WWE Smackdown 4/11/25 Review | I THINK THE ROCK MAY HAVE STOLEN SMACKDOWN'S SOUL, TOO - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, we are one week away from WrestleMania, and
a lot's been made of John Cena is not on
the show every week, and John Cena hasn't addressed the
Rock and what happened with the Rock an Elimination Chamber, right,
He hasn't said anything about it because the last time
we saw the Rock, John Cena had sold his soul.
He walked off with the Rock at Elimination Chamber. So

(00:23):
you know, some people are still talking about that. I
am just left as I sit here, having watched this
SmackDown show tonight, I am left sitting here wondering if
maybe John Cena was not the only one who had
their soul taken by the Rock in Toronto that night.
I have a feeling that the Rock also took SmackDown

(00:46):
soul because it has been missing from this show. It
has been missing from this show for a while now,
but it was very apparent tonight. We are one week
away from WrestleMania and this show just had no soul
as a WrestleMania show. We're on the road to WrestleMania here. Yeah,
I'm watching this show tonight and I just I don't

(01:07):
feel anything. I didn't feel this way watching Raw. But
I watched this show and I just I feel nothing.
And we are eight days away from WrestleMania. This should
not be. This should not be. This is not how
it was a year ago. But I just find myself
completely apathetic towards everything that they're throwing out there tonight

(01:31):
on this show and we are eight days out from
the biggest show of the year. What is going on here?
I also thought that tonight we would get some resolution
to the situation with Randy Orton. Now, if you watch
SmackDown last week, then you know that Randy Orton he
lost his opponent for WrestleMania. Kevin Owens is going to
be undergoing next surgery and he is out of WrestleMania,

(01:54):
and so Randy Orton needs an opponent. And we actually
did get him in the ring tonight, face to face
with Nigga this but by the time this show was over,
we were no closer to a resolution to the question
of who will Randy Orton's opponent be for WrestleMania. So
they are going to wait until the final SmackDown twenty
four hours before WrestleMania to make a decision if they

(02:16):
have it already and fill us in as to who
the opponent or opponents are going to be for Randy Orton,
because I have a couple of different theories about where
it may be going, and I hope to God that
one of my theories is correct, because the one theory
they put forth tonight that they really pushed and teased
is that Randy Orton may be wrestling Solo Sokoa at WrestleMania,

(02:40):
which would be the worst fucking decision of all the possibilities.
If I was to make a list, that would be
pretty way down at the bottom of that list. I
certainly hope that that is not going to be the
match that they are giving us a WrestleMania, but that's
the match they wanted you to believe when this show
was over, that they might be giving us Randy Orton
and Solo Sokoa. I am hoping that this is all

(03:04):
just a swearve just to throw us off. We'll find
out next week, because we certainly didn't find out tonight.
We didn't get our answer there. Cody Rhoads was on
the show tonight, and as Cody Rhods promos go, this
was one of the better ones I thought that he cut,
but we still have the same issue where he's out there.

(03:24):
No John Cena on the show today. John Cena is
going to be on the show next week. He'll be
in Las Vegas. He'll make an appearance on SmackDown because
SmackDown is in Las Vegas next week. Cody Rhoads was
in the ring. He was in the rings, surrounded you
see some of the belts over my shoulder. Over here,
he was surrounded by championship belts. And again I in

(03:46):
terms of what they were going for, I actually thought
it was. It was well done. But still Cody Rhoads
has had to do a lot of heavy lifting here
on this road to wrestle media because even the times
when John Cena was there and he wasn't there the
first two weeks after a lolimination Chamber, right, the so
called biggest heel turn in wrestling history, I can't yeah,
I can't tell you how many times I had to

(04:06):
hear that shit coming out of elimination Chamber, the biggest
heel turn in wrestling history. Don't you feel fucking stupid?
So he missed the first two weeks coming out of that,
then we finally saw him those next two weeks, though
We had no interaction between him and Cody until we
got hit with that great promo when they were in London, right,
and that was great stuff and that was the only

(04:29):
thing that we got. And maybe we'll get something on
the show next week, Asna will be there. But Cody
has had to really carry this largely on his own,
and it's very difficult when you have a situation like this,
and this has happened to times over the years. It
happened years ago with John Seen as a matter of fact,
the year that he ended up wrestling the Undertaker at
wrestle Media, Right, Remember Undertaker, he didn't show up. John

(04:53):
Cena went to WrestleMania as a fan that year to
sit in the crowd until he finally came out and
had his whatever was three minute match with the Undertaker.
Kevin Owens a few years ago with Stone Cold Steve
Austin who never appeared on the show but for a
pre tape. I think that he's sent in, but he
had to carry it, you know, the whole Kevin Owens
segment thing, Like, there are situations like this, but this

(05:16):
is the WWE Championship match, and I feel like there's
only so many things that Cody can go out there
and talk about only so many things he can go
out there and do to keep the interest level up
for this and he's doing as good of a job
as he could possibly ask him to do. But there
are limitations to what this man can do. And so
here we sit now heading into Wrestle Media. We don't

(05:38):
know what's gonna happen at WrestleMania. We don't know if
Johnsen is gonna win. We don't know if he's gonna lose.
We don't know if he's still going to be a
heel after Wrestle Media. We don't know if he may
go on and have a great run for the next
four or five months as a heel. We still don't
know the rock going to be there right, Still a
lot of questions. But I can sit here at this

(05:58):
point and tell you that now that we're a week out,
a lot of the things that I was hoping we
might see with John Cena as a heel, we've got
none of it. And at least up to this point now,
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that this is not
the end of the heel turn. We're going to get
to see more of him you know, and they're gonna

(06:19):
come up with some really fun stuff, right. I want
to believe this is his last year. This is his
last shot to give us something as a heel, like,
to really give us a heel run that we haven't
gotten in twenty years. So I so want to believe
that it's not going to be something that they give
up on and you know, Okay, it's time to switch
him back and move to the redemption arc in two months.

(06:41):
I so want to believe that. But up until this point,
I will tell you that this has been a massive disappointment.
But God bless Cody. He's doing the best that he
can do. Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair, they had their
train wreck of a segment on the show last week,
and I said, please, for the love of God, if
there's one request that I have, do not put a

(07:01):
microphone in their hands again. Between now and WrestleMania. We
do not need to see a microphone in their hands
and them going back and forth. In fact, they should
be kept as far apart as possible. Well, they were
not kept far apart, but at least they were kept
apart in terms of cutting promos on each other. We
did not get that. Tonight, we got a little bit

(07:23):
of a follow up involving them. It wasn't anything terribly offensive,
But I still feel the same way I felt last week,
which is that I just want to get to the match.
At this point, I really don't think there's much else
that can be done between now and then to really
heat this thing up to any sort of great degree.
Let's just get to the match and see how it goes.

(07:45):
I actually am very curious to see how this match
is going to go at Wrestle Media. Between these two women.
We have a new number one contender set for the
women's tag team titles. We had a gauntlet match tonight.
I'm going to tell you who that is. Ray Phoenix
had his second match on SmackDown since his debut last week,
and the cards are now set. I have news for

(08:08):
you later on here in the review. I am going
to share with you the matches, not the match order necessarily,
but the matches for WrestleManias Saturday and the matches for
WrestleMania Sunday. They gave us the rundowns for both nights. Tonight,
we're going to go over that something. I'm also going
to go over. I may as well go over it
right now. We now know who the inductors are going

(08:31):
to be for the WWE Hall of Fame inductees here,
for the class of twenty twenty five. I will put
them up on your screen right now. And as you
can see, Triple H no surprise here, going to be
inducted into the Hall of Fame by his best friend,
the Heartbreak Kid, Sean Michaels. So we'll have a little

(08:54):
DX induction there. Michelle McCool going to be inducted into
the Hall of Fame by her husband, the Undertaker. And
this is unfortunate. And I say unfortunate. It look ddp's
awesome and he's actually helping Lex Luger right now. They're
working together and he's trying to help Lex, you know,

(09:17):
not just stand up for longer periods of time, but
actually walk. And he's doing great work and he's been
a great friend. But it appears that the hope that
Lex had of having his best friend Sting induct him
into the Hall of Fame is dead, and so it
will be Diamond Dallas Page doing the induction for Lex

(09:38):
Luger into the Hall of Fame. My impression is that
Sting never even went to Tony Khan to ask him.
I'm not even sure Sting bothered asking him if he
would be able to induct his friend into the Hall
of Fame. But now we know it's not going to happen,
and doing the induction for the Immortal Moment Man that

(10:00):
they have selected the first match ever to be inducted
into the Hall of Fame Brett Hart against Stone Cold
Steve Austin. CM Punk will be doing the induction for
that match, which is appropriate. Punk is a huge Bretteart fan,
and we know he's a huge Stone Cold fan. I
was kind of hoping maybe Shamrock would do it, you know, Shamrock,
it would get him involved, and Shamrock was actually a

(10:21):
part of that match. But it will be CM Punk,
which is a fine choice. Now you'll notice here from
this graphic what they did not announce unless the Undertaker
is doing it as well. This graphic, the way it's
written here is a little weird. But they have not
listed anybody to induct the natural disasters, so as of
this moment, earthquake and typhoon, they have no inductor listed.

(10:44):
I am wondering if it might be Cody Rhoads. For
those who don't know, Cody is the nephew of Typhoon
Uncle Fred as he calls him, so it would make
sense if Cody was the one to do the induction,
but as of this moment, there is no name attached
to the natural disasters, So that is your lineup for

(11:04):
the Hall of Fame. Of course, they also announce some
legacy inductees this past week. Kamala will be going in,
Dory Funk Senior and Ivan col Off, but they do
not get formal inductions like everybody else does. So that
is your class of twenty twenty five in the WWE
Hall of Fame. And this is your SmackDown review live

(11:27):
here on YouTube for Friday, April eleventh, twenty twenty five.
I am the Solemn Monster. Thank you guys for hanging
out with me here on a Friday night. Don't you
all wish you had an Uncle Fred, just like Cody does.
How cool would it be to be able to tell people,
Like if you're a little kid and you could tell
your friends that the shock Master is your uncle. People

(11:50):
make fun of the shock Master, but I mean, let's
be honest here, Like, how fucking cool would that be.
I wish my uncle was the shock master. All right,
let's get into this show here, because SmackDown opened with
the general manager, Nick Aldos, and he was in the
ring to introduce Randy Orton down to the ring. This
was after he got dropped by an RKO out of

(12:12):
nowhere last week. So Orton said he could tell by
the look in all this's eyes that he took what
happened last week personally. And he said that all this
can't expect him to believe that he didn't see himself
eating at RKO. At some point he reminded him what
I reminded all of you of last week, which is
that he had paid a double fine a long time ago,

(12:34):
like two years ago, almost he had paid a double
fine for an earlier RKO that he had given all this.
So he said, I consider us even now. That's not
how this works, by the way, to consider one even
like I understand like in his mind like, oh you
find me and so I gave you an RKO. But

(12:55):
you know, at the same time, like all this didn't
put his hands on him. It's not exactly a one
for one type of situation here. Orton said this was
supposed to be his twentieth WrestleMania, which I did not realize,
but this would be his twentieth WrestleMania. Orton said that
he needs this match, even if that means that all

(13:18):
this ditches the suit and gets back in the ring
for one night. So already, right here, right off the bat,
they were teasing it, and that's what made me think, Okay,
maybe this really isn't going to happen, because they just
came right out with it. He just planted the idea.
He wasn't subtle about it at all. He goes, well,
why don't you just take off the suit? Why don't

(13:39):
you get in the ring with me at WrestleMania now?
Or maybe they're just doing that to throw us off
the scent. That is a possibility, because again we still
have no decision. Maybe they're just throwing us off the
scent by making it seem obvious and making us think, oh, well,
then they're not going to do that. That's kind of
what I'm hoping. All this said that he busted his

(14:02):
ass for twenty years to make it to WWE, and
then he paused. I think maybe he was waiting for
like a positive reaction from the crowd, and instead they
didn't really react and then they booed. So I don't
think that was the reaction that he was necessarily going for.
So all This said that he doesn't need Orton's money,

(14:23):
what he needs is his respect. Orton said, all this
has his respect. He gained it a long time ago.
But I can't promise I'm going to apologize to Mickey
James after I do what I'm going to do if
I don't get my match. That brought out Solo, Socoa
and Tomatonga and I had just I had a pit

(14:43):
right in my stomach when I heard that music. Oh
my god, and here they come and they make their
way out. Solo asked all This to tell Orton to
leave the ring, and Solo said, no one wants to
hear Randy Wine about not having a match of wrestle Mania.
He said, Orton is in the past and that's where
La Knight is going to end up. After Jacob thought

(15:05):
to beat him to win the US title at WrestleMania,
Orton said he was trying to be diplomatic for the
first time in his career, but Solo and Toma were
making him hear the voices and Orton called for them
to get in the ring. They kind of surrounded him
on either side. He tried to fight them off. They

(15:26):
ended up getting the better of him until La Knight
ran out to make the save and they cleared the
heels from the ring, and Knight said that he knows
Orton didn't get enough, neither did I, And he asked
all this, how do you feel about a tag team match?
And all this said he felt good about the idea. Well,
of course he did, because apparently he had no main
event for tonight. Now he did. Evidently there was no

(15:49):
main event coming into the show tonight, So of course
Nick all this was very happy because now he got
himself a tag team made event. But my, I mean
even the mere tease of a solo Soca man and
look solo Socoa has made great improvements to his character

(16:11):
work over the past year. Right, the solo Sokoa that
we have now on TV is a very different version
of the solo Sokoa that we had for years when
he was part of the Bloodline. He was the silent enforcer,
and he's really been able to show off more of
his personality. I'm not saying the guy's absolute dog shit. Okay,
don't get me wrong, but the idea of doing Randy

(16:31):
Orton against Solo Socoa at WrestleMania does fuck all for me.
That is not a match that excites me in the least.
It actually feels to me like it's a match I've
seen a thousand times, and I'm sure it's happened a
few times. I don't know the exact number of times,
but it feels like, you know, what, been there, done that.
I have no interest in this. Can we please get
away from this? The fact that they're even teasing it

(16:53):
and it's even a possibility for WrestleMania, it makes me
very sad, especially knowing what we could have had with
Orton and oh and obviously anything they do with Orton
is not going to have the story behind it that
that match would have had, and that's unavoidable. That's not
Triple Ah's fault. That's not ww e's fault. But now
they're in a position where they can make a change

(17:14):
and try to make a change that gives Randy Orton
a fun match at WrestleMania. There is nothing fun about
Randy Orton against Solo Socoa. And again, I'll talk more
about this when we get to the main event later.
But I am hopeful that they are just swerving us here.
They are just teasing us and making us think that
this is going to be the WrestleMania match, but in
fact they have something better planned. Let us hope, because

(17:38):
they could absolutely do better than that. Up next, we
have the Women's Tag Team Gauntlet, with the winners challenging
Live Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez for the tag team titles
at WrestleMania Live in Raquel. They sat ringside to watch
the match, so there were six teams involved here. First

(18:00):
team out to kick off the Gauntlet Bailey and Lyra Valkyria,
who just had an Intercontinental Championship match on Raw that
was actually pretty good and Lyra won and it kind
of looked like Bailey maybe wasn't too happy with her
at first. So, like I said, Live in Raquel were ringside,
Bailey and Lyra. They were a tag team here kicking

(18:21):
things off against Shana Basler and Zoe Stark. Lyra rolled
up Blazer. Yeah, I wish I could blaze one up
right now. Lyra rolled up Basler with a jackknife pin
three minutes into this to eliminate them. So thanks for coming.
So they were gone. Natalia and Maxine Dupree they were

(18:41):
in next. Natty got some work in before tagging in
Maxine and she went on a bit of a roll
and she did her worm into the standing elbow drop
that she does. She did it to both Bailey and Lyra,
who were laid out side by side next to each other.
And then I guess to impress Natty, she attempted to
apply a sharpshooter, but before she could get the sharpshooter replied,

(19:04):
Bailey rolled her up and eliminated her. And so Maxine
and Natty were gone, and Natty did not look very
happy with Maxine. So then up next to the gauntlet, Kayden,
Carter and Katana Chance. They were right out of the club,
so they make their way down to the ring. Carter
and Chance they hit their kegstand move, Valkyria kicked out.
Carter landed a corkscrew dive out onto Bailey on the floor.

(19:27):
Meanwhile inside the ring, Valkyria hit her night wing finish
on Katana Chance and that was the end of Chance
and Carter, Q b Fab and Mechin they were out. Next.
Bfab landed something resembling a front neck breaker for a
near fall. Michin drop kicked Lyra and hit a splash
on her while she was on the outside. Meanwhile, on

(19:50):
the inside, Bailey hit the rose plant on BFAB and
that was the end of BFAB See you later. Bailey
and Lyra advanced to the next round, which happened to
be the final round of this gauntlet and the final
team out for this gauntlet, Chelsea Green's secret hervists Albi
Fire and Piper Nivin. Fire went to work on Bailey's

(20:13):
leg as Niven ran Valkyria into the ring steps outside,
Nivin hit a sentan on Bailey for a two count.
The show came back from commercial and Piper slammed her
partner onto Bailey for a two count. Valkyria got the
hot tag and landed a crossbody onto Piper. Valkyria then
hit a Tornado DDT. She went for a Fisherman supplex.
Piper countered into a supplex of her own, so Piper

(20:37):
went to the second row and she was saluting the crowd.
This this salute, that salute. Valkyria cut Niven off, power
bombed her, Bailey tagged in hit the flying elbow from
the top rope. Piper kicked out at one so Alba
Fire tagged in hit what I believe was her finish,
but Valkyria barely broke the pin at the last second

(21:00):
made the save. All four women now are brawling. Bailey
hit a bailly to belly on Alba Fire. Piper. Niven
then landed a headbutt on Lyra. Valkyria tried to closeline
Nivin out of the ring, Unfortunately it did not work.
She tried to get over the top, she wasn't able
to make it over the top rope. She did end
up on the apron anyway, and then Valkyria, she was

(21:22):
able to slide through her legs, grabbed her in a
power bomb position and she powerbomb Piper off the apron,
which did not look funny even though she got her
hands clasped behind the back of her head. That did
not look like a fun bump to take, and so
in the ring, Alba lifted Bailey. Bailey got loose though
and tagged in Lyra. Bailey hit a rose plant and

(21:44):
Valkyria came off the top with a guillotine leg drop
and that was all she wrote. She wins the gauntlet
for her team. After the match Morgan Rodriguez, they got
in the ring, they had a little stare down with
the challengers. The big takeaway here, this was a way
for them to kill thirty minutes on a three hour show.
This went just shy of thirty minutes. It's one of

(22:07):
the easiest gimmicks for them to use if they want
to kill time. So it accomplished that. Bailey and Lyra,
they go wire to wire beginning to end. They started
the Gauntlet, they ended the Gauntlet, and I'll tell you what,
you know what, it got pretty good at the end
when it came down to the final two teams, outside
of a couple of hiccups, it got really good. And

(22:29):
unfortunately I can't say the same for the rest of
the Gauntlet. The rest of this was rushed. It was heatless,
you know. So when I say things like I felt nothing,
or I felt apathy, or I couldn't get into it,
this is why. Because so many of these women, I
mean I call them teams. These are not permanent teams
in a lot of cases, but like so many of

(22:50):
the women that we saw here in this match, they
don't get adequate time on television to really establish their
characters in any meaningful way, and then they get thrown
out in a match like this, and again you're seeing
round by round here in this gauntlet two minutes, three minutes,
two and a half minutes. You can't get over unless
your name is fucking Goldberg and it's nineteen ninety eight.

(23:11):
You're not getting over in two minutes. So you're throwing
these women out there. They're not over right. People just
don't give a shit because you haven't given them a
reason to give a shit. And then they're getting bounced
out every two minutes. It just felt like they're just
killing time. That's it. When it came down to the
final four, they got a little bit more time and
the crowd got into it and it was good. But

(23:32):
I can't say the same for the rest of this
Gauntlet match. And it's a shame because I look at
a team like Cayden Carter and Katana Chance, Right, how
often do we get to see Cayden Carter and Katana
Chance on television? They were on Raw then they got moved, right,
I think they got moved in the transfer window. We
barely see them. And it's too bad because they work

(23:52):
together as it's great as a tag team. I talk
about how so many of these teams are just put
together and their makeshift teams. They've been a team now
for years, going back to their days in NXT, and
they're actually pretty fucking good, but we never get to
see them. So you could tell, like when they went
out there, they look extra motivated because they knew we
only have two and a half minutes, so we're gonna

(24:15):
try to maximize our minutes and get the most out
of it that we can. And they did, and nobody cared.
Nobody really cared. But it's not for lack of trying,
you know. I mean, again, what can you really do
in two and a half minutes? I mean, this entire
show needs an overhaul, but especially when it comes to

(24:37):
the women's division on this show, or the women's tag
teams that they utilize, and that goes for both shows.
They need a real revamp there as well. And when
I say revamp, I don't just mean like shaking up
the teams. I just mean a whole new approach to
how they utilize talent on these shows. It's more apparent
to me on SmackDown than it is on Raw. Raw's

(25:00):
a little more tolerable anyway, because it's two and a
half hours instead of three. And you might think, well,
it's only thirty minutes. You know, SmackDown's only thirty minutes longer,
So like it's not that big. It makes all the
difference in the world. It makes a huge difference, and
this is what we're gonna have to deal with for
a few more months until SmackDown goes back to two hours.

(25:20):
But even when SmackDown goes back to two hours, these
problems don't go away. The only thing that goes away
are most of the women that you saw in this match,
because then they're gonna have an hour less. Then they
won't be featured at all. But it's on them to
find a role for them on this show. I'm just
I'm tired of seeing these people thrown out there and

(25:42):
then nobody cares. I don't care they're out there for
two minutes. It's like, are we back in twenty nineteen,
twenty eighteen? I Mean, there are times I'm watching some
segments and matches on this show and I feel like
I've been I've been teleported back into a time years ago.

(26:02):
So at least we got some good stuff there at
the end. But that's The best thing I could say
about this. I don't actually see Bailey and Lyra winning
the tag team titles. I don't see Lira being a
double champion. But they could use this as part of
a longer term story between Bailey and Lyra, you know,
with one of them going heel at the end of it.
I can't imagine that ends up being Lyra. It would

(26:23):
probably be Bailey, and it would be for the better.
So them going to WrestleMania gives them something to do,
but it could be meaningful in that if and when
they lose, it could be used to further the story
between the two of them. And maybe that's why they
dropped the story cold between Bailey and roxanm Perez, which
they were clearly building towards something with the two of them,

(26:44):
and then they did nothing. Maybe they just you know,
they went this way instead of going that way, and
they're like, hey, we have a story with Lyra. We
want to do something with Lyra at WrestleMania, so we're
going to go this way instead of going that way.
If it works out that way, that's fine. They're building
up a longer term story between the two. I have
no issue with that. They cut to the announcers, and

(27:07):
Joe Tessitour referenced the video that he said started circulating
online earlier today that went viral showing Charlotte Flair attacking
Tiffany Stratton outside in the parking lot. Now, they did
not show the video. The videos on social media. It's
actually very tame to short clip, I don't know, fifteen
twenty seconds and it's it's nothing great. Yeah, they just

(27:31):
got a little a little tiff you might say, they
got a little brawl out in the parking lot. They
got separated, which Jesus Christ, Hey, King Nator, King Nator
is chiming in with that new Charlotte Flair superchat. That's

(27:55):
what Charlotte sounded like last week when she was imitating
Tiffany Stratton. And I'm not still even now quite sure
what she was going for. I don't hear that when
I listened to Tiffany, but evidently Charlotte does. So. They
didn't show footage of the brawl outside, but they did

(28:15):
say that both women are facing disciplinary action. I guess
since Tiffany fought back, she got in trouble, and they
said Charlotte Flair was sent home. And when they said that.
I'm sitting here and I'm thinking to myself, great, that's perfect,
That's exactly what I was hoping for. Right, you don't
put them together on the microphone. In fact, you don't
even have them on the show at all. Just reference

(28:37):
the fact that they had an off camera brawl. It'll
make it seem more real and leave it alone. And
then we only have one SmackDown left to go. And
I spoke too soon. We weren't quite done with these
two yet. Now, Damian Priest was on his way to
the ring and as he's on his way to the ring,
he gets jumped from behind by Solid Snake, I mean

(29:01):
Drew McIntyre. He was sporting an eye patch after he
got glass in his eye, real glass from that choke
slam on the windshield of the car last week. So
he battered Priest into the led barricade and Priest had
to be helped to the back by producers. He looked
like he was concussed or drunk or something, and they

(29:22):
walk him to the back. But McIntyre is still in
the ring, and so Snake Plisken grabs the microphone and
he said that Priest challenged him to a sin City
Street fight at WrestleMania, and he accepted even with only
one eye because that's just the kind of guy he is.

(29:43):
He was getting some noticeable cheers, I should point out
when he was speaking. It wasn't overwhelming, but you could
hear it. So McIntyre ripped the eye patch off to
reveal that he is now one hundred percent medically cleared,
which means that Priest is one hundred percent screwed at WrestleMania.
And at this point, Damian Priest reappeared in the aisleway.
He fought off officials to make his way back down

(30:05):
to the ring. Not only was Drew getting some cheers
before Priest goes on the offense here and clearly he's
the babyface in this situation where he's supposed to be. Anyway,
McIntyre was getting some cheers before Priest was getting nothing.
He was getting. It was just no heat for this
at all. As he's fighting back against McIntyre as he's

(30:26):
making his comeback. So he closedline, Drew over the top
to the outside. While on the outside, McIntyre grabbed the
ring steps he blasted Priest in the head with them.
McIntyre then dropped Priest with the Future Shock DDT on
the steps on the flat part of the steps. McIntyre
then ripped Priest's necklace. He had a necklace around his neck,

(30:46):
ripped it off and held it up. They have tried
to get heat on this rivalry between these two. I mean,
obviously it's nowhere near as hot as the McIntyre punk
program from last year. And Priest just hasn't been getting
the same reactions on SmackDown that he was getting on Raw.
You know what, he was at the tail end of

(31:08):
feuding with the Judgment Day and he had just broken
away from the Judgment Day. Him and Rhea, they were
getting these monster reactions on Raw. Like go back after
SummerSlam and go back and watch and listen to the
reactions those two were getting. I mean, they were like superstars.
And so now he's on SmackDown, which I thought was

(31:29):
a great idea to finally get him away from the
Judgment Day, give him some fresh talent to work with
and try to elevate him as a baby face standing
on his own two feet, and he just hasn't gotten
over at that same level. Like you just listened to
the reactions. Yeah, when he was in the ring, I
think it was before the elimination chamber, and he was
one of the six guys in there, and there was

(31:51):
that one week where they had everybody was out there,
they were all cutting promos on each other. Logan Paul
came out, he stood in the aisleway Priest. Honestly, Priest
felt like the odd man out here. And he's like
dropping it. He's trying to drop like one liners and stuff,
and they're not hitting, they're not getting over in the
way that everybody else was, you know. But he's also
on the mic trying to fight cmpunk and Drew McIntire

(32:12):
and even Logan Paul, who knows how to talk, and
it felt like he was a little out of his league.
And I don't know, he just hasn't caught on yet.
I'm not saying he won't, but he hasn't caught on
quite the same way on SmackDown as he was on Raw.
And I hope he can find his groove because he's
somebody I think Priests is very good and I would
like to see him get over at that same level.

(32:34):
And I think he's someone that they are going to
need to rely on, you know, to be a major
name on that roster coming out of WrestleMania, So I
hope he gets there, but I don't know. There's just
there's something missing there right now. But that Future Shock
on the steps, that was a good spot. DIY and
Pretty Deadly they were backstage watching footage from DiY's match

(32:55):
last week, their loss to the Motor City Machine Guns.
Champas said that he thinks there's a conspiracy to keep
them away from the tag team titles. Pretty Deadly said
Garganto and Shampa have gone crazy, and Elton Prince said
desperation doesn't look good on them. Alex Shelley and Chris
Saban walked in after Pretty Deadly left. Sabin confirmed that

(33:16):
they would be challenging the Street Profits for the tag
team titles, not at WrestleMania. They're going to be doing
that tag team title match on SmackDown. You'd be doing
that match on SmackDown next week. So I misspoke last week.
I just assumed that they were going to be doing
this match on the WrestleMania card. They are doing a

(33:38):
tag team title match on the WrestleMania card, not this one.
This one they're doing on Smackden And it's it's so
weird to me because if you go back over the
last few months, if you had to say which tag
team division has really been more heavily focused on and
has had more activity going around the championship, it would

(33:59):
be SmackDown right DIY, the MotorCity machine Guns pretty deadly,
the Street Profits, and they have other teams as well,
the Bloodline of the Legato, But like there was more
activity around those titles, everybody being so pissed off at
each other and angry, and it just felt like there
was nothing going on on the raw side when it

(34:20):
came to the tag team titles. And so now we're
going into the biggest show of the year and it's
the raw titles that are on the line and the
SmackDown titles are relegated to SmackDown. That just feels wrong
to me. So Shelley and Saban will have to wait
for another year. They will not get their wrestle many
a debut this year. I mean, maybe they can, you know,
sit in the crowd, go off on the side somewhere

(34:44):
to watch the show from the crowd, but they're not
going to be wrestling. So after a successful debut last week,
Ray Mysterio was back this week for a second match,
and he wrestled Burdo of Legato del Fantat Did I
say Raymisterio Ray Masterio made his debut in nineteen eighty nine,

(35:08):
not in twenty twenty five. Ray Phoenix made his debut
last week and this week he wrestled Berto of Logato
del Phantasma. And as good as the match I thought
was last week that he had with Nathan Fraser, this
one was better. That was a very good match. I
enjoyed this one better. They took a break about a

(35:28):
minute in. When they came back, Berto had the upper hand,
not for very long, though. Phoenix landed a double stomp
to his back. Phoenix fired up the crowd. He hit
a corkscrew splash over the top rope to the floor
and then back inside. He landed a rolling frog splash
for a two count. We got a nice lager bomb
at one point by Berto that got him a near fall.

(35:51):
Berto went up top. I even hate calling him Berta.
I mean, yeah, he was whom Berto for so long
and now he's just burto. Can we give the his
name back? Please? Can we do that? Oh man? So
Berto went to the top. He tried to moon salt,
Phoenix got his feet up. Berto took this ridiculous bump

(36:11):
off of it, and Phoenix walked the top rope. He
kicked Berto in the face with his Goodbye Amigo kick.
He followed that up with a Mexican musclebuster for the wind.
After the match, Santos Escobar walks out and he gets
in the ring. He makes Berdo shake Phoenix's hand, and
so Berto did so begrudgingly, and then he didn't look
very happy at all, and he left. Escobar stayed in

(36:33):
the ring and then he wanted a handshake from Phoenix,
and Phoenix looked very confused by all this, but he
shook his hand and he even did the Ray Phoenix,
the you know, the hand gesture that he does. He
really went out of his way to show respect to
this man. This is a very good match with a
very odd postmatch angle here. It made a little more

(36:55):
sense after the backstage segment they aired later on, which
I'll just get to that now. Berto was sitting in
the back on one of the equipment cases. He was
looking very dejected, and so Escobar and Angel they walk
up to him and Escobar tells Angel, Angel goes that
was the kind of performance that I need from Legato
dell Phantasma. He was being very facetious now as he

(37:16):
reminded us what Berto said last week, because Berto wanted
this match. Remember they were watching Ray Phoenix in the back,
and Escobar was commenting on how impressive he looked in
his debut. And then Berto walks in and he goes, Oh,
this guy's a flash in the pan. I could beat him.
So Escobar reminded us here he says that, well, I
thought that you were going to beat Phoenix. I thought

(37:37):
he was a flash in the pan. All he has
to say right now is that he is extremely disappointed
in him. He goes, Angel, let's go find Ray Phoenix
so I can congratulate him on a job well done,
and so off they went. Then Androte walked up to
Berto and said, I know you like Ray Phoenix. He's

(38:00):
a great wrestler, but you're a great wrestler too. Keep
your head up and be proud. And Birdo stood up
and he told him mind your own business, and he
walked away. I just have to say, Androte needs a manager.
I mean I've said it before. And then he hasn't
really been on the show in a while. He needs
a manager, like he desperately needs a manager. I don't

(38:24):
even care who it is, male, female, someone on the
current roster, someone from NXT, they want to call up me, anybody.
This guy needs a manager. If it's just Andrade popping
up and cutting little promos in the back, it's not
gonna work. It's just not gonna work. It's not his
strong suit. We know how much of an emphasis they

(38:45):
place on that in WWE. He's dead in the water
unless they can pare him off with somebody. I'm telling
you right now. He needs he needs that extra person
with him. And frankly, that's what made the combo with
him and Zelina Vegel work so well in NXT. They
went together very well. He needs something like that. That
might not be her, but he needs something like that

(39:05):
on SmackDown. I hope he gets it. I don't know
if they're gonna have Burdo breakout on his own. I mean,
they were certainly teasing the idea here, so I don't
know if they're actually gonna, you know, follow through with
that and do that or not. I mean, let's be honest,
if they were to do that, he has a tremendous
amount of talent. But if they were to do that,

(39:28):
it's not like it's gonna turn his fortunes around. He's
gonna be either in the same spot he's in now
or worse. He probably would be in a worse spot.
I have no faith in them, or Triple H in particular,
to actually, let's say, break this guy away from Legato
and then follow through with any kind of meaningful push
for him. It's just not gonna happen. I'm sorry. I'm

(39:50):
not saying he couldn't handle it. I'm not saying that
the potential is not there for him to be a
babyface that the people could get behind or that the
women can get behind. Right, young guy, and he, you know,
he could branch out on his own, and who knows,
who knows the kind of success he may be able
to have. I have no faith that they're actually going
to push him at any meaningful level. So I actually

(40:11):
think doing that is probably a bad idea, And I
wish I didn't feel that way, but that's exactly what
it is. It's a bad idea. This feels more like
we're gonna get Phoenix against Angel next. Right, he beat
Berto and now he'll wrestle Angel, he'll beat Angel, and
then we'll get the match with Escobar because it'll basically be, well,
you know, sometimes you got to do the job yourself,

(40:33):
and so they'll do Ray Phoenix against Santos Escobar. By
the way, when I say job, job is actually the
appropriate word here, because job is what Escobar would be
doing for Ray Phoenix if and when they have a
match together, and then we can get to the real match,
which I think they're going to want to do at
some point in the not too distant future, which is

(40:53):
Ray Phoenix against against Androti, which would be a fantastic match,
and I hope we get it. I hope they do it.
I think that's what ultimately this is building to. What
I would love to see is let them build to
a match between Ray Phoenix and Andrade. Let that be
a heel turn for Andrade when he loses. Right, Andrade
has not been featured. We haven't seen him do anything

(41:14):
since the whole US title Best of seven series stuff
last year wrapped up. He's done nothing, nothing, and so
in storyline, it's not hard to come up with a
story where he's sick and tired of being overlooked. He
loses to Ray Phoenix, that might just be what pushes
him over the edge, and then you can debut a
manager for him and then try to heat him up

(41:35):
again and try to push the guy as a heel
with a manager. Tell me a better idea for Andrade
if not pairing him off with somebody after a heel
turn and trying to kind of reboot this guy's push.
What would you do with him? I'd love to hear it.
This week's episode is sponsored by Express VPN. Picture it

(41:57):
Monday night, Raw is in town and you're driving to
the show when you suddenly get rear ended. And while
it may be the other guy's fault, you're the idiot
driving around without any car insurance. It doesn't matter how
great of a driver you think you are. With all
the crazy people on the road these days, why would
you even take the risk. That's what going online is
like without ExpressVPN. You need a VPN because every time

(42:20):
you connect to a network that's not encrypted, which could
be anywhere outside your own home, your online data is
not secure. Any hackers on that same network can easily
gain access to your personal information and steal your passwords,
your bank logins, you name it. It's all right there
for the taking, and it doesn't take a lot of
know how to pull it off either. A kid in
middle school could do it. Hackers can make a killing

(42:42):
on your data, up to one thousand dollars per person
selling it on the dark web. ExpressVPN stops hackers from
doing so by creating a secure, encrypted tunnel between your
device and the Internet. ExpressVPN is the best VPN because
it's super secure and it's easy to use. Fire up
the at You click one button to get protected, and
that's it. It also works on all of your devices,

(43:04):
including phones, laptops, and tablets, and for customers in the
United States, ExpressVPN comes with Identity Defender, a new suite
of tools to get your data removed from data brokers,
alert you when your data is compromised on the dark web,
and even insure you against data theft for up to
a million dollars. There's a reason why ExpressVPN is ranked
number one by top tech reviewers like Cnet and The Verge.

(43:27):
I'm going to be flying out to different places over
the next few months, and I'll be doing what I
do on every trip that I take, which is making
sure that I have ExpressVPN enabled on my phone. That way,
I've got peace of mind knowing that I'm protected at
all times at the airport, in my hotel. It doesn't matter,
it's that important to me. It's just not worth it
to risk my credit card details or email passwords and

(43:48):
all the things that would be a gigantic pain in
the neck to have to change, let alone run the
risk of having that information compromised. Now you don't have
to worry about it. Secure your online data today by
visit visiting Express vpn dot com slash solom monster that's
e x p R E S S vpn dot com
slash Solomonster to find out how you can get up

(44:10):
to four extra months free Express vpn dot com. Slash
Solomonster Byron Saxton was in the back. He interviewed Roxanne
Perez right outside of Nick Aldos's office and Saxon asked, well,
what brings you to SmackDown and she said that, well,
since Ava wouldn't give me my answer about stand and deliver,

(44:31):
she decided to speak to Nick Aldos and she said
that as the runner up in the Royal Rumble, which
I had completely forgotten about, she would gladly compete for
the WWE Women's Championship at WrestleMania. She said Tiffany Stratton
just can't handle the pressure, and that brought in Tiffany Stratton,
who said that Perez could learn something from her. Perez
said that she was happy that Stratton finally showed her

(44:53):
true colors, and she said that she hopes it doesn't
cost Stratton her WrestleMania match. I guess her little U
Parking Live fight that happened earlier in the day. So
Stratton said that at least she didn't come to SmackDown
to beg for a match. So they're arguing back and forth,
and there's this whole commotion and shouting outside of Nick

(45:15):
Alldo's office and he opens his door to find out
what the hell's going on here. Stratton told all this
that she would give Roxanne match tonight. Alda said, I'll
think about it now, go cool off. After this, they
aired a video package. I'm pretty sure this was taken
from a cmpunk documentary that they did many years ago.

(45:39):
I think it was twenty twelve, maybe I think that
was the date they put up on screen, but it
was basically Paul Hayman putting over CM Punk and Punk
talking about his friendship with Paul Hayman and just basically
how they're best friends, and showing people who maybe forgot
or are newer fans and are not aware of the

(45:59):
legitimate relationship between these two how far back it truly goes.
It's not just an angle that they did on the
show last week, you know where Hey, you know I
want you to be my wise man and no, I
mean there's a real history there and a real friendship
and relationship that goes back many many years to the
very beginning of Punk's run and developmental when Hayman stood
up for him and helped save his job, that he

(46:22):
put him over to management anybody who would listen at
every opportunity that he had about the potential that this
guy had and how this guy is going to be
a champion and this guy's going to headline WrestleMania one day.
So they just kind of distilled it all down to
this one video package here, just to educate people who
may not already be aware of it. Chelsea Green, meanwhile,

(46:44):
was trying to get into the trainer's room to talk
to Albi Fire and Piper Niven, but the door was locked,
Zelina Vegas showed up, walked by and told Chelsea she
would find out what kind of champion she really is,
right without anybody there to help her. So off she went,
and Chelsea was still clawing at the door trying to

(47:04):
get into the trainers or well, what the hell happened
in that match earlier that they would both be locked
in the trainer's room, But apparently she's gonna be on
her own because up next it was Chelsea Green non
title one on one against Zelina Vega. And before I
get into this, I just have to acknowledge our friend

(47:25):
King Nator. King Nator is the king. He has gifted
twenty channel memberships, which means we have twenty brand new
members here on this channel who now have access to
some exclusive content, emojis, all that fun stuff. Thank you,
King Nator, you are the man. I appreciate that. So

(47:50):
with all that happiness out of the way, let me
get into the thing that I thought sucked the most
on this entire show. This almost sucked the life out
of me watching this. This pissed me the hell off.
So we had Chelsea and Selena Vega. This was a
complete waste of time and Thankfully, it only wasted about
a minute of my time, because that's about as long

(48:10):
as this went. So the bell rings, Chelsea starts the mess.
She throws her dress at Vega and starts attacking her.
Chelsea hits a dropkick, it sends Zelena to the outside,
So she throws Zelena into the barricade, and then she
dropped her on top of the announced desk, and then
she rolled her back into the ring. But instead of

(48:31):
immediately following her back into the ring, she turns and
she walks over to the announced desk where Joe tested
to her and Wade Barrett are and she begins yelling
at them, saying that she wants her secret hervists right,
she wants her women, she wants her ladies out there,
and she's very upset that they're not out there with her.

(48:54):
But then she very quickly rolls back into the ring. Now,
as she is rolling back into the ring, you could
see the referee, Ryan Trend. He hits the ten count
and he calls for the bell, So they ring the bell.
The crowd is dead silent because they have no idea
what just happened. Like it was, it was very awkward.

(49:15):
It wasn't evident right away that it was just the
traditional count out. I actually thought this is Lena might
be hurt because she was laying on the mat. Chelsea
was basically hovering over her. She said something to her,
then she looked up at the referee. I'm like, uh oh,
did somebody get hurt. It was very, very awkward, and
I didn't even realize frankly, that he was counting so fast.

(49:37):
She was about to roll back into the ring and
he's like, nope, you're done. I mean, every fucking week
we have matches where people they roll back into the ring.
The referee, you know, they count very slowly. Of course,
so this was just very weird and very strange, and
the fans at first didn't even know what the hell happened.
They were completely confused. So then they announced Vega as
the winner by count out, and Joe Tessitour on commentary

(50:00):
he played up the fact that Chelsea Green was busy
complaining and that's what caused it. That's what cost her
the match. She was too busy complaining on the outside
and it cost her the win. I cannot emphasize this enough.
Triple h has done a horrendous job, horrendous job, okay

(50:24):
of booking the women's mid card titles and more specifically
the women's United States Championship, because the women's intercontinental title
a little bit better, but not much. But he has
done a horrendous job when it comes to these two
titles that are still relatively new. They only introduced them
a few months ago, okay, and they already mean shit.

(50:48):
He has done such a god awful job with this.
And so now you know, I look at this and
Selena Vega, now right, Selena Vega wins this match by
count out tonight. And then let me ask you a question,
what do you honestly believe that this means in the
career of Zelena Vega When they talk about, oh, she
got to win over the champion, No she didn't. She
didn't win anything. Chelsea Green beat herself. She cost herself

(51:13):
the win because, as Joe Tessa Tour pointed out on commentary,
she was busy complaining on the outside. Right, she was
in control of the fucking match. She was throwing Selena
Vega around, bouncing or around outside like a rubber ball.
She was throwing her into the barricade, She dropped her
on the announced desk, She rolled her back into the ring,
and then she got herself counted out and then Selena
Vega SLINKs away and she's like celebrating like it's some

(51:36):
big fucking win. She looked like a complete goof You
didn't win anything. How is that supposed to get her over?
How is that supposed to now in this storyline? Oh well,
I gotta win over the champion. No you didn't, No
you didn't. Nobody in this match, nobody in this segment
came off looking any better than they did coming into it.

(51:59):
But the other thing all is this match here went
about a minute. They went a minute. They are still
rushing through matches on a three hour show. This is
the only show at the moment, thank god, that is
three hours long on a weekly basis, and they send

(52:20):
these two women out there and still these two women
on a three hour show cannot get more than sixty
seconds of television time. This is what I mean when
I said before, and this is an even worse example
of this. It feels like this is exactly the way
Vince McMahon would book a segment like this. It is

(52:40):
like we are back to the Vince McMahon way of
booking has I mean, did he sneak back in, did
he put on the fucking glasses in the mustache and
sneak back into Gorilla? Take a plastic bag like John
Moxley and put it over a triple h's head or
road dog's head, drag him away, sit in his seat.
I mean, what are we doing here? This is what

(53:02):
I mean when I say that this people don't get over.
The women in this division don't get over unless your
name is Charlotte Flair, Ra Tivity Stratton or Rhea Ripley. Right,
the very kind of tiffy top of the women in
this division, Like, nobody gets over. When you see stuff
like this and you wonder, how is it that this
women's division is in the shape that it's in. It's

(53:22):
not really any wonder. All you have to do is
look at a segment like this. This sucked, and you
know who I feel sorry for, You know, I really
I feel bad for I feel bad for Chelsea Green
and Selena Vega that this is the best that they
could come up with for these two women. Selena Vega
goes out there every week, and she goes out there
to fucking crickets. Nobody cares and I can't even put

(53:47):
all the blame on her. She is doing the best
that she can with what she is given. How is
she supposed to get over when she's involved in segment,
when she's on the show, when she's involved in segments
like this. So now she'll get a championship match against
Chelsea Green that might be marginally better than this. Maybe
you'll get a little bit more time. She'll lose, and

(54:09):
then she'll go back to the line, she'll go back
to catering, and nobody will give a shit or they'll say, well,
she's not that over. So you know, she had her
shot and now it's to the back of the line.
But when you see some of these segments in the
way they're used on TV, is it any wonder why
some of these women are not over? Why some of
these women when they walk out there, whether it's a
Zelina Vega or a Meechin or a bfab, they go

(54:33):
out there and nobody cares, Like this is supposed to
be the time where you give people a reason to
care and really try to build up some of these
women and then you know, hopefully over time they'll be
able to get over and look It's almost like a
baseball player, right. You have so many players in Triple
A in the minor leagues. Not all of them are
going to go on to be productive players at a

(54:55):
major league level. Not all of them are going to
go on to make fucking eight hundred million dollars a
year like Juan Soto. Right, You're lucky if you get
a small handful that go on to have that kind
of success. But at least give them the shot. These
women have no chance with booking like this. Selina Vega
has no chance with booking like this. None. I couldn't

(55:17):
believe what I was seeing here. Let me forget the
awkwardness of the finish, just a minute to do that.
And she runs off like I won, I won, And
then she goes to the back and I'm like, you
won nothing. You won nothing. Not to mention the fact
that this just felt like a colossal waste of time.
This is just terrible television. We're a week away from WrestleMania,

(55:39):
by the way, we got this segment on SmackDown eight
days before WrestleMania. Chelsea will be fine, though, because she's
the funny one, so she'll always be able to get
TV time. Zelena and people like that at that level,
they don't stand a chance. If this is the best
they can come up with for them, they're fucked. They

(56:00):
have no chance. It's ridiculous. Now, I'll tell you one
woman who's actually doing very good work right now. And
it was very brief. We had a video package. They
each had a chance to talk, but this was very good,
and that's Naomi. Naomi turned heel recently. Naomi is being

(56:20):
given the chance to go out there and be a
heel for the first time in ten years, and so
far she's clearly putting her all into it and trying
to make something out of it. She called Jade Cargill
a snake, and then she laughed about pushing her off
a ledge onto the hood of a car. She says
she took her rightful place as one half of the

(56:43):
Tag team champions. She said, Bianca Belair will not even
look at her now that Jade is back, and Naomi
said that she's doing what's best for her and she's
going to get hers, and then she told Jade proceed
with caution. Jade Cargill responded during the second half of
the video, she asked what happens when a star starts

(57:06):
to fade, they try to steal the shine from somewhere else.
She said, Naomi's glow is fading, and that's what this
is really all about. She says she's not a rookie anymore.
She's Naomi's biggest threat, and then she said a storm
is coming. This was good stuff from both women, but
I especially like the Naomi promo and also very interesting

(57:28):
to note here she's still talking like she wants to
be friends with Bianca, still pointing out the fact that
Bianca won't talk to me all because of you. Ever
since you came back. She won't talk to me as
if she's still trying to make contact with her, but
Bianca just won't give her the time of day. Take
that for what it's worth. I don't know if that's

(57:50):
leading to something, right. We've had discussions on the streams
about Bianca maybe going heel coming out of WrestleMania. Still
possible that Bianca and Naomi could end up on the
same side again, but his heels. That'll be interesting to watch.
So they had some of the production assistants setting up

(58:11):
a bunch of classic WWE Championship Belt replicas in the
ring for the next segment with the WWE champion himself,
Cody Rhodes, his opponent at WrestleMania not here tonight, but
it was up to him to come out and try
to sell this match. And so they have all the
belts set up in the ring. Most of it was
I don't want to say it was all of them.

(58:32):
I didn't see the Green Backland belt out there, so
I can't say that they were all out there. But
they had the Brunos Sam Martino belt, they had the
Hogan eighty seven belt, the Winged Eagle, the Big Eagle
from the Attitude era. They had the Undisputed title, and
they had the John Cena Spinner belt. And then out

(58:54):
came Cody with his giant Logo belt, still better than
the Spinner. The Seattle crowd launched into the European Cody
Road chance that we were hearing on all the international
shows they have carried over here to the US. Cody said,
the crowd had him flustered, and he thanked the fans
here in Seattle. He even gave a shout out to

(59:14):
working for DeFi Big Big Independent Promotion out of Seattle.
That's Swerve of Strickland's home defy Wrestling. Cody pointed to
his title, which was also sitting there, and said that
it means he is the best wrestler in the world.
Cody said he's blessed to carry that belt, but it

(59:36):
won't always be him. He said that his WrestleMania matches
about keeping that title home. Cody said that there is
one man trying to take all of that away, John Cena.
He said Sena has neglected to make Seattle a part
of his farewell tour. Of course, the crowd booed. He
said Sina will be in Las Vegas for SmackDown next week.

(59:58):
He said one thing that Sina said that's sick with
him is what he said about Cody's neck tattoo, that
it makes Cody look like just a common fan. Cody said,
so what, He has the tattoo for the same reason
he wears suits, not because he is somebody, but because
he wants to be somebody. Cody ran for the titles

(01:00:18):
on the tables. He paid homage to all of the
former WWE champions, so when he got to the Winged
Eagle belt, he referenced the Undertaker. When he got to
the Undisputed title, he referenced Eddie Guerrero. Yeah, it's funny too,
because when I think of the undisputed first of all,

(01:00:39):
let's go belt by belt. The Bruno belt is the
Bruno belt, Okay, he held that fucking thing for eight years.
When I think of that old, ugly green belt, uh,
the one that Hogan first won in eighty four, I
really associate Backland with that belt. The Hogan eighty six
belts is just that it's the Hogan Belt. I think

(01:00:59):
he was the only only one who held it. The
Winged Eagle belt, you know, for the longest time, I
associated it with Hogan, and for me it might even
be a tie. I associate it more now with Brett, honestly,
Brett or Hogan, but really maybe more so Brett. The
big Eagle belt, so that one that you see right there,

(01:01:20):
the attitude air Eagle. Honestly, I associate that with Rock mostly.
I can't even say Austin because part of it, you know,
part of his run there he had the smoking Skull belt.
I associate that mostly with Rock. The Undisputed title, I
don't associate it first with Eddie Guerrero. When I think

(01:01:41):
of it, I associated with Brock Lesner. It really is
Brock and then Eddie and then the Spinner Belt. Obviously
I associate that would see him. It's like the Hogan
eighty seven belt. This is the reason why it's called
the Hogan eighty seven belt, because it was Hogan's belt. Yeah,
the Spinner Belt obviously goes with with John Cena, but

(01:02:01):
it was nice to get Eddy Guerrero reference here. Cody said,
Sena looks at the Spinner Belt and considers it a
bad thing, but Cody doesn't. Well, that's because Cody rhads
is wrong. He talked about how Sena said Cody isn't authentic,
but he said he's the WWE champion and Sena is not.
Sena always teaches, so maybe Cody can teach Sina something

(01:02:22):
just this one time he saw his father struggle with
the same thing as a career babyface. He said, I hate,
can I just say maybe I'm just a traditionalist. I
hate that they're normalizing this, that they're just normalizing just

(01:02:42):
how liberally they're throwing out these mentions of heal and
babyface like on the actual show, Like I don't have
an issue like he I mean, they could do what
they want, but I don't have an issue with it, like, oh,
they're on a talk show or something, but just like
on the actual show in these segments and Triple Ai
did it just recently and they're just thrown around heel

(01:03:02):
and babyface now like it's just part of the on
air vernacular. Now it's just uh. I just hate that
that's being normalized. He said. The lesson is that the
fans can love somebody else. Cody might be the captain here,
but there's a roster full of people that the crowd loves,
and he listed a whole bunch of names, including rear Ripley.

(01:03:24):
Now he's got the task of making sure Seena doesn't
win the title and take it home with him. This
is the same thing Cody told Brock and the same
thing he told Roman. He's a wrestler and that's what
he does when backed into a corner, he said, the
bell is going to ring, and when it's over, I
will leave John Cena in the ring to have his

(01:03:44):
moment to say goodbye to the fans. He won't quote
seeing his lyrics at him. Sena already knows his time
is up and in the future Cody's will be as well.
But the WWE title is timeless, and he'll make sure
it stays home and stay with us. So we got
a brock Lesner name drop here on TV. We don't

(01:04:07):
get those very often. I think his name was kind
of alluded to in a promo once a few months ago. So, yeah,
that's a name like Vince, that's a name you don't
here mentioned on TV. And no, I don't think that's
indicative of any before people starts or do you think
he's gonna be a WrestleMania like. No, I don't think

(01:04:27):
it's indicative of anything. It was just interesting that he
threw it out there. As Cody promos go, it was
one of the better ones. I thought he did a
really good job with it. I thought he brought some
great fire, especially at the end of the promo. They
got really like zoomed in on his face and he
was really you know, popping off there at the end.
And I thought the use of all the old titles

(01:04:48):
as props in the background I thought was very effective.
But to go back to what I said at the
beginning of the stream, you know this this sceny heel
turn has not been great. I don't care what anybody says.
It just it hasn't. It feels very slap dash, very
slapped together. And the lack of follow up with the
rock stuff. I'm sorry, it's inexcusable. And when Sena isn't there,

(01:05:12):
Cody is forced to do promos like this on his own,
addressing his opponent who isn't there, just you know, looking
into the camera, and he does a good job with it.
You know, he's done the best that he can do
with what very little Sena has given him. You know, really,
but for that one week where they went face to face,

(01:05:35):
I just think he's done the best that he could
be expected to do. Yeah, they had that one great
segment together, and that's it. Cody has held up his
end to try to keep this as interesting as possible.
But I think when Sena turned heel an elimination chamber
on March first, I don't care what anybody says, even

(01:05:55):
if you disagree with me. Right now and you're oh, man,
you're loving the John Cena heel turn. That's great, that's great.
I'm not saying I hate it. I'm just saying I
hate that I don't enjoy it more than I do
because I was looking forward to it as much as
anybody once they pulled the trigger on it, which I
never thought they would do, and that turn. Initially, the

(01:06:15):
way they did it that night was tremendous, and obviously
it got a lot of mainstream attention and it went
viral and all that kind of stuff, and so your
mind begins to race with all these ideas of like,
oh man, all these things that they could do, and
you know, I wasn't like attached to one idea or
it's like they have to do this, but it's like
all the different possibilities and we've gotten none of it,

(01:06:37):
none of it. Now, if he's going to be a
heel for the rest of the year and we'll see
this play out over the course of the next several months,
then that's great, you know, and I'll be happy to
eat my words at the end of all this. But
here we are now, where again we're one week away
from WrestleMania, and outside of really that one segment on TV,
it's just been completely underwhelming. And maybe it was unavoidable

(01:07:02):
with his schedule being what it is, but I was
expecting more than what we've gotten. I hope what they
do at WrestleMania can can try to make up for it.
But if I sat here and told you, man, this
heel turn has been great. This John Cena heel turns
exactly what I was hoping it would always be, I'd
be a liar because it's not. And it sucks. I

(01:07:26):
hate that I feel that way. I really wanted this
to be like a major thing going into WrestleMania, because
that was the whole point. It's like, if you're gonna
do John Cena against Cody Rhodes, you can't do Babyface
against Babyface. Man, that's gonna be fucking boring because there's
so much alike in so many ways. Somebody has to
go heal, and somebody did go heal, and yet here

(01:07:49):
we are, and frankly, I'm not so sure that as
I sit here right now, the way this build has gone,
that it's radically that much more interesting than it would
have been if you would have just kept Babyface. You
know that sucks. And if I'm a little selfish because
I want more, it's because I know it's his last
year and the clock is ticking. You know, there's only

(01:08:13):
a finite amount of time left in this and so yeah, yeah,
I'm a little selfish here, Like come on, man, you
got to give us more than this, and we just
really haven't gotten that so far. Now. Byron Saxon was
in the back. He was interviewing the Street Profits. Montes
Ford said that they like the MotorCity machine guns and

(01:08:35):
reference how they say they don't care about the gold
they wear, the chains and the grills and the reality shows.
But you can't care about things that you don't have.
Angela o' dawkins said the guns have been all over
the world for twenty years, but saved the congratulations for
the IWC Glazers because they run this division. Carmelo Hayes

(01:08:58):
and the Mis showed up said that the fact that
the tag team titles are not on the WrestleMania card
this year is an insult to the titles. He said
that he's putting them unnoticed, that he's coming for his
tenth tag team title with the hottest young prospect in
the business, and then Mello said they most definitely want
the smoke, and then they walked away. So we got

(01:09:21):
a Babyface reference, right, We had Cody Roads talking about
Babyfaces and we had a reference to IWC Glazers in
back to back segments. Interesting. Tiffany Stratton against Roxane. Perez
was up next. Tiffany hit a spinebuster for a two count.

(01:09:41):
Perez went for Tiffany's arm after that, but ran into
a pop up power bomb. Tiffany missed the hip attack
and Roxanne slammed her. Then she went for a moon
salt from the second rope. Tiffany, though, got her knees
up and after that Tiffany went to the top. Roxanne
cut her off, hit a Russian legs week from the top,
and Perez went for a pop rocks, but Tiffany countered.

(01:10:03):
They traded pen attempts back and forth. Perez worked a
cross face Tiffany, They'll power it out and hit the
prettiest moon salt ever to pick up the wind. After
the match, who should appear outside the ring but Charlotte Flair,
Oh boy, and so Charlotte Flair drags Tiffany out of

(01:10:23):
the ring. She throws her into the barricade. She throws
her over the announced desk. She gets up in Wade
Barrett's face and Wade Barrett tries to calm her down
and is telling her you're gonna get yourself fired. I
had a good laugh about that, yeah, as if you're
gonna get yourself fired if you keep doing this, if
you keep acting this way, because now they're portraying it

(01:10:45):
as how she's unprofessional, like attacking Tiffany earlier in the
parking lot, like she's unprofessional now. And so Charlotte stood
tall to close things out here in this segment, they
were clearly building to something. Let me talk about Roxanne first.
They were clearly building to something with Roxanne and Bailey,

(01:11:07):
as I said before, and they stopped it cold. But
when you look at what they've done with Roxanne, they
haven't done much this year with her, but the things
they've done are very telling. She was in the Royal Rumble.
What did she last? Like over an hour? Right? She
was in the Rumble for a long time. She was
the runner up in the Women's Royal Rumble. She qualified
for the Elimination Chamber, and she was in the chamber

(01:11:31):
here tonight. Non title obviously, but she's in the ring
wrestling a week before WrestleMania, no less, she's wrestling the
WWE Women's Champion. So you could tell clearly, you know
that they see the potential that Roxanne has. I believe
on nxtit was it this past week. I think she
lost the qualifying match for the Women's North American title

(01:11:54):
match coming up at Stand and Deliver, and again the
match with Tiffany tonight more competitive than you might think.
It wasn't like a squash or anything like that. So
they see something in her. But it's been very odd
how she It's been very start and stop with her
on the main roster this year so far. It feels

(01:12:16):
to me like she's in that mode now where she's
kind of doing the honors on the way out of
NXT and they just wanted to get to WrestleMania, let
her finish out there, and then I would hope coming
out of wrestling. When I say coming out of WrestleMania,
I mean like the week after that Raw or SmackDown
after WrestleMania. This woman needs to be on the main

(01:12:39):
roster full time. No more of this stuff where she's
cutting her time between NXT and the main roster and
she's on SmackDown one week and then not again for
two months, Like you can't keep doing this, So I
hope that's what's going on here. They're just kind of
winding her down in NXT for another week and then
coming out of WrestleMania. Let's get her on the main roster. Rocks.

(01:12:59):
Sae is great and wherever they want to put her,
she will be an asset to that women's division. Whether
it's Monday, whether it's Friday. It feels like Friday is worse,
she'll probably land, But wherever it is, she'll be an
asset to that show. But let's let's stop messing around
here and get her up because they could certainly use

(01:13:20):
someone like her. And they closed the show with Randy
Orton in La Night teaming up here in the main
event against Solo Socoa and Toma Tonga. Orton set up
Solo for the draping DDT and he hit it pretty
early in the match, and then he was setting up
for an RKO Sokoa, though countered into a SAMO and
drop Tongala dropped kick Night off the Apron. They went

(01:13:43):
to their final commercial break. They came back and Randy
Orton was attempting to tag La Night, but he couldn't
quite get there, so CoA Night off the Apron. He
worked the always exciting chinlock on Randy Orton. Eventually Orton
got the hot tag Tonight. Tonga tagged in as well,
Night took care him. Knight landed an elbow drop on Tomatanga.

(01:14:03):
Solo Sokoa broke up the pin attempt, then he hit
a Samoan spike on Night. Orton gave an RKO to Tomatanga,
but then he ended up outside with Solo. The two
of them fought off into the crowd. Back inside Knight
and Toma, they both stagger to their feet. They touched backs,
you know, they back up into each other, and then

(01:14:24):
La Knight reaches back, hits a BFT and picks up
the wind. When the match was over, guess who showed
up behind La Knight in the ring. It was Jacob Fatu,
his opponent of WrestleMania. He super kicked him, he landed
a running hip attack. He followed that up with his
Mighty Moon salt and then he hit a second one,
and then they played his music and they threw up

(01:14:45):
the copyright, unlike poor Hook, who actually did throw up
in the ring on Dynamite the other night, which I
didn't catch right away, but that's not good. But they
threw up the copyright on the screen. They made you
think the show was over, but it wasn't over yet
because Jacob wasn't done, and he went back up top.
He hit one more Mighty Moon Salt, and then they

(01:15:09):
went off the air. So Orton brawls off with Solo Soco,
and I'm left sitting here going, please, please, don't tell
me that their big backup plan is simply to put
Randy Orton in the ring at WrestleMania with Solo Soico.

(01:15:29):
I really hope that this is just them swerving us right,
They're leading us in this direction, and then next week
they're gonna smack us over the head with another idea.
I think that's what's going on here. I hope. Maybe
it's just more hope than anything else. I hope that's
what's going on here, because I'm sorry, that's just a

(01:15:49):
fucking terrible match if that's the match they settle on
for WrestleMania. Look, I know they were caught off guard, okay,
by the Kevin Owens injury. I know that Owen's just
got the news last week, and they quickly made the announcement,
so they didn't know how bad it was until the
last minute, okay, And then they had to scramble and

(01:16:11):
they had to come up with a plan B for
one of their top stars. What are we going to
do with this guy at WrestleMania. I get that, all right,
So they had to pivot and go in a different direction.
Nick All, this still makes sense to me. It would
be cool for him as well. You know, his first
match in WWE to be at WrestleMania against Randy Orton,

(01:16:32):
And there's a story there because Orton has now assaulted
him multiple times. Right when Orton floated the idea in
the opening segment, You'll notice the crowd reaction was pretty
pretty positive. It wasn't like he suggested, Hey, why don't
you take off the suit and get in the ring,
and everybody just kind of sat in their hands. It
sounded like the crowd was into the idea. It's right there.

(01:16:54):
But I get it if maybe it's two weeks notice
and he doesn't feel like maybe he can be in
the shape he wants to be in on two weeks
notice for his first ever wrestle Media match, Right, maybe
there's a little bit of that going on, Like if
that was happening, If that was the case, I can
understand it. I know it doesn't make as much sense

(01:17:16):
as some of these other ideas I've talked about, there's
no story there at all if they go in this
direction that I'm about to suggest, none at all outside
of the obvious, which is that this other person also
doesn't have a WrestleMania match. Not only does this other
person not have a WrestleMania match, they didn't have a
WrestleMania match last year either. That could be the story.

(01:17:37):
You don't have a match, I don't have a match.
I need to be at WrestleMania. You want to be
at WrestleMania. Let's have a fight, and that man is Shamus.
If all else fails, if Nick Aldis, if it's not
Nick Oldis, or what about Seamus? Where is Seamus? Shamus
tweeted the other day he just said, I'm available. This

(01:18:00):
guy's sitting at home, he's watching We're about to have
another WrestleMania and it's another WrestleMania where he's not even
on the show. The last time Seam has had a
match at WrestleMania he had that Banger triple threat match
at thirty nine with Drew McIntyre and Gunther, which was
a fucking great match, one of the best triple threat
matches you will ever see. And he's sitting at home

(01:18:21):
and he's got nothing to do not hurt. As far
as anybody knows, if all else fails, why not just
do Orton and Seamus and just let them go out
there and have a really good match. Anything would be
better than what they were teasing for Randy Orton on
the show tonight. And again, I know Seamus isn't even
on SmackDown. I know he's you know he's on Raw,

(01:18:42):
But who gives a shit. You had an injury, right,
so you got to You gotta make some decisions here.
It doesn't matter. It's not like the brand split has
ever stopped them from doing something like this before. Anyway,
It's WrestleMania season. People can cross borders, you know, every
week if they want to. But I still think that

(01:19:03):
the solo sukoa thing is probably a red herring. We'll
find out next week when the show is over. Again.
I just sat here and said, I think the Rock
stole more than just John Cena's soul. He stole SmackDown
soul too. Where is the soul of this show? It
is a soulless, emotionless show. We are eight days out

(01:19:26):
from WrestleMania. Does it feel like we are on the
road to WrestleMania like in a major way right now,
don't lie. I mean, maybe it does un Raw. You
might feel differently about Monday Night Raw, but I don't
feel this way about SmackDown right now. It sucks. Now.
On the final SmackDown before WrestleMania next week, John Cena

(01:19:50):
will make his return. We're gonna have the Andre the
Giant Memorial Battle Royal that will be held on smack
Down next week. They didn't announce who's in it. They
didn't put anybody in the graphic unless I missed it,
but the Battle Royal will take place on the show
next week. Zelina Vega, Katana Chance and Caden Carter are
going to take on the Green Regime of Chelsea Green,

(01:20:13):
Piper Nivin and Alba Fire, and the Street Profits are
going to defend their WWE tag team titles against the
Motor City machine Guns. Now I said that, we have
the lineups for WrestleMania Night one and two. Let's run
through them right now. This is the WrestleMania Saturday lineup.
Seven matches on Saturday, headlined by Roman Reigns, CM Punk

(01:20:38):
and seth Rawlins. Right, we already know that's the main event.
On Night one, Gunther and Jay Usso for the World
Heavyweight Championship, Charlotte Flair and Tiffany Stratton for the WWE
Women's Championship, Jade Cargill against Naomi, The Viking Raiders against
the New Day for the World tag team titles, Raymisterio

(01:20:58):
against Ganonde Americano. I'm happy for Chad Gables, at least
Chad Gables getting an actual match, an actual singles match.
He's not wrestling as himself, but I'm happy for him
that he's at least on the card. And La Knight
will defend the United States Championship against Jacob Fought to

(01:21:19):
seven matches. That is the lineup for WrestleMania Saturday, WrestleMania
Sunday six matches, although of course that's pending whatever Randy
Orton's match is going to be. I would assume then
that Randy Orton will be wrestling on WrestleMania Sunday, so
that we will have seven on Saturday, seven on Sunday.
Right now, it's at six John Cena and Cody Rhodes

(01:21:42):
in the main event for the WWE Championship. Eo Sky Rhea, Ripley,
Bianca bell Air, a triple threat for the women's World Championship,
bron Breaker, Penta Dominic Mysterio, Finn Balor Fatal four way
for the Intercontinental title. Drew McIntyre and Damian Priest are
going to have a Sin City Street fight live Morgan

(01:22:05):
in Raquel Rodriguez defend the women's tag team titles against
Bailey and Lyra, Valkyria, and last but not least, aj
Styles one on one with Logan paul I will. I
will tell you that as of this moment, as I
look at these lineups, I give the edge tonight too.

(01:22:25):
I have to give the slight edge tonight too. And
again whatever Randy Orton's match is going to be very
likely going to be taking place on Night two. So
I don't know about the match order, but at least
now we know what matches are taking place on which night.
Let's take a look at the Twitter poll. What did
you think of SmackDown from Seattle? You know, Seattle is

(01:22:46):
known for all the rain that it gets. We've been
getting quite a bit of rain here in New York.
It's raining right now outside my window. Thirty eight point
eight percent thumbs up for tonight's show thirty six percent
thumbs up the middle and twenty five percent thumbs down. Yes, indeed, yes, indeed,

(01:23:07):
Roy New Day and war Raiders is a WrestleMania match.
Street Profits and MotorCity machine Guns are not. But yeah,
this is this is a pretty fucking terrible score here
for SmackDown. Roughly thirty nine percent thumbs up for tonight's show.

(01:23:30):
And we are a week out from WrestleMania. Man, they
should be they should be lighting it up right now. Man,
we should be excited. We're on the road to WrestleMania.
Almost fell asleep during some of the segments tonight, but

(01:23:53):
that Chelsea Green's Alina Vegas segment was just such a
it was It really was. It was such a slap
in their face. Like I cannot imagine that they heard
what they were doing on the show tonight and they
went out there and they were happy about what they
were doing. There's no way, there's no way. They have
too much pride in their work to be given that

(01:24:14):
drek and actually be happy with what they were given.
I refuse to believe that today's episode is sponsored by Hymns. Guys,
there are a lot of things that you can do
in three to six months maybe you want to take
acting lessons in three to six months, though you're probably
not going to be all that good. You could hit
the weights at the gym, try to bulk up and

(01:24:37):
still not make a dent in your physique, especially if
your diet doesn't change. You could decide you want to
train to become a pro wrestler unless your curt angle,
you're probably not going to be that good in three
to six months, or you can start seeing thicker, fuller
hair regrowth through HYMNS, call it the Hymns effect. HYMNS
provides you with convenient and quality access to a range

(01:24:59):
of hair los treatments that work, all from the comfort
of your couch. HYMS makes treating hair loss simple with
doctor trusted options and clinically proven ingredients like finasteride and
monoxidil that can regrow hair in as little as three
to six months. Choose from personalized, chewable, oral spray and
serum treatments to find what works best for you. Hymns

(01:25:20):
makes the process simple and convenient, and it's one hundred
percent online, so there are no uncomfortable doctor visits. You
don't need to have a panic attack sitting in some
waiting room. This eliminates all of that stress. Answer a
few questions, and a medical provider will determinative treatment is
right for you. If prescribe, your treatment is then sent
directly to you for free. No insurance is needed, and

(01:25:42):
one low price covers everything from treatments to ongoing care.
Hyms has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers and they
can help you get your confidence back too, with visibly
thicker and fuller hair. Start your free online visit today
at hyms dot com slash solomons. That's hims dot com

(01:26:03):
slash solo monster for your personalized hair loss treatment options
hymns dot com slash solo monster. Results vary based on
studies of topical and oral monoxidel and finasteride. Prescription products
require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will
determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See a
website for full details and important safety information s. Take

(01:26:27):
a look at your superchats. Thank you for hanging out
with me tonight. Always fun to be with you, guys, Hey,
Holiday one ninety seven. Before we get to be the
list on screen here, let's start with our boy Holiday said.
Triple H said in a video that he can't wait

(01:26:48):
to see the look on the faces of the fans
when they see the WrestleMania forty one stage. Some people
are speculating that it will be a casino entrance. I
am excited to find out. Yeah, I'm excited too. I'll
tell you what them man, that WrestleMania thirty three, WrestleMania

(01:27:08):
thirty three and WrestleMania thirty nine are the two best
stages they ever had as far as I'm concerned, and
those are gonna be Those are gonna be tough to top. Hey, Jake,
what's going on? Jake, Salute the tribal Chief. I mean,
if it could be in that same league as those
two entrances, it'll be among the best they've ever done.

(01:27:32):
So I always look forward to seeing what the WrestleMania
stage looks like. You're in Las Vegas. You know you
got you got to do it up good. You gotta
really capitalize on that Vegas theme. Honey, deep fried chicken
with flavor. Here's my solution, and it's not that over complicated.
Randy Orton against Nick All this. If Randy Orton wins,

(01:27:55):
he's granted a title match after WrestleMania. If Randy loses,
he has to serve a six month bench. You are
doing exactly what you just said that you did not
want to do. You are over complicating it. It doesn't
have to have any stipulation. Just do the match, Randy wins,
and then depending on who comes out of WrestleMania with

(01:28:16):
the WWE Championship, you're going into backlash in Saint Louis.
I don't think you need a stipulation to stipulate that
Randy Orton will be number one contender. You don't even
need it. You don't even need it. Holliday says, it's
not a good sign when you have a Gauntlet match
the week before WrestleMania, taking up time which you should

(01:28:38):
dedicate to your WrestleMania match. Builds. Yes, well, it's building
to a WrestleMania match. We now have a tag team
title match of WrestleMania, so you can't say that it's
not building to a WrestleMania match. It actually is. So
I disagree on that. Honey deep Fried Chicken says, give up.

(01:29:04):
I have officially given up on the WWE women's tag
team titles. My interest for those belts are in a coma.
Only now they're in a coma. They've been in a
coma for probably a year now, Coma. What are you doing,
Quizzical one? What do Medusa and a blunt have in common?

(01:29:26):
No matter which option you choose, you're guaranteed to get stoned.
Happy Friday, Solo, Happy Friday, Quizzical one. Face bears Charlotte
looks like a poodle in the thumbnail? Does she? I

(01:29:50):
don't have it in front of me. Poodle is one
of the only dogs I can pet without starting to
sneak because they're hypoallergenic. I dated a girl once who
had a poodle named Waffle Fucking Dog. That dog was

(01:30:13):
so old I fell sorry for the dog, honestly, like
had to be carried up and down the stairs. Poor Waffle.
Holiday one ninety seven. It's disappointing that the WWE tag
team titles will not be defended at WrestleMania, when it's
rumored the World tag team titles will be Well, it's

(01:30:36):
no longer rumored, brother, it's confirmed. Arabian Night can't wait
for a nine minute tag team title match and Andre
Battle Royal. Why not put them on the kickoff instead?
We will get a two hour nothing pre show, the prophet.
You know what, I'm glad you brought that up. That's
actually a very good point. They announced today. This is

(01:30:56):
this is obscene. I talk about how long the aw
pay per views are, and rightfully so, like there was
no reason for Dynasty to be fucking five hours plus.
But like they just announced today, I think each night
of WrestleMania is going to have a three hour pre
show like that is asinine. And now when you consider

(01:31:18):
the fact that, yeah, there's gonna be no matches on there,
but they're gonna have a three hour pre show, like
to take the SmackDown Tag Team title match, for example,
and give them a chance to go out there in
the stadium right technically at WrestleMania and fill some time
on the pre show when you have so much just

(01:31:40):
so so many hours of time to kill and they're
not even doing that is ridiculous. You're absolutely right. How
are you gonna have a pre show that long and
not have any matches? And some of these matches you
just just throw them away on SmackDown. Like, I know
you got to fill time on SmackDown too, but like,
come on, man, if you're you're doing one tag team

(01:32:00):
title match in the stadium, you could do both. I
saw that. I couldn't believe it. I said, there's no
way that's the real start time. But it is. But
get ready, I guess you'll have three hours of you know,
Peter Rosenberg and the crew just going over the matches

(01:32:22):
over and over and over again. Enjoy. I won't be
watching orioles Peak after all of the hateful comments towards Charlotte.
I hope she buries the fuck out of Miss Tiffy.
Kaiser should have been flattered. It's the most relevant his

(01:32:44):
sorry ass has been and will ever be in his career.
Well yeah, well, I assume you saw Kaiser's response after
Charlotte name dropped him last week. He posted a clip
from a segment on rawback in ninety six when Shawn
Michaels was feuding with the British Bulldog and they did

(01:33:07):
a storyline where Diana Smith, Bulldog's wife, was accusing Sean
of coming on to her. And he just posted a
clip of Shawn's response, and I remember watching that he goes.
I think it was like, with all due respect, don't
flatter yourself. So Kaiser told Charlotte, don't flatter yourself Duff's VIDs.

(01:33:34):
What kind of dog never barks? A hush puppy suck
a Duff's VIDs And there are a lot of early ones.
We haven't even hit the We haven't even hit the

(01:33:55):
list yet, Oriole's Peak says, making fun of Charlotte's looks
as rich as if the work Tippy had done isn't obvious.
Charlotte gets heat that these jerk's favorites only could dream
of Oriole's Peak standing up for Charlotte Flair for all

(01:34:24):
the abuse that she has taken on social media this week,
I think Oriole's Peak realizes that she's newly divorced and
she's available. Oriole's Peak, I'll put a word in for
you if you want me to. I don't know that
it's going to make a difference, but I'm happy to

(01:34:47):
help in any way that I can. We have Nick
with a ten dollars super chat. I'm just baffled at
how thrown together. There's WrestleMania feels given how much they
love to waffle, there's waffle again, waffle on about long
term storytelling, like I look at liv and Solo, who
had these Big twenty twenty fours and just nothing. Yeah. Again,

(01:35:12):
it's just a very uninspiring card. The way it's all
kind of come together. I just look at it and hope,
you know what, there have been times in the past,
you know, whether it's WrestleMania or other pls, where you
go into it and it feels kind of underwhelming or
very underwhelming, and sometimes those end up being sleeper shows.

(01:35:36):
Like I think, I think wrestle Media this year has
the potential to be great. I'm kind of hoping the
fact that I feel the way I feel. Maybe we'll
you know, it'll be another one of those examples where
you go into it like your expectations maybe are kind
of low, and you know, they end up hitting you
with a great show. Maybe it'll be one of those years.

(01:36:04):
Shin super kick a Kuma. Let me get a try
at this. Why did the samurai switch clans? Because clans change? Oh?
I won't beat you up too badly because you were

(01:36:25):
just you were giving it your best shot. But man
uh Duff's VIDs. Did you hear about the kidnapping at
the school. It's fine, he woke up. You know what's
funny about this? We go from Duff's VIDs and Cidrow

(01:36:48):
is with us tonight. There he is Cidrow. He abandoned
me there for a while. But we go from Duff's
VIDs to Cidro. They're right on top of each other
right like I'm looking, can get this in the chat
right now with Sidro Duff's VIDs has been doing his
best to try to kind of be the uh almost

(01:37:09):
like the new Sidro. When Sidro is not here and
now they're both together in the chat, we may have
a fight breakout right here and now, Sidrow says, brother
always tore out last pages of my comic books and
never said why. Had to draw my own conclusions. And fyi,

(01:37:33):
Russian dolls are so full of themselves Duff's VIDs. I
lost my job at the bank. On my first day,
a woman asked me to check her balance, so I
pushed her over. Wrong balance, wrong balance. That's that's that's

(01:38:03):
pretty good. That's pretty good. Now we got we got
a little competition going here with Dups VIDs and Psycho Cidro.
Here super pony Randy Orton went from Ko to solo.

(01:38:23):
What a downgrade? Yeah, well, let's hope it's just throwing
us off and they'll hit us, because look, they could
have just announced it tonight if it was gonna be
Solo Socoa, they just could have come out and announced it. Yeah,
there was another idea that I had that I actually
forgot to mention before. And if it's not Nick all

(01:38:44):
this and if it's not, it's not gonna be Shamus.
I just kind of threw that out there. There is
an idea where Solo Soca could be involved, but you
could try to make it a little bit better, which
is and and let me know your thoughts on this.
If they wanted to do a tag team match, so
you do Solo Socoa and Tomatonga to get them both

(01:39:07):
on the show against Randy Orton and a partner of
his choosing or a mystery partner, however you want to
couch it and then use that mystery spot to debut
somebody new, like an Alistair Black, because the one thing
I don't think that they should do is have Randy
Orton go in there against somebody new who's just debuting,

(01:39:30):
or more specifically in Alistair Black becaus we know he's
coming in just because I think Orton needs to win
at WrestleMania. If he's going to go to Saint Louis
if he's gonna be possibly in the championship match, have
a big match of backlash. He can't lose itt WrestleMania,
and I don't want to see him go in there
with like Alistair Black making his big return and then
he fucking loses, you know, because Randy has to win.

(01:39:52):
But what if it was a tag match and he
debuted as his partner, and of course they would go
over in the end. I don't hate that idea. That
could potentially be a cool way to introduce him back
to the roster. So even that idea, I would take
that idea over just doing Randy and solo one on one.

(01:40:14):
It's just so unappealing to me. Snow Dog says they
should bring Matt riddleback reform RK Brow for WrestleMania. Yeah,
I don't see that. Sidrow has renewed for nine months

(01:40:38):
as a Channel member. I once lived in a houseboat
and I was in love with the girl next door.
In the end, we drifted apart. Nick Grosso with the
nineteen ninety nine first the parking lot attack and then
the postmatch attack. How much more can Charlotte Barry Tiffany. Seriously,

(01:41:00):
Tiffany has looked terrible this entire bill that if she
doesn't retain at WrestleMania after all this, oh boy, it's
gonna be bad. Yeah. I mean, I guess technically she
got her ass kicked twice tonight, didn't she right? She
got attacked in the parking lot and then she got
left laying by Charlotte during the show. Hydro Grad fifty seven.

(01:41:24):
I was considering going to SmackDown tonight, but decided not
to since this show has been a bore for weeks.
No different tonight. Glad I saved my time and money.
How much were those tickets going for? Five hundred apiece
Duff's VIDs. I told my doctor I heard buzzing, but

(01:41:45):
he said it's just a bug going around. No Solo
versus Orton at WrestleMania forty one, Noel Mulligan, thank you
for the eleven bucks, says high Solemn Monster. I am
a care assistant for my mother, who is very ill

(01:42:08):
at the moment. Your show keeps us going. My mother's
favorites are Rick Flair and the Iron Cheek. In his
shoot interviews, I see your mom has good taste the
Iron Sheet shoot interviews are legendary. Well, I don't know
what's ailing her, but I certainly hope, if it all possible,

(01:42:29):
she gets better, or at least, you know, is able
to rely upon you for whatever assistance she may need.
I'm sure you'll be there for her. I don't really
know what else to say. It's a shitty situation whenever
any relative is ill, let alone your parent. But I'm
thinking about her, I'm thinking about you, and I thank

(01:42:51):
you very much for the support. It does mean a lot. Hey,
King Nader as if the twenty gifted memberships earlier wasn't
cool enough, he dropped a forty dollars bomb earlier in
the stream. The King has spoken Michael SmackDown looking like

(01:43:17):
the Mets in September, injured or missing, this is going
to be our year. You can mock and make funnell
you'll want you, but this is going to be our year,
telling you, Matt Fisher, Tiffany and Charlotte is the match
I actually care about. It's either going to be amazing

(01:43:39):
or it's going to be a pile of russo pretty much. Yeah,
I don't really think there's going to be any in between.
On that Like I said last week, I just hope
they have better in ring chemistry than they do on
the microphone. Number one almost Sapien with six months channel

(01:44:00):
membership came in a little late after watching New Japan's
Windy City Riots. Yes, they had a show in Chicago
tonight and as a matter of fact, Willie Iicherd, the
Chicago Slayer, one of our loyal listeners. He and Mama
Ichred were actually in attendance at that show, and I
saw he sent a picture on Twitter always representing the

(01:44:23):
sound of Mama Ichred had a sound off shirt on
Always love seeing that. So I haven't read up on
that show at all. I don't know what happened. I
don't know how good it was or wasn't. Hopefully it
was a good show. I am sure it was better
than SmackDown. We got Zachary Black. I hate saying this

(01:44:47):
with WrestleMania being in f in Vegas for this lackluster
build this year, will both nights end up as six
to nine hours each? Man, I just feel these this
build could have been better. Still plan on watching with
the wife. Peace God when you put it like that,

(01:45:07):
six to nine hours including the pre show that's just brutal.
But again, you don't have to sit through the pre
show because there's no matches. There's no matches in uns
for the pre show, so I'll be doing other things
as I prepare for WrestleMania each night. Blue Jay, the

(01:45:33):
disrespect to Shamrock is insane. Not Punk. I really thought
that they would maybe have Shamrock do the induction for
that match, but they're going with CM Punk. CM Punk
is the bigger name of the two. That's who they're
going with. Dimitrius Hodge. Jimmy Hart should induct the disasters.

(01:45:58):
That would make sense. Yeah, he managed the natural disasters.
I just throw Cody out there because of the family
connection to Typhoon, but yeah, I would agree. I would say,
if not Cody, then Jimmy would make sense. We have
give me backshot solo monster. You keep asking, but I'm

(01:46:20):
not going to thoughts on heel Naomi winning money in
the bank this year. I could get behind that. I'm
not gonna make any predictions right now or say that
she would be my pick because it's too early for that,
but she would definitely be on my short list, especially

(01:46:40):
the way this heel turn is going so far. If
she really continues to embrace it and commit to it,
I'd be down for that. We got King Nader with
another thirty two dollars super chap buy or sell on
the worst build WrestleMania twenty eight or WrestleMania forty one.

(01:47:03):
I have had to struggle to get through these shows.
It's unbelievable. Hey, Solo, I hope you are doing well.
I am doing well. Thank you for asking. I hope
you're doing well as well. Sounds a little redundant now,
the worst build WrestleMania twenty eight or forty one. Man,

(01:47:23):
it's tough when I get these questions because now I
have to remember what the build was like for each WrestleMania,
and like, I don't remember what the build was for
all of the WrestleManias. I'm trying to think of that
one I was at that WrestleMania. That was the first
WrestleMania I ever went to live. Obviously, everything was built
around Rock and Sina, the end of an era, Hell

(01:47:44):
in a Cell match, punkin Jericho. I don't think I
was really a big fan of the punkin Jericho build.
I remember Jericho. I think hit punk in the head
with a whiskey bottle and what was he talking about
his alcoholic father or something? And he I remember he
went to hit him in the head with the whiskey
bottle and it was like gimmicked and the bottle broke

(01:48:07):
before it even hit his head. I remember that. Yeah,
that sucked. What else happened on that show? Well, I mean,
Seamus won the world title in eighteen seconds, you know what.
I would say, this build has probably been better than that.
I don't remember the WrestleMania twenty eight build being all

(01:48:27):
that great at all outside of the rock Sina stuff.
Didn't they do Randy Orton against Caine on the undercard
on that show? Yeah? He tripped, right, he tripped? Yeah,
because after the bottle broke, there was like a puddle
on the floor and fucking Jericho slipped bass beers. Can

(01:48:53):
you do a keg stand? I'm not gonna try. Maybe,
but I'm not gonna try. We got Willie with the three.
Were you surprised that Cody mentioned Brock's name. I wasn't
expecting it, But you know, I mean, it's not that

(01:49:16):
like a huge surprise or anything. I guess I wasn't
expecting it, So it was surprising a little bit, but like, eh, whatever,
it was like a quick mention and then he moved on.
It's not really a big deal tracking problem. SmackDown needs
the future world champion, that is Mike Ball Speed Bailey.

(01:49:39):
I think he would be a terrible fit in WWA,
I really do. I think the right decision was for
him to go to AAW. I just think his style
works so much better there than it would in WWA.
Also says it's an eyepatch. Drew looks like the woman
from thriller A cruel picture, look it up, fed up film.

(01:50:06):
I've never heard of it, Bass bears the Kevin Owens
interview with Van Vliet is great. Yeah, I haven't finished
it yet, but I watched a good chunk of it.
I mean, most of Chris's interviews are great, and really
any interview that I've ever heard Owens in he's great.
But yeah, I have to finish that one. I'm pretty

(01:50:28):
sure it was recorded before the the injury, though I
don't think any of that is covered near rip KC
A true og and a Walking Wrestling Pedia. Yes, indeed,
we've talked about him a lot here on the streams
this week, and he will be missed. Thank you near

(01:50:55):
King Nator with that twenty drop the twenty gifted memberships,
Oh oh my god, unbelievable, just in time for Wrestle
Media Season No Less number one, Almost Sapien. Sounds like
I made the right choice to watch three and a
half hours of New Japan instead of three hours of SmackDown.
New Japan goes by in a blink of an eye,

(01:51:16):
as opposed to SmackDown dragging on forever. I could tell
you I haven't even seen the New Japan show, and
I could tell you made the right decision. Jeremy, Actually,
wait a minute, is wasn't this the uh Tanahashi's final
match on US soil? Wasn't he wrestling Takeshta tonight? I

(01:51:42):
believe that was on this show tonight. I'm gonna have
to try to check that out, Jeremy Rose. Do you
think Bianca's Wrestle Media streak should continue so they have
a story in the future. If she doesn't win the
Triple Threat but isn't beaten, does the streak continue? No?
If she's the match and doesn't win, then the streak
is over. And honestly, I don't really give a shit

(01:52:05):
about the only streak that ever mattered at WrestleMania is over.
So I don't really care if she wins, that's great.
I don't want her to win just because, oh, we
don't want to beat Bianca. She has this streak, Like,
who gives a shit? I hope that's not going to
be the determining factor. And who goes over in this match?

(01:52:29):
Jose Martinez, Solo, Monster use sexy beasts me. Thank you,
brother Bruce with the four ninety nine, not Bruce. Bruce
is here. This Mania build is missing the Rock. What

(01:52:51):
was the point of having him involved if he's not
going to be on TV for a month. You're preaching
to the choir here, brother, I don't know he's the rock.
He does what he wants. Dan Richards with twenty two

(01:53:11):
months of membership. Every year they leave a guy off
the card that probably should be on the card in
case of an injury. Solo is probably that guy this year.
So a seamous Solo is not the only one. Who
is this guy? What about this guy? Sammy's aying Solo

(01:53:38):
is not the only guy. I'm just saying Project Libertad,
John Moxley's title run and death Rider crap is making
me feel like Vince was right about Moxley and I
hate that. Yeah, it's it's bad. Eight nine Tech Buy

(01:54:01):
sell scrap Sena's rivals Edge Punk and Orton. Well, I'm
gonna buy On Punk. I'm going to I mean selling
selling scrap are kind of the same thing. I'm gonna say,
buy rent and scrap. How about that. I'm gonna rent

(01:54:23):
on Edge and I'm gonna scrap Orton because I don't
care what people say. Just because somebody wrestles a million
fucking times doesn't mean that it's a great feud. I
wouldn't call Sena and Orton some great, wonderful feud when
you've got you know, c On Punk and Edge right
there to show you what a real great feud with
John Cena could look like. And even aj Styles frankly

(01:54:50):
the Winston slip. Which state has the smallest soft drinks? Minnesota?
Oh my god, they get worse, They somehow get worse.
Jonathan been listening since day one? How is Brian day one?

(01:55:11):
We're going all the way back to two thousand and seven.
We're going all the way back to two thousand and seven.
That's how far back Jonathan goes we're gonna have episode
nine oh nine this weekend. He goes all the way
back to episode one. Jonathan, I thank you very much
for the six bucks. It is much appreciated. I always

(01:55:32):
love hearing from the ogs. Thank you, brother, the comedic genius.
Sidrow against Duffs is a better build than WrestleMania, to
be honest, you know what I think it is. I
think it is. You mean to tell me that you

(01:55:54):
wouldn't want to see Sidrow one on one with Dupps VIDs,
You'd rather watch Tiffany and Charlotte after the bill that
we've had so far, I don't believe you. Eminem with
a twenty five dollars super chat, Bree wanted to make

(01:56:20):
a cameo with her drinking abilities. Why couldn't they just
announce Orton against all This a WrestleMania. It's almost like
Ted Dbiassi Junior will make an appearance next week and
talk a legacy. Oh god, no, why would you even

(01:56:43):
suggest that that'd be a terrible idea? Now? I think
Dbasi has got bigger issues to deal with. I think
doesn't he have charges that are still pending. He may
end up in the pokey by the time this is
all said and done. Sidrow read The Red the other

(01:57:11):
day that people eat more bananas than monkeys. No surprise
is there. I can't even remember the last time I
ate a monkey. Hashtag never drift apart? What am I
gonna deal with you? Arabian Night? No excuse not to

(01:57:35):
have Chelsea and the Prophets at the Wrestlemydia kickoff. Oh
they may be there, but doesn't look like they'll be wrestling.
They have a week. They could always change their mind.
Alexander brother Solo. Why is lives stuck in the tag

(01:57:56):
team Championship run? She should be top of the card.
And when the hell will my queen Alexa be on
top of him again? Bliss fan? Do you have multiple accounts? Here?
Is that you? Uh? Tanga Loa superfan? Oh? Boy, Toga
Loa superfan? The Rock was seen wearing a new Japan

(01:58:19):
shirt on Instagram? Who was in New Japan last year
before joining WWE. The alarm bells are going off that
Tonga Loa is going to be revealed as the third
man with John Cena and The Rock at WrestleMania. Oh,

(01:58:40):
there are alarm bells going off? All right? I think
you've got some guys in white coats who are outside
your door ringing your doorbell. You might want to go
answer that again. You can't have a third man when
there's no second man. There's still some people who were
hung up on this set have a third man. I'd

(01:59:03):
like to know where the second man is because we
haven't seen him in over a month. How can you
have a third man when there's only one man, and
even then he's barely around? Third man, Sidrow, You may
be American when you go to the restroom. You may
be American when you leave the restroom, but do you

(01:59:25):
know what you are when you're in there? Oh my god, yeah,
I can't even say. You may be American when you
go to the restroom. You may be American when you
leave the restroom, but do you know what you are

(01:59:48):
when you're in there? European europe I can't. I can't,
I can't, I can't European European. All right, all right,
Sidrow just pulled ahead. You ever see those races like
the Kentucky Derby or whatever, where it's like the two

(02:00:10):
horses are neck and neck, they're like very very close,
and then one of them just kind of pulls away
at the last minute. I feel like that's Cidrow right now.
Oh man, European Project Libertad. Reminder that if God forbid,

(02:00:36):
Moxley manages to retain it all in we go to
another filler season with Forbidden Door, which means more death riders. Now,
why did you have to say that? Why did you
have to put that evil out there? RDS Harry two

(02:00:57):
thousand and five Samoa Joe against Jacob fa two. Who wins?
It's a tough one, but I gotta go. Two thousand
and five Samoa Joe. That's my guy, Samoa Joe man
back then, Ring of Honor, Samoa Joe. Hey, he was,
he was the fucking man. Chris Mike Sell again with

(02:01:23):
that one hundred and fifty dollars super chap bomb. Congrats
again to you and young Anthony Solo Mike Sell, wishing
you all the best. Tangaloa super fan, Oh he's not
done yet. Don't be surprised when Tangaloa gets revealed as

(02:01:43):
the surprise special guest referee for Cody and Sina Wwe
got to drive more ticket sales for WrestleMania, and Tonggaloa
is just the man to do it. Yeah, driving tickets
sales into the ground, perhaps, But he could be an usher, right,

(02:02:04):
he could work as he could be Like, hey, look,
even Nick Kahn was an usher once upon a time
of WrestleMania in Las Vegas. That could be Tangaloa this year.
You know what that means. If Tangaloa is an usher
at WrestleMania this year in Las Vegas, like Nick con was,
that means in twenty years, Tangaloa might run WWWE. He
might be the president, he might run the entire company.

(02:02:26):
Little Baby Fire Panda with the fifty dollars bomb. I'm
about to say it. Raquel Rodriguez has one of the
better Deaf Rebel songs. You should check out the video
Carrying Cross posted about the AJ versus Paul match at Mania.
It is very good. I haven't seen it yet, but

(02:02:47):
you know, Carrying Cross a lot of the stuff that
he does on social media is some of his best
stuff and we never get to see it on TV.
I'm sure it is good. By the way, it's funny
you mentioned deaf Rebel. I'm gonna I'm gonna be covering
a story about that on the podcast this weekend. Very
interesting stuff. I didn't think it was possible to hate

(02:03:13):
the current music situation in WWE and what and what
these guys do more than I do. But I actually
found a way. But I'll talk about that on Sound
of nine oh nine this week at Firepanda. Thank you,
Thank you very much. Eight nine Tech just saw some
of Menace Orton highlights. Who sold best and worst of

(02:03:33):
the punt kick? For me? Shane sold it pretty bad
when he got kicked. Yeah, Shane. I don't remember Shane's
cell being great. I mean, you know, it's hard for
me to rate the cell because when you get kicked
in the head, there's not a whole lot to sell.
It's like you get kicked in the head and you

(02:03:54):
just you fall down. That's it. You put your head down.
It's not like taking a stunner where you can kind
to bounce up into the air and you could put
a little put a little something extra on it. Right,
there's not a whole lot to do. I'm trying to remember.
I think Shane got kicked in the head and didn't
he like stall and then he kind of just like
put his head put his head down. Uh maybe Vince,

(02:04:17):
you know, he kicked Vince pretty good in the head,
maybe forty one eighty one. After Sina was in the marine.
His replacement was miz Who would be Hogan's replacement for
a straight to DVD No Holds Barred sequel, Rick Flair
he's talking now, or are you talking a sequel back

(02:04:38):
in the day? Probably Beefcake. He would give the role.
He would give the role to his friend Brutus over there. Yeah,
I'm sure that would do real well. Project Libertad. Tanahashi
said he liked the ending to Dynasty. Well, look, I mean,
Tana Hashi's been doing this. It's a long time. You know.

(02:05:01):
CTE is a very real thing. So and Leopolo says, woohoo,
Sidrow broke solo a rare feat. Indeed, Well, it does
happen from time to time. It's been known to happen rare,

(02:05:22):
but it's not impossible anyway, Thank you guys. Yes, Sidra says,
more like tana haaha. Hashi on that comment, I don't
know where people are getting this from of the chat
that deaf Rebel has signed for ten more years. I'm

(02:05:44):
not wishing that. No, that's not what the story is about.
The story is about the way in which they go
about doing their music and it just makes me shake
my head. But we'll talk about that on Sunday. All right,
let's take a look at the We are eight out
of ten on the second goal in the chat, by

(02:06:05):
the way, that brought us up to eight, so we're
not quite there yet for a bonus Be the Booker.
But we're getting there. But right now we got one
round to give you, guys, so let's not waste any
more time here. This is the way you end a week.
You end a week by booking a card. Let's find

(02:06:27):
out what happens in Be the Booker, Ladies and gentlemen.
Oh my god, it's the rock. Whatever happened to this guy?
Look at this guy grooming Cody in this photo. I
want your soul, he says, he says, I want your soul.

(02:06:50):
Here we go, tag team Be the Booker. Oh I
just realized. I just realized. Hold on a second. Here
we have hit the goal, the second goal for a
bonus round to Be the Booker, ten out of ten,
which means we are getting two rounds. We are, in
fact getting two rounds of Be the Booker. This is

(02:07:13):
basically our WrestleMania night one and night two. All right,
so let's do Night one first and see how this goes.
And we begin with a town down under Austin Theory
and Grayson Waller. They are kicking us off here in
be the booker. Where they have been what they have

(02:07:37):
been doing. I have no idea. They're still around. They're
not doing anything right now, but they're around and they
will be wrestling. The two dudes with attitude, Diesel and
Sean Michaels. You know what I'm getting at the bell

(02:07:57):
because I actually think as a match it can be
pretty good. We all know who's going over. I mean,
there's no surprise there as far as who's going over
in the match, But as a match, I actually think
it could be pretty good. Call me crazy, Come on,
it's Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michael's in there with Austin Theory,

(02:08:21):
in there with Grayson Waller. You know what you gotta
do this spot? Waller does that move where he goes
outside the ring and then he dives in and he
does that little role. He's got to dive into the
ring and roll right into a superkick like he has to.
You have to do it, all right, We have Zia Lee.

(02:08:45):
They've been teasing a breakup for over a year. I
think they've been teasing a breakup with them for two
years now. Zia Lee kicking us off here in Women's
be the booker against Lacy Evans for my WrestleMania Night one.

(02:09:06):
I don't think so. I don't think so. Yes, Zai
has been coming up a lot, hasn't she? All right?
Main event time and well, of course, as soon as
I said WrestleMania main event, Look who pops up here

(02:09:26):
the game. Triple H once again is in the WrestleMania
main event. He's got two belts here in this photo.
He's trying to win a third Triple H one on
one with Triple H. Triple H against Triple H in

(02:09:57):
the main event of WrestleMania. You know who I think
booked this match, Triple H. That's who I think booked it. Now,
who goes over? Who gets buried? Maybe they bury each
other beneath the earth. They just start digging holes and
like throwing dirt on each other. It's gonna be a

(02:10:21):
very very political match. Like I would love to be
a fly on the wall in that booking meeting. Which
version of Triple A the version you're looking at right here.
This is the two thousand and two version of Triple H.
The best version, the best in ring version of Triple H,
is still two thousand. He was never the same after

(02:10:45):
the first quad tear, but in two thousand, like as
far as like his like physical peak like that, that
was Triple H at his best. That was twenty five
years ago. Unbelievad. I can't believe that we book Triple
H against Triple H. And now for I can't believe that.

(02:11:08):
And now for wrestlemanni A Night two, we do stipulations.
How can you be a fly since you're booking it.
It's a good point. Maybe I just want to be
a fly. Maybe I just want to be Jeff Goldbloom. Okay,
how do you know? All right, now we pick stipulations

(02:11:33):
here for the second round, which you have unlocked here tonight.
So I think we're gonna start with the women's match.
All right, let's pick a stick for the women. It's
gonna be a women's I quit match. Okay, so now
we know what the stakes are here for this match.
A women's I quit match? What wait? What? Oh shit?

(02:11:56):
Never mind, ignore that, I forgot We were still on steps.
We're sticking with I quit. We're not going with that one,
all right, I quit match Mercedes Manet the belt Collector.
It's gonna be in an e quit match. She's already quit.

(02:12:18):
W W A will she quit here in this match?
Let's find out Mercedes is going to go one on
one against ReHO in an e quit match. How are
we feeling about this? Because I'll tell you what. Mercedes
and ReHO in an equip match, it gets a bell

(02:12:38):
from me, It gets a bell from me. Mercedes would
torture this poor girl. Do you remember how like sadistic
Sasha Banks could be back in the NXT days, like
what she was doing to Bailey in their Brooklyn match.
Bailey had the bad hand and she was torturing her
and stopping on the hand like. Imagine what she would

(02:12:58):
do to ReHO here in this match. Yeah, goodbye, Riho,
You're done. Whatever happened to Riho anyway? I think she
got hurt and then we never saw her again. All right,
Let's pick the step four hour tag team match, final

(02:13:19):
tag team match here of the night. Oh my god,
it's going to be a tag team firefly funhouse match.
This is a first. This is a first, a tag
team Firefly Funhouse match. ReHO got rehurt, says Cidro. The

(02:13:50):
wind blew Rio away? Is that what I saw? I
saw something out my window a few months ago, and
I couldn't tell what it was. Maybe it was her.
I think I think I saw Rio flying by. It
was a really windy day here in New York. We
had wind gusts of up to like forty fifty miles
an hour. It might have been ReHO that went blowing by.

(02:14:12):
I don't know where she landed. All right, Tag team
Firefly Funhouse, Braunz Stroman and Ricochet. Oh my god, I
forgot about their tag team run Braunz Stroman and Ricochet,
and their opponents are going to be Randy Orton forces

(02:14:34):
Adam Pearce to add a stipulation to your match. Oh boy,
you know what that means. We got to pick a
new stipulation. Now, Firefly Funhouse is voided. We have to
pick a step. We're starting over. We have got to

(02:14:56):
pick a new step and it is going to be
a tag team for Blood Match. Okay, so first blood match.
Now we know what we're working with here. We're gonna
keep Braun and Ricochet, though, but their opponents are going
to be Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett in a first

(02:15:18):
Blood tag team match. Man, can you imagine Owen Hart
and Ricochet in the ring together? I actually liked this
match a lot. Braun, Stroman and Ricochet against Owen Hart
and Jeff Jarrett in a first Blood match. I'm actually

(02:15:39):
very focused on Deborah right now. She uh anyway? So yeah, okay,
good good stuff? Good stuff? Did I I belled the
women's match? Right? Okay? So we had a bell for
the tag match. We had a bell for the women's match,

(02:15:59):
and so we have one match left to go. Yeah,
that would be a good match. All right, stipulation here
for the main event, it is going to be a
stretcher match. This solid monster fighting fighting demons right now?

(02:16:22):
I got the demon within. All right, stretcher match, very good?
All right, here we go. We got one last match here,
we got one last match, and we have Latino heat.

(02:16:42):
My god, are you kidding me? I just got done
talking about Cody Rhodes pointing to the undisputed title and
name dropping Eddie Guerrero on the show tonight, and we
land on a picture of Eddie Guerrero holding the undisputed title. Wow,

(02:17:04):
it's like it was meant to be of all the
knights Man. That's awesome. Eddie Guerrero against will Ospray. Can

(02:17:31):
I give this another bell? I have to give that
a double bell that that's unbelievable for a main event. Here,
Eddie Guerrero and will Ospray, Now, that is a WrestleMania
match that unfortunately we never had the chance to see.

(02:17:51):
But and again, Eddie was a little bit older, so
you know Ospray now of course is he's he's in
he's in his prime year here and Eddie. How old
would Eddie be? Eddie would be what would he be? Gosh,
late fifties. When Eddie died, he was thirty. No, how

(02:18:13):
old was Eddie? He was like thirty eight right, that
was two thousand and five. Yeah, so he'd probably be
late fifties, maybe close to sixty by now that that honestly,
like no joke, that is one of the best, be
the booker matches that we have ever booked. That's amazing.
What a great match that would have been. Devin from

(02:18:36):
New Jersey buy or Sell the bank robbery scene from
Heat or the Dark Knight. Oh man, I'm inclined to
say Heat. I love it. First of all, The Dark
Knight is my is my favorite movie, so that's why
it's so tough. But that scene from Heat the bank

(02:18:58):
the bank heist is like, for me, one of the
all time great movie scenes. So I'm kind of conflicted
on this. So while it is close, I have to
go Heat. But I love them both. Nick Grosso, have

(02:19:20):
you watched WWE Evolve yet and if so, who are
your favorite prospects. I saw the first couple of episodes.
I haven't watched the recent ones. There was a woman
on there. Oh god, I forgot her name. She was
teaming with the kind of bubbly, happy, go lucky girl.

(02:19:41):
They were a tag team on that first episode. I
forgot the girl's name. She was impressive. I get a
kick out of the whole Cappuccino Jones thing. Keanu Carver
was another one who impressed me. There were a few
people who impressed me, Jack Cartwheel, I just I haven't

(02:20:02):
kept up with it. The last show I saw was
probably the second one. It was the one that had
Kylie Ray when she first wrestled. I think that was
episode two. Thank you, Nick, Oh, swipe right, that's right,
swipe right. That's actually it's a pretty funny. It's a
pretty funny gimmick. Yes, Callie Armstrong. Someone said the blonde

(02:20:27):
guy in Swipe right looks like a Disney Channel villain.
You know what he does? Actually, he does kind of
look like something out of the Disney Channel. Yeah, or
like one of those boy bands. What is the best
stretcher match of all time? The one that I enjoyed

(02:20:48):
the most? There was a stretcher match that big show
in Brockhead back at I want to say Judgment Day,
maybe in two thousand and three somewhere around there. Stretcher
matches in general are just not good. They're just not
like the stipulation you got to push the stretcher over
like a yellow light. It's very stupid. So it's a

(02:21:08):
tough stipulation to work with anyway. But that was probably
the one that I enjoyed the most. Sidro Goodfellas or
Casino also been watching LFG. No I have not. I've
had way too much going on. And now Dark Side
of the Ring is back, so I've been watching that

(02:21:28):
and then having to take notes and just do some
research on that. On certain things. So I've been very busy.
But good Fellas, Yeah, good fella. I mean, I enjoy
both movies, but good I mean, come on, good Fellas
is good Fellas. Casino's great too, though that scene lives
rent free in my head with Peshi when he's watching

(02:21:49):
his brother get beaten to death and they put them
in the hole. I still think about that Solo Socoa
is low. He one of the funniest wrestlers in the company.
Great then let him host the roast of WrestleMania on
Sunday night. Joe Peshi was technically in the first ever

(02:22:12):
buried alive match. Oh, I got news for you. I
he wasn't in the first everone. There were a lot
of them before that. Well, thank you guys. I didn't
realize how late it was. We've been having so much
fun here. I'm going to be dropping a brand new
podcast on you later in the afternoon on Sunday. That'll

(02:22:34):
be episode nine oh nine, covering a lot of stuff there,
including a dark side of the ring review on the
episode on Vader and I'll try to get some thoughts
in there as well on the WrestleMania nine documentary that
dropped on Peacock. I did finally watch it. I see finally,
I mean just dropped today, but I watched some of
it in the morning. I finished it with dinner. It's

(02:22:55):
almost two hours long. I didn't know it was going
to be that long. I enjoyed it. You should check
it out. It's a little long, I mean, it could
probably stand to be maybe ninety minutes, but there's there's
some good stuff in there, and I'll have some thoughts
on that, I'm sure on Sunday as well. The next
time I'm live with you here on YouTube, there will
be Monday night. That'll be for the raw Posha, the

(02:23:15):
final raw before WrestleMania, and I hope you guys will
be here to join me for that. It's gonna be fun.
It's gonna be a good time. What's my favorite seventies movie?
Halloween came out in nineteen seventy eight the og Have

(02:23:36):
I ever seen any Fast and Furious movies? Yeah? I
saw the first two. I did not see Tokyo Drift.
Should I see it? I don't know. I've heard mixed
opinions on it. I saw the first two and then
I saw the one. Whichever one it was that had
the rock for the first time, so whatever, I think

(02:23:57):
that well, I saw the fourth one, the fourth one,
and then I saw the fifth one. I guess would
have been the first one with the Hobbs character. So
I think I saw one, two, four, and five, and
I think that was it. After a while, they just
got completely ridiculous. I missed when it was just the
movie about fast cars. I'll see you back here live

(02:24:18):
for the post show on Monday night. Hit that like
button on your way out. Until then, take care, guys,

All Episodes

WWE Smackdown 4/11/25 Review | I THINK THE ROCK MAY HAVE STOLEN SMACKDOWN'S SOUL, TOO

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.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 4/11/25 Review | I THINK THE ROCK MAY HAVE STOLEN SMACKDOWN'S SOUL, TOO