she wants to have one more run with the championship,
but I've enjoyed the work she's done so far as
a heel. I think she's putting her all into it,
and I do wonder if that's part of the reason why,
you know, because she knows this is her last chance
to you know, have that one great heel run here
before we may not see her again for a while.
But Jade's music hit and she walked out with a purpose.

(48:05):
She was heading towards Naomi. Oh my god, Taylor says,
girlfriend more like handler talking about Belichick. Yeah, that's just yeah,
that's a weird one. You know. It's weird about that
she's posting photos of them together on I guess, on

(48:27):
her Instagram, and you listen because when he gets asked
about it. He has no idea what these people are
talking about, so, like, I legitimately think he just doesn't.
He has no idea that she's posting photos of him
and maybe wearing goofy outfits or something like. People will
ask him and he'll be like, how did you know
about that? And they're like, well, your girlfriend is posting

(48:51):
this on her Instagram and he has no idea, Like
does he even know how to use social media? I
have no idea. It's a very weird relationship, very very strange.
So Jade walks out and she rolls into the ring
and all four women brawl. Car Gilt clotheslines Naomi out

(49:13):
over the top rope. Stratton disposes of Naya. Nick All
this comes out and says, oh, it's time for a
tag team match. Player. We're getting the tag team match
in the main event. This was the main event of
the show tonight. I personally am not terribly excited about
going back to the well again with Tiffany and Naya.

(49:33):
But I was thinking like, okay, well, if you don't
find it very exciting, then who would you go with?
And I thought about it, and I said, well, I
have no interest in seeing them go back to Tiffany
and Charlotte. We can leave that alone for a while,
right I'm very happy they're not going right into a
rematch between those two, So cross that off the list.

(49:57):
Naomi and Jade are still occupied. Bianca has got a
couple of broken fingers, so she's out for a little bit.
So Naya works as good as anybody else would in
that spot, because really, who else is there the other
women on the show. Now you're getting into like us
title stuff with Chelsea and Alba and Piper and Zelina

(50:18):
and Meechen and b fab stuns of women, but nobody
is ready to be in a spot challenging Tiffany Stratton
for the championship. So when you really break it down,
what do you get? You get Naya JACKX. That's why
she's in this spot right now. I don't really have
a I don't really have a better solution to that problem.
I'm just telling you that it doesn't excite me that

(50:38):
we're going back to this well again. Alistair Black one
on one against the Miz Alistair by the way the
music when he comes out. I'm going to have to
actually talk more about this on the podcast this weekend.
I have two stories involving deaf Rebel who did not

(51:02):
get their release tonight. We had fifteen talents get released
from WWE, and yet deaf Rebel lives on. There is
no justice in this world. What I didn't notice last
week it sounded to me like Alistair Black just got
his original cfo's theme back. Not exactly. This is a
remix version of that theme that deaf Rebel did. There

(51:23):
are some very subtle changes to it, Like you can
find the new remix. It's like on YouTube. If you
really listen to it, you could tell there's some differences.
The vocals I think are exactly the same, but they're
doing something new now and this may actually end up
being a good thing because they may be able to
do this with other CFOs themes. And CFOs had some

(51:45):
banger themes where they make some subtle changes to the
song and that way they can use it and retain
full ownership over them. Very slick stuff. So there are
some subtle differences to his song, But I do like
the fact that he was able to basically keep his
old theme. So mis ran at him to start the match,
almost ran into a black mass, but mis retreated the

(52:08):
two of them went back and forth until Black caught Mis.
As Mis went for a kick, Alistair placed Miss's foot
very slowly because Ms was begging off. He very slowly
placed his foot back on the canvas. That was a
mistake though, because Mis then caught him with a cheap shot.
It's quick quizical one says deaf Rebel spelled daf. There

(52:33):
are some songs that do make me wish I was
deaf when I listened to them. Yes, that should be
their name. Actually, deaf Rebel Black did his springboard moon
saw into the sitting position spot that he does in
his matches, and well, you know how like Sammy Sammy's ay,
he'll do the other like Arabian press to the floor.

(52:55):
That move always scares me because I just feel like
one day it's just gonna go very wrong. Black here
he did a springboard off the middle rope into a
seated position, but it almost looked like he under rotated,
and so I put the fear of God and me
watching that there for a second, but thankfully he landed

(53:15):
it okay. So Ms was outside, Black reached through the
ropes for him, but he got distracted by Carmelo Hayes,
who was out there. Mis capitalized. He slammed Black's head
down into the led ring apron and then they went
to commercial. Later in the match, Mis hit some mis
kicks and Black just laughed at He just looked up
at him, like, really, dude, he just laughed at him.
Black followed up with a spinning elbow and a need

(53:38):
of the jaw. Mis came right back and went for
a skull crushing finale, but Black cartwheeled out of it,
and Black followed up with a knee to miss his face.
Mellow threatened to get involved, Mis rolled him up off.
The distraction didn't work, and from there Black hit Black
mass and that was all she wrote. After the match

(53:59):
was over and Black they went face to face in
the middle of the ring, Carmelo was checking him out,
he was eyeing him, he was staring him down, and
then Mello slowly exited and walked away as Black sat
in the center of the ring. Black look good here
in this match. His offense was well received by the crowd.

(54:19):
Mis got more offense than I was expecting him to get.
You know, I could say that he got more offense
than he should have gotten. Look, Miss has been there
a very long time. And Miss is not at the
top of the list of someone who I want to
see in a top program every week. On this show,
he is now in that category that Adolph Ziggler had

(54:41):
settled into, where you know, he's fine to use and
plug into whatever role you need him in. Right now,
they are trying to use him as a way to
get Carmelo Hayes over more. We've seen him in this
role before where he is used to help elevate somebody else.
He could be a babyface, he could be a heel.

(55:02):
Still think he's a better heel, but he's just not
this feeling of excitement when I see the mis or
there's another installment of Mis TV, I just I don't
give a shit. At the same time, there's a recognition
that he's been there for a long time. He's a
Grand Slam champion, I think twice over whatever his stats are,

(55:24):
he's a former world champion, he's a former Intercontinental champion,
tag team champion, He's done a lot of things in
his career. So the fact that he would go ten
minutes with Alistair Black, Okay, so maybe instead of ten
minutes they should have gone seven or eight minutes. But
the fact that they gave this time, and it was
a little more competitive than maybe people expected. I mean

(55:45):
that didn't really bother me too much, but it was
what it needed to be. You know, you needed to
give him a win his first match back in a
WWE ring in five years, right. He wasn't going to
go in there and lose. He was going to go
in there and lose. You could have just had him
as the mystery opponent for Randy Orton or WrestleMania, but
that would have been stupid. But this is not going

(56:07):
to end any better for Carmelo Hayes, which they certainly
are teasing now a match between Black and Haes. I
like that, even though I know it's not going to
add well for Carmelo Hayes. I do like the match.
Maybe they could extend it into multiple matches and have
an actual program and not just do some random one
off match between them on TV in the next few weeks.

(56:28):
I should mention Hayes is walking around with an Andre
the Giant head on a gold I don't know if it's
bronzed or whatever, but it's an Andre the Giant Head
on a gold chain. I believe a miss gifted it
to him a few weeks ago after he won the
Andre Battle Royal and he is calling it Dre. I

(56:52):
forgot about Drey, so I wanted to mention that Santos
Escobar ray Phoenix in the back and said that he
watched his match at WrestleMania and what he saw was
the true embodiment of disappointment, much like this episode of SmackDown.

(57:12):
Not only did he lose the biggest match of his life,
but he also embarrassed the tradition of lucha libre by
losing to a clown like Elgonde Americanum Raymisterio picked him
to take his place at WrestleMania, and he blew it,
and now the self appointed greatest lucidor of all time
is out of the picture, hopefully forever. He said somebody

(57:33):
is going to have to take his place, and that
somebody is going to be me, and Phoenix told him
to stay out of his business. There's only one luchador
in the world that he trusts and it's definitely not him. Brother.
What he said, he didn't say it quite like that though.
If he has a problem, maybe he was maybe he
was talking about mister America. If he has a problem

(57:56):
he will see him in the ring tonight, and you
can hear the fans in the arena. They cheered, which
was good. That was a good sign that they were
excited to see Ray Phoenix in action. Up next, we
had Zelena Vega one on one with Piper Nivin. This
obviously was a non title match. Niven had control lifted

(58:19):
Vega up. Vega, though countered out with a variation of
a code breaker. Piper came right back with a running
sent on for a two count. She ran it Zelena,
but Vega moved and went to the top and Niven
smacked her, and then she went for a super plex,
but Vega worked out of it, hit a meteora for
a two count. She tried for a code read but

(58:39):
Nivin stopped it hit a side slam instead, So Piper
did lift Zelena, but that resulted in a DDT from Vega,
and then from there Vega went to the top hit
a moon salt for a nice near fall. Vega went
for a code read again it didn't work. Niven tried
a power bomb that turned into Zelena, setting up a
six to one nine. When Chelsea Green jumped up on

(59:02):
the apron to stop her, and when Niven ran at Vega,
she moved and Piper collided with Chelsea and knocked her off.
The Vega then rolled up Piper and picked up the wind.
They gave them some time for this. They actually got
double digits for this match, and we need matches like this.
Even if you didn't think it was terribly exciting, the

(59:23):
crowd didn't really seem to think it was terribly exciting.
I mean, they reacted to certain parts of it down
the stretch, but they were pretty quiet. I mean, that
was really the story of Des Moines, I think tonight.
But I'm not going to really put too much blame
on des Moines because look at the show they got.
But these are the types of matches that you need.
You know, Zelena Vega has come out on television now
for months to crickets, and that new music that she

(59:46):
has doesn't help because nobody really recognizes it. You know,
she comes out and I'm like, oh god, yeah, it's
not good, but she doesn't really she hasn't been getting
much in the way of reactions. This was the first
time I felt like watching her here in this match.
You know, the longer it went, where the crowd was
really starting to get behind her a little bit, and

(01:00:10):
that's good, and that's why she needs to have more
matches like this. Going out and having a match with
Chelsea Green that goes three minutes, it doesn't do anything
for her or anybody going out there and having, you know,
a ten minute match with somebody, Maybe it won't be
the most exciting thing. But she's the US champion now,
and so if you want to, you know, create enthusiasm
for a championship that really doesn't mean much right now,

(01:00:33):
then those are the types of matches that you need
to have. So, yeah, I didn't have an issue with it.
It wasn't it wasn't like anything great, but building blocks
for her, building blocks for that title. Piper winning could
have created some tension between her and Chelsea Green, maybe
some jealousy, right Green, it's in her name. But at
the same time, do you really want to beat Zelena

(01:00:55):
a week after she just won the belt? Probably not,
So it was the right result. Backstage, Nick Alldis was
talking with Solo Socoa and Jacob Fatu. Solo said that
Fatu was telling everybody they better stay out of his way.
Alda said that backlash FA two is going to defend
his United States Championship in a triple threat match against

(01:01:16):
both La Knight and Damian Priest. Solo said, hold up,
Drew McIntyre is technically the number one contender after last week. Say,
all of a sudden, he's making an argument for McIntyre,
and you could see exactly where this is going, and
All just said, you know what, you make a good point.
There he goes, I'll tell you what. Forget the triple

(01:01:37):
threat match. It's going to be a fatal four way
now with McIntyre and Priest and Knight all challenging Jacob
for the US title. And Jacob said, you know what, fine,
he's all gas and no breaks. He walked away. Solo said,
all this was trying to screw fa tu over but
all this said, actually, it's you who's trying to screw

(01:01:59):
five two. Actually I would argue that it's Drew McIntyre
who's being screwed over here. Now, Drew McIntyre was not
on the show tonight, but he'll be here next week,
I'm sure, and he is absolutely going to pitch a
fit because Drew McIntyre beat Damian Priest at WrestleMania. Drew McIntyre,
albeit by disqualification beat La Knight on SmackDown last week.

(01:02:23):
He is the rightful owner of the number one contender
spot for the United States Championship, and now he gets
his shot in a fatal four way with two other challengers.
That is not fair and so he absolutely has the
right to come out and protest this decision next week.
If anybody has a right to be upset about being
screwed over, it's Drew McIntyre. This is bullshit. Randy Orton

(01:02:50):
was out to the ring next to talk about his
upcoming match with John Cena at Backlash in Saint Louis
for the WWE Championship, which they are now billing as
one Final Time. You know, there was a time where
I think they promoted that very tagline for John Cena
and Randy Orton because they had wrestled so many fucking

(01:03:11):
times that nobody wanted to see it anymore. And I
remember at the time saying, I don't believe you. I'll
believe it when I see it. So here we are,
yet again they are promoting it as one final time.
I'm still not convinced it's one final time. John Cena
is going to be on Saturday Night's main event on
May twenty fourth, very likely defending the WWE title, and

(01:03:35):
it's entirely possible it could end up being in a
rematch against Randy Orton on that show. So don't assume
that Backlash is going to be the final time, because
it may not be. But John Cena was not here tonight,
so Randy Orton had to come out and cut a
promo all by himself. They said, I know, we're already
two hours into this show, he says, and of course

(01:03:56):
I'm thinking why I could feel it we got another
hour of this, But he goes, welcome to Friday Night, Smackdowe.
Orton simply said the name John Cena, and the crowd
began to boo. Orton said that while the world couldn't
see Sena, he could. He said, it took about twenty
years for everybody to realize what kind of man Sena is.
But Orton knew from day one. This entire proma, by

(01:04:19):
the way, is going to be very awkward when when
and if Sena eventually goes babyfacing, what is Orton going
to say? I was wrong? John was a good guy
this entire time. He's basically saying, yeah, he's a fucking fraud.
I don't know why you people ever believed he was
anything but a fraud. So he called Sena entitled and

(01:04:42):
said Sena is the ultimate shiny new toy to be
played with by the ultimate puppet master. Orton said Sena
took advantage of the PG Era said that Sena was
willing to be a real life, walking, talking cartoon character. Meanwhile,
Orton was true to who he was, and Orton said
Sena didn't care about the boys and the back of
the fans. All Sina cared about is his bottom line.

(01:05:03):
He said, Sena only cares about the new merch that
he puts out all the time so that all the
kids can go and grab it up. And he recalled
John last week saying that he didn't have a family
of his own because he was too busy raising everybody
else's kids. Orton said the only thing Sena has raised
is the price of his merchandise, which all the parents

(01:05:24):
have to work a double to afford. Orton said selling
his soul is nothing new to Seena because Sena has
been doing that for twenty years. Orton asked what happened
to loyalty and respect when it comes to John Cena.
He recalled how Sena said that he would erase the
Orton name from the pro wrestling business, and he got

(01:05:48):
fired up and he said, Sina will do that over
his dead freaking body. Orton said, Sena is the latest
legend that he'll have to put down, and he will
do so a backlash in his hometown, in front of
his wife, in front of his friends, and in front
of his family. Orton said that he will punt Sina
so hard in that lego shaped head that it will

(01:06:09):
fly through the gateway arch, but not before he drops
his ass with an RKO. So without John Sena there,
Orton had to go out and carry things on his own.
He did as well as he could. I mean, what
else was there really for him to say? If Orton
is out there though, talking about how overpriced seen as merches,

(01:06:35):
I don't know that I would be drawing attention to that,
because that's not really a John Sena problem. That's a
WWE problem. This is basically WWE admitting that they sell
a lot of overpriced shit in this promo and people
will continue to buy it anyway. I don't know that
I would be drawing attention to that. Now. Later on

(01:06:56):
in the back they showed Orton walking through the hallway
and he ran into Our Truth and Truth said that
Orton has no chance in Backlash, and he was dead
serious when he said this, and this caught Orton off guard.
And then Jimmy Usso showed up. He stepped in. He
told Orton, don't be too mad about what Truth said.
Jimmy told Truth, look, if you keep talking like this,

(01:07:17):
Orton is going to kick your head off. But Truth said,
Sena told him that, and that he's the last real
champion and he would never lie to Our Truth, and
Truth walked off. Now, Truth played this entire segment here serious,
so it wasn't real. I mean, obviously what he was
saying is ridiculous, but he wasn't playing it up for laughs.

(01:07:38):
This didn't come across like your usual Our Truth segment here,
and it made me wonder, are they setting up for
Our Truth, of all people, to possibly play a role
in this match at Backlash this second week in a row.
Now that we have seen Truth on TV last week,
it was when Sina was leaving he bumped into Truth

(01:08:00):
from the back kept walking. This week, another backstage segment
this time he bumps into Randy Orton. Right, they're obviously
they're setting something up here. Now. I have talked about
after Sena went heel. I said, Man, if you really
want to cement this guy as a real son of
a bitch, you've got to have him do something dastardly
to our truth because everybody loves our truth. Right, He's

(01:08:23):
this lovable figure on the show, and he's John Cena's
biggest fan. And imagine if John Cena does the truth
what he did to Cody and Toronto an elimination shamber,
like something on that level, right, it has to be
more than just a fucking attitude adjustment and putting him
in a terrible looking stf. The problem is, like, I

(01:08:45):
don't know that Sena has it in him at this point. Again,
this heel turned that as great as the turn itself
was at the elimination Chamber, everything since then has been
completely underwhelming. I don't look at John Cena and see
this vicious heel. I don't know that he has it
in him. But I think if they really want it
as cementum as that that would be the way to go.

(01:09:06):
But now I'm wondering if maybe he's got Our Truth
wrapped around his finger and he's manipulating this man to
his advantage. Are we going to see Truth get involved
in that match or one of his upcoming matches and
in this case cost you know, potentially costs Randy Orton?
You know? Is that what they're planning here for the
end to backlash? Because we know Seene is gonna win,
but he's not going to beat Orton clean, So how

(01:09:26):
are they going to do this finish? They could do
the finish in a way that necessitates a rematch at
Saturday Night's main event. That's why I brought that up
a little while ago, because Sena is advertised for that show,
So maybe it's kind of like an undecisive finish, But
Scene is going to retain the title who gets involved?

(01:09:47):
Who gets involved? Travis Scott get to come back out
and get involved again? Or might they do something with
Our Truth? I don't know if they will or not.
It's just I feel like what would be fun here
is what they appear to be doing as opposed to
Truth going around and kind of moping around, like, oh man,
I can't believe John Cena. Yeah, I was his biggest

(01:10:08):
fan and I can't believe he's saying the things that
he's saying and being all sad about John Cena being
a heel. Now, what they're doing here is that he
is convinced that what Sena is saying is pure and
is true. And he's still this noble guy, right, he's brainwashed. Basically,

(01:10:29):
he's like a loyal sicko and I like that. I
think that the potential to do something fun with this
is there in a way that it wouldn't be if
they just played it straight. And it was like, ah,
Truth is just upset. You know that John Cena is
calling the fans mean names because that's fucking boring. This
has the potential to be good, depending on where they
take it. What I have him involved in the finish

(01:10:52):
of a pay per view main event that I don't know.
It all depends in the execution and how they would
do it. But that was what was going through my
head here as I was watching that we had Ray
Phoenix against Santos Ascobar. Yeah, our Truth, he'll turn right.
I mean, think about it, all this goofy stuff that

(01:11:15):
Truth has been doing the last few years. Man, it's
fucking terrible. Like he's really good at it, but like
it just gets to a point where it runs its
course and it's like, is there is there ever gonna
be any kind of evolution or development to this? You know, Well,
here they have the potential to really do something fun.
And it's not even like a heel turned so much

(01:11:35):
as it's just it's seen of manipulating him, and the
fans see what's going on, and the baby faces see
what's going on. But Truth is just convinced that everybody
else is wrong, Sena is righteous, and just play that
story out. You know. I'm not saying Truth is going
to be the guy to beat him for the title,
but there's the potential for this to be to be

(01:11:58):
fun depending on the direction that it goes. So Ray
Phoenix against Santos Escobar was up next. Boy was this
crowd dead silent at the beginning of this match, especially
for anything that Escobar was doing. I mean, they were

(01:12:18):
scary silent. And then Escobar yelled at Phoenix and we
could hear every word because you didn't have to struggle
to hear what he was saying. Here. Yeah, sometimes you'll
watch these episodes of Dynamite and they run a lot
of smaller venues now, which is for the better because
it just makes the atmosphere is just generally better in
the smaller buildings now that they run. But because it's

(01:12:40):
a smaller venue, you hear sometimes you hear the echo
and you could hear that one guy in like the
fourth row says something or shout something and you could
hear it like he's in the ring. That's what Escobar
sounded like here in a building that probably had eleven
or twelve thousand people in it, because it was that quiet.
And he's yelling at Phoenix that you know, you and
me he could rule this place together. And Phoenix responded

(01:13:03):
with the chop to the chest and then Phoenix shoved
Escobar down on his ass. He set up for his
double springboard arm drag Escabar, they'll cut him off, and
Escobar ran at Phoenix. Phoenix moved and Escobar spilled outside.
Phoenix followed him and then Escabar ran him into the
side of the ring and then he got back in

(01:13:23):
the ring. Escabar did and he hit what looked like
one of his old King Querno dives from the Lucha
Underground days through the ropes, took down Phoenix outside that
took us into a commercial break. After a break, Escobar
left it Phoenix in one of the corners. Phoenix moved
and then he had a wild springboard top rope moon

(01:13:45):
salt for a two count. Phoenix took a knee from Escobar,
popped right back up, though, and landed a kick. Both
men were down for the reset. Escobar lifted Phoenix. Phoenix, though,
worked his way out of it and ran the top
rope for his goodbye, a Migo kick right to the head,
and then from there Phoenix hit the top rope mediora
and he got the pin. I am still trying to

(01:14:06):
get used to the idea of the mediora being a
finishing move. It's just it's been so overdone in other
match I'm looking at someone in particular, but it's been
so overdone and used as just a setup move in
other matches that to see it used as a finishing
move is is still It's still very weak to me.

(01:14:29):
It's just gonna take some getting used to. I don't
need to see him breaking his neck on some wacky dive.
I'm just saying the mediora as a finish It's just
I'm not used to seeing that the match itself, though,
was very flat. The crowd did get into a lot
of Phoenix's offense down the stretch, a lot of the
stuff that he was doing. They were kind of getting
up for that. But you know, look, I wish I

(01:14:49):
could say more. It's a flat match. Escobar. I mentioned
Selena Vega going out there on most weeks and getting
no reaction. Escabar is the same way, and I think
he's super talented, but you know, you got to call
it like you see it. When he goes out there,
you could hear fucking crickets. Nobody cares now in the back.

(01:15:10):
Later on, Escobar was furious with Angel Andberto that they
weren't there when he needed them the most. Andrade walked in,
What the hell are they doing with this guy? Why
don't they just give him a manager already? Why are
they continuing with this? Andrade shows up and he said
he knows Escobar doesn't care about los Garza. He said,

(01:15:31):
Escobar doesn't have respect for los Garza. So Escobar didn't
want to hear this anymore, and he laughed and he
demanded that Angel andmberto follow him. Angel followed him, Berto,
though stayed behind for a moment. And shared a brief
stare with Androte before he was called away by Escobar.
I honestly think that the only reason people like Escobar

(01:15:51):
and Andrade, who were very, very talented, and you know,
I wouldn't want to see them get cut. I think
the only reason that names like that didn't get cut
is because of this Triple A story. And now that
they bought Triple A and they have Worlds Collide coming
up in June, and there's gonna be a lot of
crossover with WWE talent working there and doing matches there.

(01:16:15):
I think that's the plan is probably to use a
lot of these names, the names that were up on
that dais with Triple H and Michael Cole on the
pre show when they were surrounded by VIKINGO and Raymistereo
and Penta and Phoenix and Stephanie Vacquer and Escobar was there,
and Triple H is like, oh, we have Andrade here,
one of the most talented wrestlers in the world, and
had I could barely contain my laughter when you consider

(01:16:37):
the way he's utilized on TV, and here's Triple H
sitting there singing his praises like he's one of the
top three in the entire company, and I'm like, really,
you have a funny way of showing it. I think
legitimately that's the only reason that they were spared from
these cuts is because, Okay, well we just bought Triple
A and we've got big plans coming up, and so

(01:16:58):
we're gonna plug these guys into those plays. Otherwise, I
think you would have seen at least one of their
names on this list. Now. Backstage, Tiffany Stratton and Jade Cargill.
They were speaking when Byron Saxton interrupted and asked, how
are you two gonna fare in a tech team match
as partners? Considering your history? This was the classic case

(01:17:20):
of can they coexist? Stratton said that they wouldn't have
a problem so long as Jade stayed out of her way.
Jade said that she would focus on Naomi, but she
spoke to Nick all this and she got a match
next week on SmackDown. She's wrestling Naya Jackson. The winner
of that match, we'll get a shot at Tiffany's women's championship.

(01:17:43):
I mean, you could see Naomi costing Jade the match
next week, coming from a mile away, which then paves
the way for Naya to get her match with Tiffany.
They aired a video package highlighting the main event of
last week's show. Now I was not here. I was

(01:18:04):
not here to talk about SmackDown because I was in Chicago.
I did watch SmackDown, and so they showed a video
package here of last week's TLC match with the Street Profits,
the MotorCity machine Guns, and DIY And while I am
not going to sit here and tell you that it
is in my top three of all time TLC matches,

(01:18:25):
because it's not, it was an excellent match, and what
really benefited the match was the fact that they went
commercial free for that last hour. That really benefited that
match in a major way, because I feel like as
long as that match went, and it was a long match,
if you would have had two three commercial breaks, it

(01:18:46):
really would have hurt the match. That's one of the
reasons why I was kind of upset that it was
going to be on TV in the first place, and
they couldn't find room for it on the WrestleMania card.
But they went commercial free with it, so they had
the whole hour to just do everything they did without
being interrupted. So it worked out fine, and these guys
went out there and they wrestled like they had a

(01:19:07):
chip on their shoulder, like, Okay, we're not good enough
to be on the WrestleMania card. Great, we'll show you
what you missed out on by not including us on
the biggest show of the year. The prosthetic leg spot
I thought was great. You had that fan in the
front row who took his leg off. You see Montez
for He's about to go to the next spot. He's
like grabbing one of the ladders and he looks over

(01:19:29):
and he sees this guy, like take my leg, take
my leg. He's like, yeah, fuck it, give me the leg. Atsa,
he incorporated it into the match. He used the leg,
and he tossed it back to the guy. Not the
first time we've seen a prosthetic leg used on WWE
television before. I guess the last time would be Zach
Gowan in two thousand and three, and then obviously the
mad Dog Vashon spot in ninety six and the Shawn

(01:19:49):
Michaels diesel match. So I thought that was great, Uh,
crowd participation there, But these guys just, you know, they
went out there and they just they killed each other
in this match, and the fans, you know, they went
nuts for it. This was the real Like, I look
at this, the MotorCity machine Guns haven't had that one

(01:20:11):
match yet in their WWE run that you could really
point to, like their Magnum Opus and say, if you
got to see a MotorCity machine Guns match, like, you
gotta see this match, right, They had no matches like
that in WWE yet now they do. Now they do,
So I was happy for them, you know, for that
reason at least. But yeah, I just thought overall, I

(01:20:34):
thought it was an excellent match. The spot that what
was it, the spot where I think Champo was hanging
and there was Angelo Dawkins spear through a table down below,
and there were some people comparing it to the Edge
and Jeff Hardy spot from WrestleMania seventeen. It was nothing
like that spot, and it didn't It didn't land exactly

(01:20:56):
the way they wanted it to. It didn't have like
the full impact. I think Dawkins landed feet first whatever
it was, so it didn't look great. But like again,
it was just an example of these guys going out
there and just throwing their bodies into the most dangerous
situations they can imagine because they were trying to pop
this crowd and make memorable moments, and they did in

(01:21:16):
this match, so it was great stuff. I was one
of the better WWETV matches that will end up seeing
all year. Kudos to all six of those guys. I
don't know where the Street Profits go now. They've been feuding.
It feels like they've been feuding with DIY and the
machine guns end pretty deadly for six months. It feels
like that's why, you know, Fraxium now being on the roster,

(01:21:40):
that's why you want to start feeding them wins like
they did tonight, so you can really build them up.
But they're going to have to first go through DIY
and the machine guns before they eventually get the profits.
I don't know what else the Street Profits are going
to be doing right now. It felt like they reached
that peak last week and there's really nobody on tap as.
The obvious next challengers for them, Angel Lomberto are doing

(01:22:03):
whatever they're doing with you know, Escabar and Andrade. I
don't know who's next. Can't go to Phraxium, it's too soon.
I don't know. I don't know who's next for them,
But the women got the main event on this show.
Speaking of tag teams, it was Tiffany Stratton and Jade
Cargill first time ever as tag team partners, taking on

(01:22:24):
Naya Jacks and Naomi The Heels jump started the match.
All four women started brawling. Tiffany split off with Nya,
Jade split off with Naomi. Tiffany ran Naya into the
ring steps. Nya ran Tiffany into the barricade. We skip ahead.
After the final break, Tiffany took Naya over with a

(01:22:44):
crucifix pin that Nya kicked out of. Jax came back
with a samo and drop. She hit the ropes. She
was coming off with a leg drop as she hit
the ropes, though Naomi was there and Naomi tagged herself in.
So after Nya lands the leg drop, she can't pin
because she's not the legal woman. So she was very
upset about this and Naomi told her basically, get the

(01:23:06):
hell out, so she dragged Tiffany over for a split
legged moonsalt in the corner. Tiffany got the knees up,
though Jade got the hot tag. She ran wild. She
I believe licked Naomi before giving her a choke slim.
What is with people I'm noticing this with the women.
Who is the one in aw who O Penelope Ford

(01:23:29):
right licks her opponents in the middle of a match.
I've seen Mariah May, I think, do the same thing,
and now we have Jade. It makes me miss Katrina
from Luke Underground the Lick of Death. I don't know
what's with all the licking, you know, we need in

(01:23:52):
this company. That was the TV show Monk on USA
with Tony Shaloub, and I think he was like a
big germophobe. We need like a German. I'm a phobe
character in WWE. Like he's in a backstage segment talking
to somebody and you know, a person walks away and
all he just he pulls out the hand sanitizer and
starts sanitizing his hands. I don't know, I feel like

(01:24:16):
that gimmick can get over with the right person. Anyway.
After the lick, she choke slammed her, went for the pin,
and Nya broke it up. She dragged Naomi back to
their corner and tagged herself in running sentan on Jade
from Nya. She covered her Tiffany, though hit a swanton

(01:24:37):
bomb off the top to break up that pin. Attempt,
Naomi ran in to go after Tiffany and things broke down.
At this point, Tiffany was punching Naomi in the corner
when Nya charged in and squashed both of them. Then
she squashed Jade in the opposite corner and set up
for the annihilator, but Jade got up before she could
come off the ropes. She snuck underneath her. She got

(01:24:57):
in a power bomb position and she powerbombed Naya Jacks
out of the corner and Jade gets the pin to
win the match for the baby Faces. Even more reason
to believe that Naya Jacks is absolutely winning this match
next week and becoming the number one contender. After the match,

(01:25:19):
as the referee went to go hand the title to Tiffany,
Jade grabbed it and she put the title over her
shoulder and she posed with it for a few seconds.
Jade came face to face with Tiffany until Naomi attacked
Jade from behind, knocked her into Tiffany, and then the
show closed with Naomi posing with the Women's World Championship.

(01:25:39):
Solid stuff here in this match from these four and
it was nice to see the Women's champion featured in
a native vent match here on this show. But again,
the Tiffany and Naya stuff, it just it feels like filler.
It's just hard for me to get excited about something
that really played itself out in peaked months ago. A
very flat show, very flat show with a very flat crowd,

(01:26:03):
but they were not exactly given a whole hell of
a lot to get excited about. This episode was a miss.
And I you know, john Sen is coming out now
and he's counting down the number of appearances that he
has left. He did that on Monday night. Was it
twenty seven, twenty six? Something like that? I too am
counting down. I am counting down the number of weeks,

(01:26:24):
the number of episodes left until SmackDown moves back to
two hours. I feel like we should have a party,
We should have a celebration that night, because there are
ways to make a three hour wrestling show work. Although
I don't believe any wrestling show should be three hours
on a weekly basis. I don't care how good the
show is. I feel see. I am of the belief

(01:26:45):
that you give people just enough, but you leave them
wanting more. And it just feels like everything with these
wrestling shows now, it's all about like quantity over quality.
How many matches can we squeak into this pay per view?
How many hours of content can we give them? And
the problem is, you know, they get paid for the
extra content. So if USA Network goes to Vince McMahon

(01:27:08):
twelve years ago and says, hey, we want to have
a third hour of Rule, We'll pay you fifty million
dollars a year, It's like, oh shit, okay, sure, even
if it's to the detriment of the television show. And
I hate that. I just liked the idea of Oh man,
that was a great show. I can't believe it's over.
It flew by. I can't wait for next week. The
problem is SmackDown is just not a very good show,

(01:27:32):
like even at two hours, so you have three hours
of it and it just it just makes it that
much more insufferable to sit through. But we're almost there.
We only have a few more weeks. We won't have
to wait too much longer. John Cena is back on
the show next week. No surprise there, because it's twenty

(01:27:53):
four hours before Backlash, so he was on the final
SmackDown before WrestleMania, so he'll be on the final SmackDown
before or Backlash next week, And so you know there
will be no SmackDown review next week because I will
be in Chicago. I am calling the House of Glory Shows,
so that is where I will be. But I will
be back in time. I don't know when I'm getting
back on Saturday, but I will be here for the

(01:28:13):
Backlash post show. But there will be no SmackDown review
next week, so just be aware of that. What did
you think of SmackDown in Des Moines, Iowa tonight? Ouch?
Look at this twenty seven point six percent thumbs up,
roughly thirty percent thumbs in the middle, and forty two
point six percent thumbs down. Yes, it was a very

(01:28:37):
boring show. I do not disagree. It was just a bore.
Don't know what else to say. You know when it's boring,
I'm gonna tell you. Get to your messages here. I

(01:29:04):
know we got a big one earlier from Oh, there's
our bro, there's our boy, there's Psycho Sidrow. I didn't
even notice Psycho Sidrow is with us tonight. He remembered us.
I've got to pull double duty and do a stream
while I do commentary. Well, how do you how do

(01:29:27):
you expect me to watch two shows at the same time.
How am I? How am I gonna pull that off? Huh?
Smart guy, how's that gonna work? Uh? Dried Chicken without

(01:29:47):
Flavor says I'm sad that Dakota Kai has been released.
She should have been the first intercontinental champion. You will
get bird Girl and you will like it. Laker's pat says,
say what you want of Russo, at least he gave
everyone a storyline in a two hour show. How does
WWE not realize that everybody? Oh? How does WWE not

(01:30:10):
utilize everyone with all of their shows? Well, because they
can only focus on so many things at once, or
else they get a headache. I mean, you would think
with the number of writers they have, it shouldn't be
too hard of an issue. But the issue is that
there's only so many hours of TV. I feel like

(01:30:31):
half half of their shows are nothing but just commercials
and advertisements or plugs for something, or hey, we got
a new UFC fighter in the crowd. We got some
Netflix a list, not even a list, fucking f list.
You know, co star on some new Netflix show that's
going to be pulled after three months. Hey he's in

(01:30:53):
the front railway, you know, and so half the show
is spent on just nonsense and bullshit. So when you
really break it down, even on a three hour show,
what do you actually have, you know, as far as
TV time for the talent, maybe ninety minutes realistically, that's
the issue. I mean, there's only so much television time.

(01:31:14):
It feels like, man, they have so much content, like
too much content, but it's still a very limited amount
of time, you know, And it will be worse, it
will make that problem worse when Smackdam moves back to
two hours. But I'm sorry, that's I'm willing to accept
that because I just I can't stand the show at
three hours, So that's okay with me. They'll have to

(01:31:38):
make it work. Dried Chicken says Cody Rhoads in The
Rock Pro Wrestling is Cool in twenty twenty four, John
Cena and Triple h ruin Pro Wrestling in twenty twenty five.
I mean, they're not just pulling the curtain back, man,
They're ripping the curtain off. It's like taking a shower

(01:31:59):
with no curtain. That would be weird unless you're in
a locker room or something, I guess, but I'd be
in there wearing a bathing suit. You ain't gonna see me.
Holiday one ninety seven says, Hey, Solo, curious to know
your thoughts on last week's TLC match. The MotorCity machine
guns would now benefit from being drafted to raw. They

(01:32:21):
would be and I just talked about the TLC match,
so hopefully that answered your question. Hey, we got fire
Panda coming in, and Fire Panda is before I even
went live, Fire Panda dropped a fifty dollars bomb. Thank you,

(01:32:42):
fire It's so early it's not even showing up in
the left hand column here. I have to look at
it in a separate screen. Fire Panda said to quote
Zengetsu because they put it perfectly. Well, we all knew
releases were coming, but what the fuck shout out to Zamgetsu.

(01:33:03):
Thank you, Firepanna. I hope you're having a good night.
I hope you're having a better night than the fifteen
people who lost their jobs. Ron says, feel like wwe
underutilize Gigi and Cora. These talents get cut while they
tout record gates and are paying Pat McAfee and Travis
Scott to wrestle. Well, you don't have to like it.

(01:33:28):
I don't necessarily like it, but Travis Scott and Pat
McAfee are going to get more eyeballs for WWE than
Oro menso Will or Javier Bernal or Jakara Jackson or
Dakota Kai. That's the business decision that they're making. Doesn't

(01:33:55):
make it, doesn't make it right, but that's the way
it is. Jerome says, Happy Friday, Everyone, Happy Friday. Jerome
Dark Effect. Mister Peabody wants to know if you had
use of the wayback machine you're talking about the website

(01:34:15):
or an actual wayback machine, what time period would you
visit in wrestling history and why interesting? You know what?
For me, it would be the mid eighties, because I
think it would be fun to follow classic eighties NWA

(01:34:38):
in real time. I didn't, you know, at that time.
I grew up watching WWF and I didn't really get
exposed to the NWAWW stuff until later on, like early nineties,
and that was really just WCW Saturday Night. I missed
a lot of really cool shit back in the eighties
that would have been fun to experience in real time.

(01:34:59):
So ye know that like mid to late eighties period
was like the wrestling boom, like, to me, that's that's
like the best period in wrestling, So I would go
back to that. If not that, I would go back
to nineteen ninety seven. I think nineteen ninety seven is
WWE's real creative breakout year. I still feel like two

(01:35:22):
thousand is their best creative year, but ninety seven is
what set the table for everything that followed. And yeah,
they were in the middle of the Monday Night War,
you know with WCW, A guy's jumping back and forth.
So either one of those would be great. Prince Pageta,
it's a downgrade for McIntyre to be in a mid

(01:35:44):
card title match, just like it was a downgrade facing
Priest at WrestleMania. I just hope he doesn't take the
losing fall. Give that man another world title. There's no
way he's taking the losing fall in that match. I
that would be stupid. I'm fairly certain that won't happen.

(01:36:05):
Holiday says, I'd like to see Drew McIntyre win money
in the bank in June. He needs to have another
world title run later this year. Interestingly, Drew would then
be one of two people to hold two consecutive money
in the banks with cmpunk interesting EJ. Slim as a

(01:36:27):
Mets fan. Do you remember Generation k Oh? Yes? I do.
Did it hurt seeing two busts while Jason Isringhausen became
an all star closer with three hundred saves elsewhere? Yeah? Yeah?
Is it Isringhausen? Uh? Is it pulsive? And Paul Wilson, Yeah,

(01:36:54):
I remember that they were They were supposed to be
the future didn't quite work out that way. Josh Herman says,
I'm so happy that I get to see Naya Jackson.
The main event of SmackDown over Alexa Bliss makes absolute
sense by Triple H. I cut this show off as
soon as they announced that main event. Absolute trash, he says.

(01:37:18):
Josh Herman was not a fan of that. I can't
say that I blame him. Joseph Stewart. Do you know
why Hulk Hogan went back to the Red and Yellow
in w CW in nineteen ninety nine? Yes, because the
nWo had run its course and so it was time
to go back to the Red and Yellow. Brother. There
was nothing left for him to do, is Hollywood Hogan.

(01:37:40):
He had already been doing it for three years at
that point, so he went back to his tried and true.
Yo Yo Sup says releasing Dakota, Braun, Cora, etc. An
hour before a show is bad enough, but to release
them and then put three hours of bad TV on
is infuriating. It is especially when you see some names

(01:38:06):
on that list that you know could have contributed to
the show and then they give you bad TV. Joseph says,
were you a fan of Billy Kidman in WW and
what was your favorite Billy Kidman match in WCW. I
liked Kidman. I don't have a favorite Kidman match. I

(01:38:29):
didn't like him that much that I have a list
of my favorite Billy Kidman matches. I used to hold
my breath every time he would hit that shooting star
press because he was just it always looks so reckless.
I think he almost killed Choppa with it once. Yoyo

(01:38:50):
says this year hasn't been very blissful. I think bliss
fan would agree. Justin g if it's a consolations, solos
cheeks aren't red. I thought that's a concussion. Okay, justin

(01:39:10):
thank you, alexand oh you talk about the rumble punch. Yeah,
I think it's mostly worn off by now. It was
a little rough there for a while. Really that ten
percent alcohol by volume hit me seagrums. You got you
got a strong product there. I just gotta I gotta
try the other the other two. Now, let me let

(01:39:34):
me see this. Hold it. I have the card over here.
Send me this this neat little card here with with
the box. The the Rumble Punch, which is the one
that I was drinking earlier. It's a bold mix of watermelon, strawberry, guava,

(01:39:54):
and lemon flavors that delivers a ten percent ABV punch
to your taste buds. So the other two that they
sent me. One is Pineapple Powerhouse, which is a triple
threat flavor combination of sweet pineapple, fiery cherry, and a
lime finisher. And then the other one is Slamming Blueberry.

(01:40:21):
The fight for flavor just got real. It's got a
bold blueberry flavor with a tart lemon taste, packing a
ten percent alcohol by volume punch that will have you
coming back for more. There you go, man, these are
you want to get a buzz going? These are pretty good.

(01:40:42):
So I might try the blueberry one next. We'll see
you know on Tuesday. Actually Tuesday is going to be
my one year anniversary. Of doing Tuesday Night Titans with JD.
So you know we'll be having a little celebration. I
may save I may save one these for Tuesday Night.

(01:41:03):
Maybe I'll drink them both. I'll double fist twenty percent
alcohol by volume. I might pass out during the show
if I do that. The Rumble Punch, though, taste wise,
I liked it. I didn't know what to expect, but

(01:41:24):
I mean I enjoyed it. The other two we'll see, Alexander,
thank you for the nine ninety nine says. I'm still
bummed about that Dakota release. I still feel Lyra winning
the belt was mistake. Dakota could have had to run

(01:41:46):
as the face of damage control against Ivy Nile and
Roxane Perez. She could have, Yeah, she could have solo.
Monster gets drunk and ruins his career live on YouTube. Well,
that would be pretty shitty, wouldn't it, Especially since I

(01:42:08):
just gave up the PR job. That would be a
bad move, alex with the twenty five brother solo. Today
has been an awful day with news from the roster
cuts to the evident delay of GTA six to May

(01:42:29):
of twenty twenty six. What are your thoughts on the delay.
I don't know if the game's ever coming out. I
kind of think it's never gonna come out. They're just
gonna keep stringing people along for another few years. Honestly,
when I saw the news, I just laughed. I just laughed.

(01:42:55):
I'm seeing everybody freak out. I'm like, it's just like
a running gag at the point, and then you know,
like when the game drops, like it's there's no way
it could possibly live up to expectations, Like how many years?
How many years has it been since the last game.

(01:43:19):
It's just it's insane. Brandon Proctor with the twenty two.
It's the Veer of video games. Yes, it really is.
We will get a solo Monster. We will get Solo

(01:43:39):
Monster in a video game before we get GTA six twelve.
It hasn't been twelve years. Hasn't been that long, has it? Yeah?
Apparently it looks like I'm breaking this news to some
people here who aren't aware. Yes, Unfortunately, GTA six, according

(01:44:01):
to Rockstar, has been delayed. Who's supposed to come out
this year. It has been delayed now to May of
next year, twelve more months. You've got to wait. Brandon, though, says,
never got the chance to say it, but congrats on
eighty six thousand and well on the way to eighty seven.

(01:44:23):
Thank you, Brandon. We're right about halfway between eighty six
and eighty seven, so we're charging towards eighty seven thousand subs.
Sucks to hear about all the releases. Hope they're all
able to find work. Backlash is not looking great quite
the come down after that last two years. Yeah, I

(01:44:43):
mean that backlash from Puerto Rico two years ago. How
great was that? I still remember it was the opening match, right,
Bianca and Eo, and then of course we had the
priest and Bad Bunny, which was way more fun than
it had any right to be. Yeah, and I was
gonna say backlash in Leone, France last year with that crowd,
my god, and the Cody AJ match. I'll tell you

(01:45:10):
what though, Man, once that bell rings in Orton and Sena,
that crowd in Saint Louis is going to have to
do some heavy lifting. That's all I'm gonna say. Wow.
So GTA five twenty thirteen, September seventeen, twenty thirteen. Yeah,
but after GTA five, wasn't there like they have Vice

(01:45:35):
City and maybe that was Vice City. Okay, maybe it
was twelve years. That's that's crazy. Yeah, but you know what, though,
I'm still waiting on a proper sequel or prequel to Cloverfield,
and that came out in two thousand and eight, and
supposedly they're working on an actual, like direct sequel. This time.

(01:45:57):
I heard that two years ago. I haven't heard anything
new about it. Oh my god. Look, there's Vato Sting.
He doesn't appear very That's Sting. He doesn't appear very often,
but there he is, Vato Sting in one of our supergens.
You thought you knew all of Sting's gimmicks, but you

(01:46:19):
never saw Vato Sting, did you? Vice City came after
GTA three. Wow? Okay, so my timeline was way off.
Chris O'Neill. Nikita Lions still having a job is diabolical.

(01:46:43):
Nikita Lions actually is now working. I think Evolve It
takes a lot. It says a lot when you are
effectively demoted from developmental to the developmental of developmental. Maybe
she'll be on the next season of LFG Dark Effect

(01:47:04):
with a twenty. I tried to buy tickets for Raw
on May twelve because my kids specifically my daughter loved
wrestling and WWE. However, the middle of the road tickets
were about three hundred dollars plus tax, would have ended
up paying over a grand and sadly I just can't.
We are seven out of ten. I just noticed on

(01:47:25):
the super check goal for the bonus be the booker,
so we're only three away. We're getting at least one
round to be the booker, which is good because we
didn't do one on Wednesday night because apparently nobody gives
a fuck about dynamite, so it was a dead night.
It was quite the comedown, I will say, from raw
and from Wrestle Badia week. But we easily hit the

(01:47:49):
likes Gold tonight. So we're doing at least at least
one round. That's my measure of like how hot or
cold the aw product is, and certainly doesn't feel hot
to me right now. Yo Yo says, what live on
Hiatus Alexa and Nikki in the Levech Penitentiary and the

(01:48:09):
releases today? Is the tag division dead? What could be
done in the short term? Nothing? The women's tag team
division is dead. There's there's really nothing to do. Nick
Caden and Carter being released is fucking criminal. They were

(01:48:30):
the best pure tag team the women's division had in
ring and they never even really bothered with them. It's
a waste. It absolutely is a waste. They could have
done more with them, they chose not to. I don't know,
I don't know why. I don't know why. I mean,

(01:48:52):
you don't get any disagreement from me. Uh, what do
you call a nurse with dirty knees? The head nurse? Okay,
all right, yo yo says maybe Cora got heat with

(01:49:14):
Triple H and Becky with that tweet, with that tweet?
Which tweet are we talking about? There's so many of them.
Which tweet are we talking about? Here? Gowan can't can't
believe there was a Vato's thing. Yes there was. So
you learn something new when you tune in. You never

(01:49:36):
know what you're going to say. We have Psycho Sidrow
channel member for ten months, learned the word for constipation
in German. Far from poopen that was. That was awful
and quietest place I lived is right a a bowling alley,

(01:50:02):
so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Hey, you
guys are just you guys are just full of them tonight,
aren't you? Who remembers the movie Short Circuit and the
Los Loco song. It might have been the second movie.

(01:50:22):
I don't remember. It's the first movie or the second movie.
That lost Loco song still lives in my head. Duffs
Vis how many? Uh ohez? Thank you? Duffs oh Man.

(01:50:44):
The Mount Burning Kid Christopher Bennett solo after seeing this
nonsense with our truth again, Please don't tell me, he
gets involved and screws Randy. Oh. I think there's a chance.
I mean, I put it out there. I don't know
what the percentages. I can't really put a percentage on it,
but I think it's possible. Uh Sidow broke up with

(01:51:09):
my girlfriend Lorraine because I was seeing another girl named
Claire Lee. Good news is that I can you got me,
You got me with that one. You got me with

(01:51:32):
that one. Just broke up with my girlfriend Lorraine because
I was seeing another girl named Claire Lee. Good news
is I can see I can see Claire Lee. I
can see clearly now Lorraine has gone. My god. I
bet you feel really good about yourself right now, don't you?
You should? You should? That doesn't happen very often, Near

(01:51:59):
says just a mad if truth screws orton the reaction
in Saint Louis. Well, it's Saint Louis, but I kind
of like Saint Louis better stuff's VIDs. Why can't you
have sex after playing Assassin's Creed because UBI soft? Oh?

(01:52:22):
I think I said that wrong? All right? I butchered it.
I completely butchered the punchline. Why can't you have sex
after playing Assassin's Creed because you be soft? There you go,
that's my fault. I butchered the punchline. There the way

(01:52:44):
I said it doesn't make any sense. We got bro Lee,
says Mariah May is one of the smartest ones out there.
Her dream is WWE, but she went to make a
name for herself first, and now she is a superstar. Yeah,
I mean not. There were a lot of people who
didn't know about her. I knew of her, and I

(01:53:07):
had seen some of her matches, but I didn't really
see a lot of her work until she came to
AW and then I was blown away by just pretty
much everything she did. I just think as a television personality,
as a character in that storyline, she shined. And then
her in ring work is very good now and she
learned over in Japan, so she's not afraid to go

(01:53:28):
in there and you know, hit somebody or get hit.
So I just think she's fun to watch all around.
She's got that charisma, she's got that look. I mean,
she just looks like a star. And she will do
very well when she goes to WWA, and I have
no doubt she will end up in WWAH. Dinard changed

(01:53:57):
the name to Legends and Future Endeavor that probably would
be more accurate. And we did hit the goal. We
are now ten out of ten. There we go. We're
getting a double dose of be the Booker in just

(01:54:18):
a few moments here, Alexander. They could have fired Tozawa, Nikita, Lyons,
pretty Deadly Befab and some of the LWO and Logato
del Fantasma, and that I would not have shed a tear. Well,
I mean, that's just dumb. I don't want to see
any of those people get fired. Why would you want
to see those people lose their jobs? Would it really

(01:54:42):
make a difference in terms of the on air product
right now? No, because every single one of those people
that you just named, like some of the people in
these releases tonight, are highly expendable because They're just not
in a real prominent position right now, so it just
makes it easy for the company to dispose of them

(01:55:03):
if they want to get rid of them. But to
say that I want to see, I mean, you just
rattled off like half a dozen different people. I don't
want to see those people lose their job, Broley. Had
Mariah signed with WWE after her run and stardom, she
might have been on this list tonight. I'm gonna say

(01:55:25):
she wouldn't have been on this list. That's why her
run on AAW is important. She is now an asset.
She's definitely in a much better position now than she
would have been if she would have just come straight
to WWE, and if she wanted to stay in AAW
and sign one more contract and then go to WWE.
It's smart too, because she could just be using this
for negotiating leverage. She's in a great position right now

(01:55:48):
no matter what she does, because she's gonna make really
good money no matter where she goes still have visibility
on television, and when that contract is up, she'll still
be young, hungkin. She'll be able to go wherever she
wants to go. So she's in the cap birds Sea
right now, she can pretty much do whatever she wants.
Alexander says, WWE could have fired the Rock for that

(01:56:11):
bullshit Wrestlemante of forty one ending and save so much money.
If they wanted to cut expenses that badly, they could
have fired the Rock. You realize he's on the board
of directors right I don't believe he's even working with
a talent contract. It's gonna be awfully hard to do that.

(01:56:41):
Dried Chicken says WWE is better off creating a third
women's title belt to replace the women's tag belts. I'll
just watch the Knockouts Tag Team Division over WWE. Yeah,
I don't know why you would even suggest creating a
third women's title belt. That's a terrible idea. They already
have four of them, five if you count the tag belts.

(01:57:03):
But they have four of them already, What do they
need another one for? Joyo says Alexa against Tiffany is
better than Tiffany against the Fridge. Alexa against Tiffany, we
haven't seen that yet, haven't we. Alexander, Tiffany against Stephanie
Vicaire would slap, Yes, it would imagine Stephanie Vicaire and

(01:57:30):
Mariah May in a feud that would be great. The
mount Vernon Kid says, after thirty six months of Channel membership,
I feel so low that they should have just left
the tag team titles for the women in NXT. It
made more sense to have it on that promotion. It
still does because the competition down there is so much

(01:57:52):
better than it would be on the main roster. They
could always transition the belts back to NXT. I wouldn't
have an issue with that Darth panic. Our truth is
the third man, he says the Juliette with a twenty
dollars super chat. Weird coincidence that yesterday I was thinking
that Orton should punk kick Sina since we were robbed

(01:58:14):
of one at WrestleMania, and tonight Orton threatened to punk
kick him through the Saint Louis Arches. Also five more
to the be the booker goal. You could tell this
came thirty minutes ago. Nick Grosso, where are the where
are Alexa Blis and the Wyat's six. Alexa could have
been a fresh addition to the women's title scene, especially

(01:58:36):
with the pops that she was getting. I mean, brother,
I have no idea. I don't know why you would
squander that reaction that she got. I mean, we're already
a few weeks removed from WrestleMania. Is still no sign.
I have no idea what's going on? Hydro grad p

(01:58:56):
w Insider just reported that TNA has banned excessive blood
and blading. What are your thoughts. I think it's great.
I think blood should be used sparingly only in certain
situations that makes it more effective. I don't have an
issue with that. If it's also if it's for safety reasons,

(01:59:20):
then even better, I have no issue with that. Yo
Yo says I need a joint end seagrums after this show. Well,
you can't get a rumble punch from me because it's
already gone, or most of it is anyway retro Koh.
Imagine justifying all these extra women's titles, then scrapping people

(01:59:41):
who could fill that division. Just get rid of the
extra belts. Damn it. Triple H. Moxley will not be
in TNA. No, John Moxley will not be signing with
TNA Wrestling DX Extreme MWe. This song is like a

(02:00:05):
living four Horsemen montage. You're talking about hard Line. I
believe Hardline by Sandman is the song that you are
referring to. I'll play that again here in a second.
It's great. I love it. Well. This one is actually
the one playing right now is also a little bit richie.

(02:00:26):
Did you know the rock band people from messaging him
on Instagram unless he follows you on Instagram. I'm surprised
it took him this long. I don't think that people
should be allowed to send you a message unless you
want them to same thing on Twitter. I think that's
the way it should be. I don't know why it

(02:00:50):
took him this long. EJ. Slamp. Ten years ago, you
picked uh join a Cesspitis as a Mets player who
would make a good pro wrestler? Who on the current
roster would you pick today, on the current Mets roster
who would be a good pro wrestler? You know what?

(02:01:11):
I think that the I think the Polar Bear. I
think the Polar Bear would actually make a good pro wrestler.
Josh Herman solo. I was at the midnight release of
GTA five back when that was a thing. If that helps,

(02:01:34):
So what are they gonna do with GTA six if
they have a midnight release? I mean, people will literally
be trampled, like going into Walmart to pick up a
copy of this game. Like if they've been waiting thirteen years,
people are gonna die. Like if they have a like
a midnight release. I shudder to think what that's going
to look like. The Juliet Tanahashi and aj Style will

(02:02:00):
have their retirement matches before GTA six comes out. Also,
best wishes to Spurs coach Greg Popovitch on his retirement.
I did see that. I noticed that earlier on ESPN
dot com that Popovich I believe retired. I don't know
if there was a specific reason, if there's a health reason,
but all the best to him. Yeah, I mean I

(02:02:27):
know things are digital now, but don't they still have that.
They still have midnight releases where people go by the
physical media, don't they. It's not all digital, is it.
Holliday says WWE needs to focus on building the mid
card to determine the next top stars. Many of their
top guys are in their forties and can't rely on

(02:02:48):
them in ten years. Well, I mean that's what they
should be doing with people like Carmelo Hayes for example.
Tiffany Stratton is very young. It's not like they don't
have people on the main roster right now, who are
still relatively new, relatively young. But yeah, I mean they

(02:03:11):
do have a lot of stars on the roster who
are aging out slowly but shortly. I mean, look, they
debut the MotorCity machine Guns this past year, right after
eighteen years together, they finally made their debut in WWE.
But it's not like they're spring chickens anymore. Got John
Cena on TV, Got Randy Orton. Cody's probably right around

(02:03:33):
forty right, just shy of forty bringing back Alistair Black
and Miro and these people. I mean, you want to
have a mix of big names, you know, older veterans
and younger talents. They have a ton of younger talent
and NXT right now. They're not all ready to be
on the main roster yet, but yeah, when you have

(02:03:53):
people like Trick Williams and Obafemi and I mean Ricky Starks,
even Ricky Starks is probably what thirty four maybe thirty five?
You know what I can't wrap my head around. I
just I remember I remember when Bob Backlan came back
to WWE in ninety two early ninety three, and the

(02:04:21):
story was like he's the former champion, the old guy
coming back for one more run and he was forty three,
And I'm like, it just doesn't compute with me. I
just think people younger looked older back then. There's something

(02:04:43):
about like back then, like in the eighties especially, like
people were not that old, but they looked a lot
older than that. Like arn Anderson I think was born
looking like that. I think arn Anderson was born looking
middle aged. I Backham was forty three. Crazy, justin g

(02:05:14):
I really can't afford this, but someone's got to get
us two away from Bonus. Be the booker. Seriously, which
release surprises you the most and why, aside from the
retirement of the Stroman Express Love you chat? Yeah, Earth Earthquake,
that's right, Earthquake. Think about that. When Earthquake had that

(02:05:35):
feud with Hogan in nineteen ninety, I think he was
twenty six years old. That's crazy. Rick Flair was born
looking like an old man. Now, the older you are

(02:05:56):
or the older you get, the younger you look. Well,
that's that's certainly true in my case. That's what's so
crazy about it. Like I think back to that Backland
thing and they were really pushing like he's like the
old guy I'm like the age that he was at then,
like I'm right there, like I my mind, just I can't.

(02:06:18):
I can't accept that. As far as yes, the Stroman
Express is hereby retired, unfortunately there will there will be
no more Stroman Express. Pour one out for the Stroman Express.
The train has been taken off the tracks. It is
being put in uh in the garage. Perhaps one day

(02:06:40):
it will reappear and be dusted off, but it will
be some time before you see the Stroman Express again. Dude,
up until like a few years ago, I would still
occasionally walk into like a liquor store and be carted
like it's insane. The release that surprised me the most

(02:07:05):
though with Stroma I mean again, I talked about this
at the beginning of the stream. It was the Stroman
one eight nine techs Sina Senior to make a cameo
to punt orton maybe Sina will attack Cowboy Bob if
he's there power spying Games. Nikita has been played by
acl Tears, partly because of her wrestling style. Also, I

(02:07:27):
doubt her heart is in the business and give that
Claire Lee joke a b the booker Bell m Mills,
thank you for not only the one twenty dollars super Chat,
but the two forty in total from m Mills. Always
coming in the clutch, Alex says, you think both Britt

(02:07:56):
and Mariah come to WWE in the next twelve months,
and if so, that women's division is going to be insane.
I don't think Britt does. I think Mariah does. I
don't know what BRIT's contract status is, and I don't
think they need her right now. Cripple Punk ninety one.
I like to tell Dad jokes sometimes he laughs. That's

(02:08:20):
some weird like Dad joke inception there, but it works.
It's actually very clever. Psycho Sidro, I met a woman
outside the mall crying. She had lost two hundred dollars,
so I gave her forty dollars from the I gave

(02:08:43):
her forty dollars from the two hundred that I found.
When God blesses you, you must bless others bless you, Sidro. Alex, Well,
you're on fire tonight, Ali. With Saturday Night's main event

(02:09:04):
and Double or Nothing being on the twenty fourth and
the twenty fifth, respectively, are we looking at a busy
weekend for Solo in terms of post show reviews. It
will be a busy weekend for me. I will not
be here on the twenty fourth. I have a party
to go to, so I am skipping out on Saturday

(02:09:27):
Night's main event that night. But I will be doing
a podcast the next day, and I will very likely
be going live god knows what hour for a double
or nothing. Yeah, I will not be here that Saturday night.
I am busy, but thankfully there is a podcast the

(02:09:48):
next day so I can watch it when I get
home and cover it on there. Even though I will
I will be losing money that night, but it's just
the way it has to be. Look, I'm already looking
ahead to June seventh. You know, June seventh is going
to be a very busy day. Got World's end, got
money in the bank, We have House of Glory that night.

(02:10:13):
I will be at House of Glory, so I'm trying
to figure that out. I don't know how that's gonna work. Luis,
oh our boy, Luis is here. Randy Orton should be
going to TNA and demanding a TNA World Heavyweight Championship
match against Joo Hendry. I don't know where that w

(02:10:36):
came from. Rest in peace, ruth boozy or buzzy boozy.
That don't mean to laugh, but like that sounded like
a descriptive term, ruth buzzy. Well, I don't know who
jow Hendry is, but Randy Orton should be going for

(02:10:58):
a TNA World Heavyweight Championship match. I I don't think
he cares about the TNA World Heavyweight Titlener says, why
Dave can't eat ice cream? He melts her. It's good

(02:11:21):
to see Robert e Lee with us tonight in the
chat waiting for being the booker. Richie says, what is
your opinion about the Rocks comment to Dave talk about Legreca.
I got a whole video on that brother, fifty thousand views.
It's right here on this very channel. You should go
check it out. Number one, almost sapian. What is worse

(02:11:43):
than two girls running with scissors? Two girls scissoring with
the runs? I can't debate that that would be pretty
pretty bad. God, it's actually quite disgusting now that you

(02:12:03):
mentioned that, two girls scissoring with the runs. There's a
visual for you. We got a classy bunch here. Well,
thank you for the likes. We are at five hundred
and twenty eight likes. We hit our goal in the
chat as well, which means we're going to make up

(02:12:24):
for Wednesday. We're going to make up for that Dynamite stream.
And we got two installments of Be the Booker and
Chris Manson just unlocked. We don't get too many of these.
He has unlocked his blue skull in the chat, a
channel member, a sound Off legend for forty eight months.
Look at that blue skull. Blues my favorite color. So anyway,

(02:12:49):
Nick Grosso, I don't know if I don't know if
you heard Hogan's latest lie saying that he wrestled Lesner
after his ufcun what is your opinion on Real American
Freestyle wrestling? Tune into the podcast this weekend. I'll be
talking about it there. But yes, that is not the
first time Hogan has told that lie. By the way,

(02:13:11):
he told that lie two years ago on Joe Rogan's show.
So people saying, oh, it's a brand new lie, like, no,
it's a lie, but it's a lie that he's told before.
I'll talk about that lie and a Real American Freestyle
wrestling Sunday on the SoundOff. That's called a tease. You'll

(02:13:32):
have to tune in. Let's be the booker. Ladies and gentlemen.
It is now time to be the booker. I don't
you know if you were to show this image right
here of John Cena and Randy Orton to somebody who
knew nothing about wrestling, and there was no context to
this whatsoever, I I would think that they they might

(02:13:55):
think this is something else. This was from their I
quit match at breaking point in two thousand and nine.
All Right, be the booker time round number one. I
know you guys are excited. I know I am. Tag

(02:14:19):
team be the booker. Let's take it for a spin
and we land on the USOS. Jimmy and Jay throw
up the ones for the USOS. Wwe, what have you believed?
The greatest tag team of all time? The USOS fifty

(02:14:39):
Shades of Cina. All right, the USOS against sing the song? Everybody,
everybody sing the song. American Males, American males, American males,

(02:15:00):
Scottie Riggs and Marcus Alexander Bagwell. Long before he was buff,
he was Marcus Alexander Bagwell. I feel like the American Males,
they were not a bad team. And I feel like
the American Males against the Ussos could be a a

(02:15:20):
good match, so I gave it the bell American Males,
American Males. I sometimes forget the lyrics to that song.
It's very complicated. All right, Women's be the booker. We
begin with Willow Willow, Willow Nightingale. Willow is great, Willow

(02:15:52):
Nightingale is gonna be taken on Tiffany Stratton. This is
Tiffany Stratton with Julia's hair, and Julie's got to bring
back the braids. Julie's got to bring back the braids.

(02:16:15):
And our main event of the evening, the match that
sold the tickets, the match that put the asses every
eighteen inches, begins with the bad guy, Razor Ramone and
Razor Ramone, we'll be facing who. Let's find out build

(02:16:36):
the anticipation a little bit. Raisor Ramone against the mizz
We were on our way to a clean sweep and
then this happened. Why do I have deja vu? Why
do I feel like I've booked this match before? Well?

(02:17:02):
That ruined it because I don't want that to be
my main event. We could do better. I know we
could do better. Did we just have this? I feel
like I feel like I've booked this match before. I
feel like I booked this match last week, and I

(02:17:24):
buzzed it then, and I buzzed it now, and if
it comes up again next week, I'm gonna buzz it again.
Say I knew I wasn't crazy. We did do that
last week. Look at this misruined another main event. All right, well,
now we get to do it again, but this time
we get to pick stipulations. We were so close. All right,

(02:17:52):
We're gonna book a tag team match first, and it's
gonna be Oh no, it's the yap up Hi strap match.
We are booking a Yappa Pie strap match. And yes,

(02:18:14):
this was a real thing. If you weren't a round back,
then don't ask. I'm just trying to think, can we
do a tag match with that stipulation? Though probably not right.
We'll do a women's match first. Then, my apologies to
the ladies, but we're gonna have a Yappa Pie strap

(02:18:35):
match with the women. The women will have to strap
each other Yapa Pie style, and we begin with the
reigning AEWTBS champion, the belt collector. You too can get
private text messages from Mercedes Monette if you are a

(02:18:59):
super fan for just ninety nine dollars a month, you
can speak to your favorite wrestler. She she's an entrepreneur.
Now the CEO wants to hear from you for just
ninety nine dollars a month, and the CEO will be

(02:19:20):
in a Yappa Pie strap match against Dana Brook. No
clean sweeps tonight, not even one, not even one? Do
you believe this? All right? Our next match will be

(02:19:41):
a tag team inferno match. It's gonna get hot, feels
hot in here, all right? A tag team inferno match.
Somebody's gonna burn. Find out who Nikolai Volkov and the
Iron Chic, Oh Siky Baby is going to be in
an inferno match. Iron Chic and Nikolai Volkov. They will

(02:20:07):
be taking on Ramis Stereo and Batista. How are we
feeling about this match? Ramis Stereo and Batista against Nikolai
Volkov and the Iron Chic in an in an inferno match.
This is a total clash of generations here we have.
We have the mid eighties clashing with a stipulation from

(02:20:27):
the late nineties and a tag team from the mid
two thousands. This is quite the mix here, don't I
don't know which way to go on this. I'm leaning
towards Bell. It's interesting, isn't it. I mean, it's just
it's an interesting blend of of three different generations. I'm intrigued.

(02:20:54):
And last, but certainly not least, we have our main event,
which is going to be an APA Invitational. There you see,
I don't know what Bradshaw is doing. Where is Bradshaw's
right fist? I don't know what he is doing to
that Easter Bunny. But I'm sure not the only time

(02:21:14):
Bradshaw did something like that. But we won't get into
the drop soap story with Edge in the early days
of his career. But APA Invitational is going to be
our main event here, so there it is. This is
basically it's it's like a free for all barroom brawl.
The Easter Bunny is there, everybody is there. We begin

(02:21:37):
with We begin with Sting. We begin with Sting, Poor
poor Sting. Look at Sting in this image. Blood pouring
out of his Is that his tongue or is that
blood blood pouring out of his mouth? He just blood
pouring out of this man's mouth. This poor man Sting

(02:22:04):
in an APA Invitational against Bruno Sam Martino. What match Bruno,
San Martino and Sting basically in like a barroom brawl
and the Easter Bunny is there Bruno Sam Martin. Look

(02:22:25):
at that shitty belt around his way. Thankfully the title
belt evolved over the years. That is one shitty looking
title belt. I'm sorry, I think I'm gonna have to
add Vato Sting to be the booker. We can't just
have that image of Sting. We have surfer Sting, we
have crow Sting, we have Bloody Sting. And I don't

(02:22:46):
think Joker Sting is in there. He probably should be,
And I think I may need to add Vato Sting
to be the booker. That guy you don't want to
fuck with him, Crazy says I got to meet the
solomonster in my hometown of Chicago. Always listened to the
sound of during the long days. He says, I got
to oh, I okay, you have to meet Well, if

(02:23:08):
you want to meet me, I'll be in Chicago in
a week. You should be there. EJ says, if Brett
stays and Montreal doesn't happen, how do you think of
face Owen versus heel Brett would have been Would it
have worked? Yeah? I think it could have worked. I
don't know that they would have had an interest in

(02:23:29):
doing it, but yeah, I think it could have worked.
RDS Harry another great review as always, brother, Thank you Harry.
Always good to hear from Harry. Power Spying Games. We've
booked the Mizz and Razor before twenty twenty three. I
thought we booked it last week. He's saying we booked
it two years ago. Thank you all for hanging out

(02:23:52):
with me here for a very boring episode of SmackDown.
It ain't ever boring here though, No matter how boring
SmackDown might be, or how boring Dynamite might be, or
whatever we might be watching, we always try to make
it fun here, and you made it fun tonight. A
great way to kick off the month of May. Hopefully
we'll keep rocking and rolling like this again. There will

(02:24:14):
be no SmackDown review next Friday. I will not be here,
but I will be here on Monday, and I will
be here next Wednesday for Dynamite. So join me then.
Of course, as I mentioned, I'll be over on JD's
channel on Tuesday. It's going to be episode was it
ninety four that we're up to? But my one year
anniversary of a doing TNT. We just had an episode,

(02:24:35):
not this past one, but the previous week that is
actually close to eighty thousand views. Like we've been killing
it with the shows, and I appreciate all the support
here and there, and hit that like button on your
way out if you have not already done so, thank
you for all of the support. Be well, stay safe

(02:24:58):
ever yourself. Is a great weekend. What is tomorrow? Tomorrow's
May third, right, and then Sunday is episode nine eleven
of the sound off. May the fourth be with you.
We're gonna have some fun on the podcast as well.
Take care, guys, I'll see you back here soon.

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WWE Smackdown 5/2/25 Review | BLACK FRIDAY Releases Hit The Roster And A BORING SMACKDOWN

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}WWE Smackdown 5/2/25 Review | BLACK FRIDAY Releases Hit The Roster And A BORING SMACKDOWN