WWE Podcast Rewind: Royal Rumble 2020 When Edge Returned and McIntyre Finally Won the Big One

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your full Royal Rumble review and Monday Night Raw is
coming up in just a minute, and boy do we
have a lot of content to get through today. Over
about two and a half hours with my co hosts,
as I brought on Mary Grayter, Zach Perez and Anthony
DeMarco to cover the entire Royal Rumbles show from top

(00:22):
to bottom, the Women's Royal Rubble Match, the men's, all
the matches that happened, including the pre show, and then
of course touching on the big, big, big big events
that happened on Monday Night Raw, with of course Randy
Ordan's attack on Edge. So you're not gonna want to
miss this one. This is a marathon show, guys. You
may want to break this down into you know, just

(00:43):
a couple of days unless you have some significant time
to get through this, But this is when you're gonna
want to listen to. It's it's though definitely the longest
show in the history of this show, but it is
worth listening to as we cover all bases and you
get all perspectives and we didn't always agree on everything,
which is a good thing. So stay tuned for your
full Rumble review and Monday Night Raw thoughts right after this.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Welcome to the WWE Podcast, the most passionate and authentic
wrestling analysis on the web. We've got you covered with
every Raw, SmackDown, and NXT show, giving you a no
bullkted opinion. We know you love wrestling. We do too,
so let's get this show underway. And that's the bottom

(01:31):
line what costone code sets out.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Welcome guys to the WWE Podcast, Huge, huge show today,
tonight or today depending on when you're listening to this.
All co hosts on board and we have a full
Rumble review for you, including the Edge return of course
headlining the Royal Rumble news Drew McIntyre, you could argue

(02:09):
was also kind of in that top spot winning the
men's Royal Rumble match, brock lesn being eliminated by Drew McIntyre.
We covered everything, every angle that you probably could in
terms of the Royal Rumble, the Royal Rumble outcome, and
where we could be going into WrestleMania, potential WrestleMania matches.
Who's Charlotte Flair could be challenging, right? I mean she

(02:32):
said onun Raw that she was going to face a champion.
Well hint him. There are three championships for the women.
Keep that in mind. So we really covered everything that
you could probably imagine. I'm sure we've missed some stuff,
but it really was a very thorough review of the
Royal Rumble, and you got different perspectives from four different

(02:53):
people on the Rumble and of course the mind of
net Raw after the Rumble, which really felt like a
wrestle Mania Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania, didn't it. It
felt huge, but great show. You guys are gonna want
to keep this on a really kind of a pause
and play and repeat and continue because this is a

(03:16):
long show. This is you know, two and a half
plus hours of content and that's a good thing if
you guys like long shows. And so maybe we'll continue
to do this kind of like a pay per view
roundtable post show type of deal. I know other big
podcasts have that. I'm not trying to rip off the
name from anybody, but that's truly what it would be,

(03:37):
and what this was. We were just shooting the you
know what, just talking about the pay per view and
giving our thoughts on it, and went around the invisible
table that we had and everyone got a turn to
talk and it you know it turned out very well,
and I really hope that we were able to just
do this again and maybe mix up some co hosts
and bring other people on and maybe have a discussion

(03:59):
with different groups for different pay per views. I don't know,
we'll see. This is kind of a trial run. I've
never had this big of a group of co hosts
to discuss wrestling, but it's always a blast, and boy,
two and a half hours goes super quickly you talk wrestling.
But anyway, guys, thank you for joining me. This is
the WWE podcast. You can join me every day. Every
single day, this show has a new show. A new

(04:23):
one comes out every day, and it's not always by me,
it's by our lovely co host or by our hosts
with Chris who does an XT, or with Zach who
does a w or Aidan willis our newest member to
the show who will cover Monday nights and give alternate
perspectives on the current product. Aidan is coming to us

(04:45):
and I'd like to welcome and I hope you guys
give him a listen as well. He had a Royal
Rumble prediction show and also had his own thoughts on
if WrestleMania should be a two day event. So that
was published in our feed just a couple of days ago. Actually, no,
it was publish yesterday. I'm losing track of time. It
is very late in past my bedtime right now. But

(05:07):
with that being said, welcome him, give him, give him
a listen, give him a like, give him a follow,
Subscribe to his feed if you would like to continue
to hear him. Chris, Zach, Mary, Ashley, Anthony, all of
the entire team here on the WWE podcast. So the
team's growing. It's a good thing. And this is now

(05:27):
an officially, officially a daily show. It's insane, right, It's nuts,
but that's what this is now. So all right, guys,
let's uh, let's not waste any time. Let's get to
the good stuff, right, Let's get to Mary, let's get
to Zach, Let's get to Anthony, and of course let's
get to myself as we talk about the Royal Rumble

(05:51):
and the Runny Neett Raw after. I'll be back tomorrow
with part two of the Stone Cold Versus the Rock
Wrestling Nostalgia as we look at WrestleMania seventeen, one of
the greatest WrestleManias of all time. In one of the
greatest men events of all time of Stone Cold versus
The Rock for the WWF Championship. Stone Cold turns heel.

(06:13):
You're gonna get all my thoughts on that. So Part
two is tomorrow. You're not gonna want to miss that.
And then on Thursday and Friday, nxt AEW, Saturday and
Sunday we are back with your weekend review. So a lot,
a lot, a lot to cover as we just go
full steam ahead into WrestleMania season. This is certainly going

(06:33):
to be a busy one. It's gonna be a noteworthy one.
We've already got a massive return, one that gave me
chills to the bone, and I've seen about twenty times
and I'm telling you that Edge return was something that
I will never forget. We all heard rumors of circulating
that he's coming back, that he's been clear to compete,

(06:55):
and even knowing that, still hearing his music and hearing
the crowd reaction, that was a Stone Cold return type
of reaction. Seeing Edge's face come out, the look in
his eyes when he came out is really what told
the story and it was just amazing. Everything about that

(07:17):
was just magic. It was damn magic. Seeing Edge come
back and and and vindicate himself, and he looks in
amazing shape. He's just I can't say enough about the
return was it was just damn brilliant and obviously having
Drew McIntyre win, well you'll hear our thoughts about that
as well, so I just wanted to touch on that. All right, Well, guys,

(07:39):
let's let's get right to it. Let's get to the audio,
get to the conversation with all four of us and
wrestling talk, which is what you're here for. So guys,
I will talk to you soon's it gonna be you

(08:06):
gotta be Jimmy super Star. It's just there. That is, guys,

(08:29):
my favorite moment in WWE in the last i don't know,
five ten years, probably since the CM Punk promo that
happened in Vegas. That was the moment for me. Welcome
guys to the Royal Rumble and Raw Review Show. I've
been really looking forward to having this conversation with you, guys.

(08:49):
I've been holding a lot of stuff in as you
guys have for the last two days. With the last
two shows, and we now have Anthony DeMarco, we have
Mary Greater and Subby for Ashley this time around is
Zach Perez. Guys, welcome to the show. It's awesome to
have everybody here.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, good to be here, Absolutely glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
So, guys, I'm just gonna ask you right off the top, Mary,
I'll start with you, what what were your overall thoughts
of the Rumble and raw? Well, I mean what did
you give it a thumbs up with thumbs in the
middle thumbs down? Where were you for the just as
a whole?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Well, starting with the rumble, I think it's the best
rumble that I've seen since I started watching wrestling again
back in twenty eleven, twenty twelve. It's up there too.
I don't know if it's the greatest rumble of all time,
I'm not saying that. But the card was super solid.
I wasn't really happy with the outcome of the women's Rumble,

(09:52):
but the women's Rubble overall was super good. And then
you know, they delivered on the men's Rumble. And even
while the matches, the only one that was kind of
it was the Bailey match, which I didn't really expect
that much from it. I expected the outcome, but in general,
it moved it didn't like lag, and it seemed like

(10:12):
it was a solid card overall in my opinion as
far as raw goes, it was a good follow up raw.
I mean, things happened, they started building storylines going to WrestleMania,
but I mean it, it was a decent raw. It
wasn't terrible in any any means, but you know, it's
I think it depends on the person and what they're
they're paying attention to in the storylines that they're invested in.

(10:33):
So I didn't have any problems with all us they either.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Zach, what did you think?

Speaker 5 (10:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (10:40):
Overall, I think that the Royal Rumble was a great card.
It's definitely one of the better rumbles that I've watched
in a long time, and it really hit on all
the right spots for me for what I feel like
the Royal Rumble should be. You know, it had a
good amount of surprises, good matches in between to break
up the Women's Royal Rumble and the Men's Royal Rumble.

(11:01):
And I think that ultimately the decisions they made really
made a lot of sense. I was really happy to
see them kind of go the right direction and give
it to Drew McIntyre as much as I would have
kind of liked to see Edge take his way all
the way through the Rumble, I did like the idea
of having it end up with Drew McIntyre, I claim
mooord Lesner, and I just thought a lot of the

(11:22):
big moments were done so right, and I thought they
did a brilliant job of kind of showcasing the best
of what the Royal Rumble can be. So I was
definitely really happy with it, and I like to see
that they're continuing things along on Raw with Edge still
coming back, and even seeing MVP back too was nice
to see on Ross. So a lot of cool things
happening in WWA very retro feels Anthony.

Speaker 6 (11:45):
Best rumble, hands down in probably fifteen years. The last
Rumble I could compare it to as good as this is
two thousand and five when Batista won it. But yeah,
just great booking decisions across the board. Every match was
enjoyable the most part, and the Rumble itself, like, you know,
that's the best possible course of action you could have taken.

(12:07):
With rock Lester being first, it told the story. It
was like almost a tale of two rumbles. The interaction
between Brock and Drew with the ultimate elimination of Brock.
I rewatched about five or six times. The pop was amazing.
They built Drew McIntyre to be a beast. They swerved
me at the end. I was convinced it was gonna
be Roman reigns, but I was hoping for Drew McIntyre

(12:29):
turning babyface and then continued on Raw. They planted some
seeds with McIntyre and Brock being official for WrestleMania. Now
we have this Edge and Randy Yorton thing, and what
can you say about the Edge return. I haven't heard
a pop that big since the Row came back in
twenty eleven, and to be honest, this one may have
been bigger because this was for an actual match.

Speaker 5 (12:51):
So I got a tip my hat to w w B.

Speaker 6 (12:53):
That was the best pay per view in easily the
last ten to fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's crazy. I mean, it's felt like WrestleMania. To me,
it felt like I just came off WrestleMania, and the
raw from last night felt like a raw after Mania,
except it was a raw after the Rumble. And I
don't know if it's because they're starting to move to
stadiums because for the Royal Rumble and rightfully so that
Edge entrance. I'm serious like this, those are moments that

(13:19):
remind you why you're a wrestling fan. Those are the
moments that you look back on and like when you
get goosebumps. And I was laying in my bed and
my son and my wife were asleep, and I had
my headphones on and I hear Edges music and like
I jumped up, and I'm like, I had to hold
in my yell and because if obviously I did, I
would have caught hell for it, because then I would

(13:40):
have woke up the entire family. But I like, that's
how emotional I felt about even though I heard rumors
and there was some strong speculation, you just still never know,
and hearing that for me was it was one of
those moments that like, I'm not kidding you. When I've
seen I've watched this like twenty times of his introduction
back into the Rumble, and when you see Edges eyes

(14:01):
when he's coming down the ramp, that's really what tells
the story to me. It's it's it's as if he
is coming full circle, that he is back, and that
all of the emotion in the build and what was
taken away from him nine years ago, is coming full circle.
It just there's so much emotion there in those few
seconds of that camera shot of him coming down the ramp.

(14:22):
It was it was awesome. The rest of the card.
I really enjoyed the top to bottom. You could say
the Bailey match was a little bit subpar. It kind
of was. I mean, I guess in comparison, especially to
the rest of the card. Even even there the pre
show with Seamus and Shorty g Right, I mean, we
can we can discuss that in a few moments as well.

(14:42):
But in Andran too, Andrade retaining the United States Championship
even though he got a thirty day suspension, and we
can talk about that as well. I loved this Royal Rubble.
Like you said, this may have been WWE's best pay
per view in a decade. That's insane to say, but
it may have been.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
I totally agree. Going back to the Edge stuff real quick.
You know, there have been rumors for a month that
he got cleared and stuff, and I loved how they
did it. Were you know, sometimes when a surprise entrant
comes in, they kind of like have a pause. You know,
there there's nothing nobody's music hit, but they hit it
right away, and that place just exploded. And it wasn't

(15:25):
even like, oh, the superstar is back, we're super excited
about it. Like everybody was just genuinely happy for him,
because when he retired, you saw how heartbroken he was.
Same thing happened with daniel'brian, but even even more so
with Edge. Just the way that he had to go out.
He was champ and he was forced and they told

(15:47):
him he would never wrestle again, and he had serious,
serious injuries, and that shows you how far the medical
field is com I mean as a whole. But like
you're saying, when they closed, stub on his face and
you can see the tears dwelling in his because he
couldn't believe that he was there. He couldn't believe that
he was there, and he couldn't believe that he got
that reaction, even though I don't understand why he wouldn't

(16:09):
think he would get that reaction. I mean, as is
the best. He's one of the best that you know
has come in the ring personality wise and everything that
he's done for the tag team division and as a
champion and pushing you know, the envelope, But it was
it was just one of those surreal moments, like you say,
when this is why we watch and you could just
see the raw emotion in his face, like just taking

(16:30):
it all in and trying not to like get up
and caught and be like, Okay, I gotta go in
there and show that I still got it, which he did.
I mean, he was in the final four. I mean,
how awesome was that? But it was just it was
one of those moments when you go, this is why
I'm a wrestling fan because I'm actually happy. I feel
his happiness right now because this is his dream. And
even though I've never been a wrestler, like I can

(16:52):
understand if something was taken away from me unexpectedly and
not on my own terms, and I was able to
get it back and I buy in my ass to
get it back. It was just a phenomenal moment, and
I loved how they executed it. It was amazing.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
Yeah, I definitely agree with you too. I think that
that was one of those moments where you could kind
of feel him looking into the lens of the camera
as if he was looking into the eyes of all
of the fans, and to have him kind of experience
that not only for himself, but to experience it with
everybody in the audience like that. It was very powerful,

(17:31):
and I think that his emotion conveyed a lot through
the camera lens and it just made for one of
those huge, you'll go back and watch moments and I
feel like I've watched him in the TLC matches with
the Hardy Boys and the Dudly Boys a million times.
Now I'm gonna end up basically wearing out my phone

(17:52):
screen watching this video so many times. It's just one
of those surreal moments where you really feel like it's
a great experience. Having been a wrestling fan for a
long time and having watched his journey to get there,
you just felt a part of it.

Speaker 6 (18:08):
Well, what makes it so special in my mind is
because you had the edge return, and it was amazing,
one of the best returns of all time. Everyone exploded.
But it wasn't just the edge return that made the
rumble what it was. I can't stress enough how amazing
of a booking decision. I think booking Drew mcinnetito win
the Roll Rumble was. You know, up until maybe two

(18:29):
years ago, when Shinsky Nakamore one. You know, WW was
not on a great run with Royal rumbles, you know,
picking Triple H and Batiste as Roman raign as passed
winners that were often rejected by the crowd. But now
you know, they pick a guy who the crowd is
clearly behind, who has a lot of untapped potential. You know,
the women's roll rumble was fantastic. You know, maybe the

(18:52):
outcome could be debated a bit, but the match itself
was great. I loved the Fiend versus Daniel Brian. I
thought that told the good story. The fall on Raw
was great. So even though Edge Edge's return was just fantastic,
it didn't completely make the show. It was nice that
we didn't solely have to rely on Edge coming back.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
That just was a cherry on top.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, I agree. The fact is that Drew McIntyre was
the right choice. And I got a little nervous at
the end, and certainly flashes of twenty fifteen came rushing
back for Roman Reigns with the reaction he got rightfully so,
eliminating Edge and everything. And I had that feeling that
if wnwe puts Roman rains in the final few, that

(19:35):
he's going to get that reaction, and lo and behold
he did. And I think that putting Drew McIntyre over
was the correct choice. And I didn't pick him. I
still I did not. I mean, I was wrong, and
I thought there was a chance. I thought it was
a dark horse, but honestly, for the last few months
he's kind of been under the surface, kind of a tweener,

(19:57):
and he won the big triple threat match on Rawn
that was really the only ground he had to stand on,
and then got rko by Rand new Yort in the
next week. So to me, there wasn't a whole lot
of signals that yeah, this is who we're going with,
and so I didn't think that they would pull the trigger,
but I thought if they did that, the crowd would
respond positively. And my god, did you hear the reaction

(20:17):
when he eliminated brock Lessner. As you had said, Anthony,
that really was a tale of two rumbles, and you
had brock Lenzer dominating the beginning of the match, which
I actually did think would happen, which makes sense because
whoever eliminates brock would then be would get a huge
rub from that that would point the direction of Okay,
it's probably gonna be Brock versus whoever eliminates him, which

(20:38):
many people thought, and it was a great story. People
are getting pissed off. Oh my god, this is the
worst rumble ever I saw. The tweets, people are going nuts.
I'm like, do you know what's gonna happen here? They're
building to a moment. They're building to whoever eliminates Brock
is gonna be that guy. They're gonna They're gonna be
that person that faces brock Lesner at WrestleMania. That's what
they're building to. People are getting genuinely ang. I thought

(21:00):
it was brilliant, and the pop that he got for
eliminating brock Lesner was probably rivaled edges Entrance. I mean,
it was that loud. People were going nuts, But it
was a great story, great ending. It really may have been,
And I know that it's simply because it's the most
recent thing. Sometimes is the most vibrant thing, so you
think it's the most intense. But I guess, sitting here

(21:24):
on January twenty eighth, twenty twenty, I would say that
may have been the top in my top two or
maybe the top rail rumble I've ever seen. In my life.
I mean it was brilliantly booked from top to bottom.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
I mean I don't know that because you're saying, like,
go into retrospect, it's definitely top ten, top five. I
totally agree with that. And to go off of what
Anthony said, everything he said was right. It wasn't that
just Edge returned. Drew McIntyre was the person that I
said should win. I said Brock or Roman was gonna
win because I thought that was the safe bet and

(21:57):
WW logic. But I said Drew should win because you
need to make new stars and he is believable for
teaming the Beast the story. Everybody getting mad about Brock
don't understand Brock. These are the people who don't understand
the concept between them doing a part time champ and

(22:20):
its back to the old days that this is the guy.
Brock has been the dominant champion for what five years
plus now he loses it for like a couple of
months and then he gets it back. I was laughing
the whole first of the rumble because I love when
broncoes in there and just destorys people. I think it's funny,
it's hysterical, but it gives him legitimacy, we can go back.

(22:44):
So when Brock came back and they almost screwed it
up by him losing to John Cena and Triple H,
they almost messed it up. But since those two losses,
he has been the most dominant guy in the men's
division as a world champion, and he should be because
look at him and he's a collegiate athlete. You have
to make him believable. There's not a lot of believable

(23:06):
stuff like that anymore. And I've always said, the person
who's gonna take out Broad has to be believable that
he's gonna take him out. It can't be a mysterio.
It can't be like I mean sorry, it can't be
a cmpunk like somebody like Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe
and Drew McIntyre, who is just a slab of man.
I hate to like be like girl like that guy

(23:27):
is just like he's huge and he's beefy and that's
what he is. It is believable to me that Drew
McIntyre can be the guy to take out the beasts.
And it was just smart booking. And on the other
side they saved Romans. But because if they did have
Roman Loute win again, he would have gotten booed out

(23:47):
of the building. And they already made that mistake. And
they've worked so hard to get Roman back to a
point where he still gets mixed kind of you know,
responses and stuff, but he's really not getting booed anymore.
So there was nothing for if Roman would have won,
he wouldn't have benefited it at all, like Roman can
get a title shot. It's kind of like what my
argument will be about the woman's outcome rumble. But the

(24:12):
people who were saying that, Brock was like, oh, this
is the worst rumble ever. You don't understand that they
were actually for once the WWE was trying to build
a story and I said, the guy who comes in,
there's somebody coming who's going to take him out. I
don't know who it is, but somebody's coming in. They're
taking him out. Because they had thirteen eliminations in a row.
They don't do something like that. They wouldn't have run

(24:34):
him through the whole entire roster. They might have. He
may have gotten eliminated in the last couple of minutes,
but that rumble is one of the best booked and
story like thought out, like they actually took thinking for that.
I've seen Rumble since I started watching again ten years
ago that had been terrible, and that was just a

(24:54):
well thought out, well plaid Okay, we wanted Drew to
be the chosen one, like you know, ten years ago
or whenever he debuted, and now he's back and he's
proven himself and he's gone face in the last couple
of weeks and he's been killing it and he has
personality out the ass. So it was a great decision
by WWA. And you know, we always beat up on him,

(25:14):
but I'm crazy and for this decision.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, I think they really got a lot of the
decision making right, which is something that we kind of
almost take for granted that they're not going to do
and just assume off the bat that they're going to
make the wrong decisions. And you know, like you said,
with Roman, you know, it very easily could have had
the entire universe up against him again, but instead they

(25:39):
chose to go the right route and kind of play
more towards building a new star, which is always what
the Rumbles should be about in the first place, and
so kind of accepting that as a reality and going
through and doing that with Drew was just so smart,
And I think that there's also a potential setup there
too with Edge returning as well. Very easily see some

(26:01):
sort of program with him in Roman, you know, because
of the fact that they have both the same finisher
essentially with the spear, so I could very easily see
some sort of tie in with that and having them
come up against each other possibly down the line. I
know it seems like now they're building towards Edge versus
Randy Orton, but if he's to stick around, that's definitely
something where we could see Roman kind of finally take

(26:23):
that heel turn jump. So I think just across the board,
they kind of made all the right moves, and the
fact that they're sticking with Charlotte as a heel now
made a lot of sense in the women's rumble, even
as controversial as that is. So I think a lot
of the booking was done right, which is something we
don't normally expect nowadays.

Speaker 6 (26:42):
And what was brilliant about it was that even like
the little small details that.

Speaker 5 (26:47):
They booked were amazing.

Speaker 6 (26:48):
Like I just thought the way that Brock got eliminated
was so smart because it also protected Brook, like you
needed Ricochet to kick him between the pads for Drew
to get him out. And while it is impressive on
Drew to eliminate him with a claymoork kick, it still
protects Brock. And then they followed up on Raw that
Brock comes out and f five zone, like we can't

(27:09):
be led to believe that all of a sudden, Drew
is brock scryptonite. Like they strong that well out properly,
Like even though Charlotte won that Royal Rumble, you know,
they built up a lot of people to make them
look strong in that match. I loved that Alexa Bliss
had a nice run. Shana Basler, you know, I thought
that she was gonna wait up until the very end.
Beth Phoenix looked really good and hopefully maybe that sets

(27:30):
up something towards WrestleMania. And then in the men's you
know they've planted this seed for Edge and rand Jordan
that they followed up the next night. I liked how
they like integrated the brawl on the outside, like with
Samoa Joe and Alistair Black and Kevin Owens pushing back
on the Disciples of seth Rawlins even after they were eliminated.
And I also liked that they didn't waste time letting

(27:53):
you know guys who we didn't really think ever had
a chance be in the Rubble last long for no reason.
You know a lot of guys like Alas and you
know guys from the New Day and Eric Rowan. They
went out quickly and early in the match. They kept
a lot of the main guys to the very end,
and it was believable. It was just fantastic booking, from

(28:13):
the big stuff of the winners just to the small
little details that they really hit out of the park
on every single level they did.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
I mean, I can't believe I'm praising WWE this this
much because I've spent so many months critiquing about how
they've booked things, and it all just came full circle
this past Sunday with again, was it perfect. No, it's not,
but it's as perfect as you could probably realistically expect
a plan to be executed with the Royal Rumble match

(28:42):
and the perfect person won, And my god, the imagine
the reaction of Roman Reigns had walked out of there.
I mean, I guess from the reports I'm reading, Roman
Reigns was indeed actually scheduled to win the Rumble, but
it was changed somewhat last minute, as Vince McMahon is
famous for doing. And you have of Drew McIntyre who

(29:02):
ends up getting to the arena I guess that day
and confirming that yeah, you're going over, and like you said,
it did a good way to protect Brock. Yeah he
got low blowed, but it's kind of tit for tat
he low blowed Ricochet Monday night before and then he
gets a receipt at the Rumble and then gets Claymore kicked,
and so that immediately put an established Drew McIntyre as

(29:25):
the babyface, the huge babyface, kind of the underdog in
a way, even though as you said, physically statued he's not,
but positioning wise, over the last year he has kind
of been the underdog where you just don't ever believe
he's gonna win the big one. And he finally wins
the big one. And his speech on raw was heartfelt.

(29:46):
I like how he didn't just flip to babyface. He's
just kind of evolved into a babyface. It's kind of
weird that he hasn't had a real turn. It's just
kind of evolved into one, which I like that that
it's just evolved slowly into this babyface character. It's just
very subtly into it. And he didn't turn and pander
to the crowd and say, oh, we did it, and

(30:07):
we did it and all this crap that seth Rollins
just immediately flipped to doing, which I think hurt him.
Drew is a legitimate badass. He is a guy that
has credentials that you believe he could beat brock Lesner.
As you said, Mary, all of these all these things
add up. And plus he's had a run in WWE
before we all know he was the quote Chosen One,
and now he's truly earning that title with being the

(30:30):
Chosen One by winning the Royal Rumbles. So do you
guys have any final thoughts just just on the Rumble
match itself before we move on to the actual other
matches on the card.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
I mean, I was gonna say, like the whole thing overall,
Like they they started the Rumble with having Stone Cold
do the entrance and do the opening, it just made
it feel more important. It's amazing how stone Cold Steve
Austin can make something feel important even when he's not
involved in the match. I mean, he's the only three
time winner ever rumble. So even going into it when

(31:04):
it started, you were like, Okay, this is going to
be important because I don't think that Stone Cold would
sign off on something like that if he didn't know
it was going to be a big deal. So yeah,
absolutely with that. And as far as Drew goes, yeah,
he didn't really have a turn, I guess you could say,
but he was paired with the Lackeys. He was pair Rude, Dolph,

(31:28):
Zieglert all those guys, and like they removed him from
that group and then he was off TV. So that's
a smart thing. Instead of having like you know, like
a big show turn or a randeer In turn, like
when they just turn right away like Seth Rollins, they
did this smart thing. They removed him from the group somehow,
and it was just, you know, he vanished from TV

(31:48):
for a little bit, and then when he came back,
he was kind of like his own person, like he
was on his own so they didn't really need a
reason to say, oh, well, now he's a face. It
was smart the way that they're building him. And I
don't know where this came from because usually they drop
the ball on stuff like this all the time, and
they will just have somebody just turned face or for

(32:09):
some stupid reason, but them just like removing him from
TV and then bringing him back and him kind of
just being you didn't know if he was a good
guy or a bad guy. He was just being himself.
And I think that's the character that we're seeing right now,
is that he is it. You don't he's kind of
a tweeener. I guess you could say that, but it's
clear that he's going to be the face going forward.

(32:29):
And they do they need a face for Raw. I
mean Seth Rollins tried to do it and it wasn't working.
Seth Rollins is a pure heel. You want to hate him.
He's a rat, he's a snake, and he does all
these He works better in that kind of character. So
they're trying to find somebody to be that top baby
face a Raw And like you know Romans on SmackDown,

(32:53):
and you could say AJ Styles, but AJ Styles also
works better since his WW run has gone. I mean,
he was in a credible babyface, but you know, he's
a better heel and I love what they're doing with
AJ right now. So those are just like my little
tidbits about the Rumble. I again, the Men's Rumble, really really,
I was ecstatic when Drew one. I was really ecstatic

(33:16):
when Edge came out. But when Drew was like, I
was pacing my living room. My friend was over. I
was pacing my living room and he and he doesn't
watch wrestling. He just came over because everybody watches the Rumble,
even if you're a casual ww fan or not, and
it's always fun. And I was painted and he's looking
at me, and I was like, they better not let
Roman win. Like it's the stupidest decision they could do

(33:37):
right now, Like they did a lot of damage to Roman.
He should have won in twenty fourteen when he was
going up against Patissa, he had the crowd behind him,
and then all the day of Brian's stuff happened, and
then they had him win in twenty fifteen, and it just,
you know, all of them trying to make him the
top baby face went out the window. So I'm happy
that they protected him and they made a new star
who he's been. You know, like you said, credit, he left,

(34:01):
he came back, he beefed up. You know, he had
that horrible stay with three and me. Even though I
thought it was funny, he's credible now and they did
a lot of smart things in this rumble. It was
a fantastic rubble. I have no complaints about it.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
I definitely think sorry about that. I definitely think that,
you know, this rumble had a lot going for it,
you know, I think that overall, they just made so
many surprise appearances, but none of them kind of were
drowned out by Edge. And I think another thing that
a lot of people haven't touched on is the fact

(34:36):
that you know, you had Beth, Phoenix and Edge returning
at the same Royal Rumble, which I thought was a
brilliant little move as well. It kind of have almost
teased that it was going to happen without you even
realizing it when it happened. So, like you said earlier, Anthony,
you know, just so many small details that went into
getting all the big details right, and it just felt
like a master plan executed to a tee. And although

(34:59):
some of the little decisions along the way could have
been critiqued here and there, it's like you're kind of
picking apart something just for the sake of picking it apart.
At that point. It's just so much of it was
so great. I think that it was just across the board,
a great team effort from top to bottom.

Speaker 6 (35:17):
Yeah, there's nothing really I can add to it. Fantastic rumble,
good lead up matches, planted, a lot of seeds, liked
what they did with the Fiend Daniel Brian just thumbs
up across the board for nothing really much Schamor.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I can add, all right, great, Well, I know we
touched a little bit on the Women's Royal Rumble, which
I didn't think was as good as the men's. But
had the men's and have been so good, I think
our view of the Women's Royal Rumble would be a
little bit higher. But you know, having Charlotte win, it
wasn't the most exciting thing in the world. I think

(35:51):
that having her win makes sense, but not to spoil
things for people, and maybe I won't, but I will
allude to the fact that she said on Raw that
she was gonna make her announcement of who she was
going to face at WrestleMania, what championship she was going after,
and her clue was, I'm going after a championship. Now,

(36:13):
for those that don't want to hear a spoiler, I
will give you the fair warning now, so just skip
ahead from this moment. But what I'm hearing is that
Charlotte's actually gonna be challenging Lea Ripley for the NXT
Championship at WrestleMania. So if that is indeed the case,
and again rumors are rumors, but this seems to make
sense that she alluded to a championship and having her

(36:35):
versus Becky Lynch isn't exactly the most exciting match in
the world. We've seen it time and again. They've great chemistry,
but you know, my god, enough Bailey again, her and Bailey.
There's a little bit more there that you can work
with because they haven't had so many matches together as
her and Becky, But it's not WrestleMania worthy. So having

(36:56):
Charlotte go to NXT again, if this is the case,
to face Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship makes
total sense to me, not only from the perspective of, hey,
this is this coulda be a hell of a match
and we've never seen this before on a main stage,
and the fact that b you also have NXT itself
being elevated by Charlotte going to this brand and it's

(37:18):
not being viewed anymore as the red headed stepchild of
the of the trio of brands. It's it's legitimately Benett's
own third brand. It certainly has done that, especially after
Survivors series. They've established it as its own third brand,
a true third brand, and having Charlotte do that, if
it's the case, to me, I am all for that
that matchup, if it indeed takes place.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
Okay, So I'm gonna I'm gonna check here. So I'm
gonna talk about the women's rules.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
I think the women's rumle was just as good as
the men's. The only thing there there were slight things
that took away from it. First off, where with Sasha
I still want to know what happened this Banks. There
were a couple of guys who were in the who
were supposed to be in the men's rumble that didn't
show up Russev. I can't remember who the Bobby Lashley.

(38:09):
They weren't there. But besides the point we already talked
about the men, Sasha Banks not being in the rumble,
something must have happened because I'm I hate Santino Morello
and him coming out took all the steam out of
out of it. For me, I was enjoying that rumble
full force. Even if Charlotte would have won, it just
put a bad taste in my mouth because you're like,

(38:32):
really that could like Kelly Kelly came out and I
was like, oh, but like at least I could deal
with it, you know, because they didn't have a lot
of returns. I love the fact that there were so
many NXT chicks in there, and they gave them their
their light and their shine and stuff like that. And
I was waiting for Basler, I was waiting for Shana,
but you know, Kelly, Kelly comes out and I groaned
audiobly because she is the old guard. She is the divas,

(38:55):
she is the Bella twins, all the people that like
kind of you know, and then you got Santina or
like really like just for that spot with Beth and Natalia,
they didn't need that because you know what, going back
to Beth, Beth is the MVP of that whole pay
per view. She split her head open and she was
there to the very very end, and she looked like

(39:17):
a badass doing it. She was covered in blood, her
hair holds like spaghetti with like red sauce on it.
She was impressive. It wasn't even like an old timer
like trying to keep up with the new people. She
was like, no, I'm I can still go, Like let's go.
And then he came out and I was just like,
the only thing I can think of is that Sasha

(39:38):
got injured. She didn't get cleared. Something happened and they
stuck him in because he was there, and they were like, well,
we don't have anybody else. There wasn't anybody else, even
though they probably could have put somebody else in there
from NXT. But it was just such a huge disappointment.
It goes back to like when Carmela won the Ladder
match and had what's this space help her? It's just

(39:59):
like why is in there? And and and he's out
of shape and he's the most one of the most
annoying WW characters that has ever walked the planet. So
that was that was disappointing. But the match itself, the
girls were going Bianca, but bell Air like, holy crap, dude,
like she was made that night. She was so good

(40:21):
in the rumble, but going to the finish, I understand
what you guys are saying about Charlotte, but to the
point of if, if, if she isn't going out her
after reear Ripley, who wants to see Becky veru Charlotte again?
Becky just won that match. Goain to Oska. She is
now walking around saying she's the goat. She's beat Charlotte.
She there's nothing there and Charlotte is a legacy. She

(40:45):
is a randy or in. She doesn't need another opportunity
or rumble winch She's always going to be Okay, She's
always gonna be in the main events scene. She is
probably one of the best of all time, if not
the best of all time. Okay, she beat Trish. She's
proven everything. You have Shana Basler, who walks in there

(41:07):
at thirty, okay at thirty, and they built her up
as a beast. She is the brock Lesnar equivalent. She's
more badass than Rond Rowsey. If Rowsey wasn't coming out,
I thought Basler was winning, especially after the showing that
they did in the fall with NXT dominating everybody, like
there was no reason for Bailer not to win. And

(41:29):
that's how she debuts on the main roster, like I'm here,
let's go. We saw all the mistakes they made with Oscar.
They're trying to redeem it right now, but you know,
Oscar won the Rumble, and Oscar should have won the championship,
and then Rowsy should have dethrown her. That's how I
feel personally about it. I understand what you're saying, like
it makes sense about Charlotte, but it also made one

(41:49):
hundred percent total sense for Shana to win, just like
they just made Drew. You could have had you have
a storyline with Shana. It's not like people who watch
the meme roster don't know who she is. She did
that whole stit after you know Survivors series in the
Fall where NXC was dominating and killing everybody on the
main roster, and you just look at her and you

(42:11):
know she's a threat. So I was really upset with
the outcome, but it didn't take away from the fact
that I thought it was a solid Woman's Rumble. I
think it was the best out of the three that
they've had so far.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Yeah, that that was my instant reaction too, Like you said,
was that it was the best of the three Women's
Royal rumbles that they've had so far, And although I
wasn't one behind the Charlotte as an initial reaction as
the winner, I've come to kind of accept it a
little bit more and understand that they're kind of going

(42:45):
against the grain and just leaning into the hate from
the internet for her and having another opportunity and being
given something else. So I can see what they're what
they're angling for. But especially to Matt's point, you know,
if they are going to try and do Rhea Ripley
versus Charlotte Flair, then symbolically, it would have made so

(43:06):
much more sense in my mind, have Shane eliminate Charlotte.
Have that really bother her, that somebody from the lower
quote unquote brand of NXT beat her. You know, she's
supposed to be royalty. Having somebody come in and just
dispense her out like a piece of trash could have
bothered her, And it would have made sense to kind
of build to this program of doing the NXT Championship

(43:28):
without needing to have her win the Rumble. So I
think that if that's the direction they're going, Although I
think it'll be a great match, they definitely could have
built it a little bit better, and you know, touching
back on the other aspects of the Women's Rumble, I
definitely agree that the Santino spot was so out of place.
It's so far gone. You know, we talk about having

(43:48):
retro feels from this event, that was all the wrong
types of retro feel where it just went back and
to the days of where Kelly Kelly was doing the
stripper thing on East when that brand was still around,
and you know, having Santino come out in drag, you know,
it just it felt so out of place amongst a

(44:10):
very kind of badass women's Royal Rumble, where it really
felt at equal weight to the regular Rumble, to the
men's Rumble, And it's just it was so out of
place and just felt like kind of a slap in
the face to all the progress that was made in
that match and how much of a big fight feel
it felt like up until that moment. So it did
really suck the air out of the balloon. And I

(44:32):
think that it didn't help matters that, you know, nobody
was really behind the idea of Charlotte winning the Rumble,
which I think is partly the point, but it just
having that so close together was a little bit of
a miss, but overall, I think the women's rumble was
still a fantastic one and still the best that they've
done thus far.

Speaker 6 (44:51):
Yeah, the Santina Morella thing, it just like you guys
both pointed out, it just didn't really make sense.

Speaker 5 (44:58):
It didn't fit, and it's too.

Speaker 6 (45:00):
Bad because you know, up here in Canada, Santino Morella
the actual guy, like he works for a sports channel
and he does this show called Aftermath that he's actually
quite insightful, and it was just too bad. They came
back to do a little I guess cameo like that.
But all in all, I think why I'm not too
upset with Charlotte's because she was the safe choice and

(45:23):
they really didn't put a lot of build into this
women's Royal Rumble. I think there was only seven or
eight confirmed going in, and I understand why because there
was just so much put out, so much ever put
into the men's But you know, leading up to this,
I really didn't know who was the proper choice to
win the rumble, unlike in years past. So going in

(45:43):
with Charlotte, who's been kind of a holding pattern for
the last couple of months save for that brief feud
with Osca and Kyrie saying when she teamed up with
Becky Lynch, but you know, if they are going in
a direction where she's going to challenge for the NXT championship,
I think that'd be pretty cool. Well, I think that
there wasn't a correct answer for this win because there

(46:06):
just was, you know, a parent favorite, like I thought,
maybe Alexa Blizz could benefit from it.

Speaker 5 (46:11):
But I think at the end of the day, Charlotte's
someone who is.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
The bona fide top dog or at least one of
them in the women's division.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
And even though it may have not been.

Speaker 6 (46:22):
A sexy choice, it probably was the right choice when
you considered where WWE was in a booking perspective.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Definitely. Yeah, so boy to pile on with this this
Santina Morella thing. Maybe that's why I felt that it
didn't live up to the men's end of it. It's
simply because of the Santina spot that again, like, what
the hell was WWE doing in this day and age
when they're trying to make this women's division as legitimate

(46:52):
as I can and give them as much opportunity as
the men do and all this stuff and then you
have that like like you were saying, Mary with James
Ellsworth and Carmela, that whole thing that lasted. My god,
it felt like a year, maybe two, I don't even
know it was. And then you have Santina Morella come
out in a spot that felt very two thousand and eight.

(47:13):
It felt very nostalgic, and as you said, Zach, I
don't know if zachar Anthony in a way that was
all the wrong way. I don't need to feel this
way to bring up these feelings of number one. It's
not even funny, right, It's not like I didn't laugh.
I mean I said I actually I just said I
just said, oh my god. I just kind of rolled
my eyes. It's not the time nor the place to

(47:34):
do that. And it just it was not a good
feel to have a man dressed up as a woman.
I know Nia Jacks came in the World Rumble last year,
and you all know how I feel about that. But
to have Santina Morella dressed up as a woman and
then come back out and steal a spot from a
woman who could have legitimately had that spot, like Sasha Banks.

(47:57):
Although we don't even know what is the deal with her.
Don't know why she didn't participate. I've been trying to
scour the websites and I don't know why she wasn't there.
But for that reason, it just it put a damper
and brought the thing down. And yes, Bianca Belair had
a career night. I loved what they did with Bianca Belair,

(48:17):
really establishing her as a as a main event potentially
down the line, main event in the women's division. And
then yeah, of course you had Shana Basler and she
was my pick along with many others. But you can
still get to Shana Basler, Becky, you can still get
to Bailey versus Honestly, I don't even know who at

(48:38):
this point. The smack down side of the women is
a little bit weak, So I don't know where they're
even going with the SmackDown side of it. And maybe
Bailey won't even be champion by the time we get
to WrestleMania. But the point is the women who needed
to have a good night had a good night. Shana Basil,
yeah she didn't win, but she made it to the end.

(48:59):
She got a LIMD. But you know, sooner than later,
she is coming back two mon in Night Raw to
confront Becky Lynch, which is I think where they're going
to go with this, and so I guess to kind
of put a bow on the women's royal rumble. Let
me ask you guys this question as a group, and
do you think that they are hinting at turning Becky

(49:20):
Lynch heel? The reason I'm saying that Becky Lynch came
out on this past week on Raw in an interview
with Charlie Caruso backstage, she said that you know, she
was doubting herself and then she said, I don't know
why because I'm the best. And she wears, like you said,
she has a jacket that says the goat. Right, we
all know what goat is and it just she's getting

(49:42):
a little bit arrogant now. And to me that I
mean she cut basically a heel promo that she's the best,
no one can beat her, She's done everything there is
to do. Who the hell as a baby face gets
a goat jacket? It just it didn't rub me the
right way as a baby face. So is this just
Becky being Becky and we're all supposed to have her
because we all know she's the goat? Or is this

(50:03):
a sign from WWEE of seeds being planted for a
possible heel turned down the line.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Uh, that's a good question. I don't know. I've now
that you said it like that. I do think that
maybe that's the direction that they're going or she's gonna,
you know, continue being this babyface who thinks she's the best,
and Shana is gonna come out and confront her. But
I just feel like Shana getting eliminated kind of like

(50:33):
was like, Oh, she got eliminated and she's not that good.
I feel like it's shades of what they did to Osca, Like,
you know, Osca how to cheer your streak of being undefeated,
and they just pulled the rug out from under her.
And you know, Shane is a two time champ in NXT.
She's legit like Brock and Rousing, where she has an

(50:57):
MMA background and she's just you know, she's amazing. She's amazing.
She's probably my favorite villain that I've seen in a
long time. I draw to her. I like when she
beats up people. So I hope that's the angle that
they're going in. I don't know what they're doing, Like

(51:17):
everybody said, I didn't really have a pick in the
Woman's Rumble. But I definitely didn't think that it was
gonna be Charlotte because, as you said, she's been in
a holding power when I was starting to look at everything,
and me and Mad have discussed over the last couple
of weeks about you know, uh, Sasha and Bailey being
in this tag team, and like the role should be reversed,

(51:38):
that Sasha should have the title and Bailey should be
the sidekick, because as good as Bailly is in the
ring or whatever, she's not, she doesn't have the personality,
even though like they've changed it and I'm super happy
that she's not what she was, she just doesn't have
that torch to carry, you know, she is the psydech

(52:00):
And I thought that Sasha was going to win the
rumble and then turn around and challenge Bailey for it
because that made sense for me, and it wasn't going
to be like, oh, you're betraying me or I screwed you.
If if Sasha won and beat Bailey for the title,
that they would it would be in a mutual agreement.

(52:22):
At least one of them still had the title and
they were going to move forward like that, and it
was an easy way to get the title off of
Bailey to transfer it to Sasha, because Sasha has been
the focus in that that tag team or that duo
that they're doing. So when Charlotte won, I was just like,
what are you doing? And I was still questioning where
Sasha was and everybody, you know, Sasha was saying she

(52:45):
was going to I did. She did announce that she
was going to be in the rumble, right, I'm not
like misquoting and stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
I don't recall her specifically saying she was going to
be in the rumble as anybody.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Else Anthony Zach.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yet, you know, I do remember I thought that she
was announced as being one of the entrants. I don't
know if she specifically said it, but I do remember
something coming out as Sasha Banks was one of the entrants.
I don't know where it was that I read it,
but I think that it was definitely a report that
came from WWE at some point that had Sasha in there.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Yeah, because I totally thought that she cut a promo
and she was saying that she was going to win
or something like that. I could be making things up,
but there's so much restla I get confused. My days
bleed into each other. But yeah, so that's that's where
I stand on the whole entire thing. I don't know
what's going to go forward. I really hope that if Sasha,
I mean, I'm sorry, if Charlotte won, that they are

(53:44):
going forward with Rhea Ripley, because like other than Shana
Real is the biggest badass NXT, Like she's a beast
and she's proven herself, and I hope that, you know,
it's probably going to go in the direction though that
Charlotte might win the NXT title, which I would think
would be weird, but it would make more sense for

(54:07):
Ria to beat Charlotte and still establish herself as a
top dog in NXT in the women's division. So I
don't Again, like somebody said before, there wasn't a lot
of build up for the Woman's Rumble, so kind of
went in there not knowing who was the favorite and stuff.
And just like again, the reason why the Charlotte thing

(54:28):
rubs me rong, it it's because like it's almost like
the Roman Marine syndrome, like they give her every opportunity.
I mean, she broke Chris Stratus's record already, and Trish
busted her asked for that record over years, like how
lone has Charlotte been active five six years? Like she
really hasn't been around that long, and she's already like

(54:49):
a ten time cham So it was just baffling to
me that they would hand her another opportunity. But they
did the same thing with Roman. But Roman was a
different like kind of beast. He wasn't a I mean,
he has a legacy. He is from the family. He's
from the family of Samoa's, but that was never the
angle with him. They never like kind of made that

(55:09):
like a talking point when they were talking about they
would mention it, but it was just more that he's
Roman Marines, you know, and he's got a superman punch. Charlotte,
they have, you know, showed down or throat that it
is Rick Claire's daughter, and Rick Claire is considered one
of the best of all time, if not the greatest
of all time. So it just left the bad taste
in my mouth. But I hope that I improved on,

(55:29):
like you guys are saying, it's a smart decision and
moving forward, you know, hopefully it goes after rear riplay
because I don't want to see Becky and Charlotte again,
like that that storyline unless they're together as a heel
duo and the Four Horse Woman's storyline actually comes to fruition,
I don't want to see it anymore.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
Yeah, And if they are kind of going the direction
of making, you know, Becky a heel, I guess that
it kind of can play into that a bit. As
he said, if they do make a duo or you know,
reunite the Four Horse Women as a heel stable, even
I could see that being very successful, and then it
would tie in a lot of sense as to why

(56:11):
the women of an XT would kind of take notice
and want to get involved for WrestleMania. So there's some
directions they can go with this. But I think when
it comes to is Becky going to be a heel,
it's a bit of a tough question because I think
ultimately they're kind of basing a lot of her character
around stone Cold in a lot of ways where it's

(56:32):
meant to be this tweener, you know, where he could
you know, he was always the one who could do
anything at any moment. You know, he could hit a
stunner on anybody and just say, you know, it's because
he's stone cold, And I think that's kind of the
direction they're trying to move towards with Becky, where they're
just making her such a badass, that she's kind of
above being a facer heel, that she's just kind of

(56:53):
a character and she's meant to be organic, and that
you don't really know what the rules are with her.
So I think that it's more of them leaning into
that concept than it is a direct heel turn. So
I think that it's more of an acceptance of her
as a tweener as opposed to a kind of specific
heel turn. But I think that it plays into a

(57:14):
lot of different programs to go that direction. So I
think it's a smart move, even if they do decide
to go full on heel with her.

Speaker 6 (57:22):
Yeah, I think Zach hit it right on the head there,
because you know, we've seen this act before with Becky.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
You know, over the summer she.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
Had a lot of heelish tendencies, specifically in a program
with I believe it was Lacy Evans, where she had
a lot of you know, cocky, arrogant promos that she
cut and unfortunately, at least for me from my perspective,
I did not like that.

Speaker 5 (57:45):
Side of Becky. It kind of got me annoyed.

Speaker 6 (57:47):
But they kind of pulled back from that over the
last two or three months and I got back on
board with Becky. I hope that they're not going down
that road again. That she's always going to be very,
you know, arrogant and she could do no wrong. And
I had like an anti here, like Zach said, building
her like stone cold see Boss and like stone cold
Steve Boss and was the only guy who could stun
Linda McMahon and still be viewed as a baby face.

(58:10):
It feels like that's what they're desperately trying to do
with Becky right now. I just personally hope that's not
the case, because I found she came off very, very
obnoxious when she did go down that road, and almost
made her come off as unlikable to a certain extent. Now,
I also do have to understand the reason she did
turn babyface was from an organized heel turn, and that's

(58:33):
what got everyone behind her. So I kind of understand
that they're trying to play.

Speaker 5 (58:36):
Off of that, But I don't know.

Speaker 6 (58:38):
I didn't really like the full blown heck Becky, you know,
helish and arrogant persona she had in the summer.

Speaker 5 (58:44):
So I hope they're not going down that road again.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
I hope not. I don't think, you know, because like
you said, there is a fine line between charming arrogance
and someone punched her in the face arrogance and Becky
she started to with that fence on Raw and I
just maybe it is time to kind of turn her.
And you know what, if Shanna Basler is going to

(59:08):
be facing her at WrestleMania, I could see the audience
at that time going, Okay, Becky, you've had your run.
You know, we're ready for Shana Basler to quote come
up to the main roster, even though it's a true
third brand now, but we're ready for her to be
on a bigger stage of the Monday Night Raw audience.
We're ready for her to be the badass. We've seen

(59:29):
her in a w n XT, We've seen her in
front of our eyes grow, we've seen her dominate. She's
got a presence like no other. I could see the
WrestleMania audience turning on Becky a little in favor of
in favor of Shanna Basiler. I mean, I could absolutely
see that happening with the WrestleMania audience being very a

(59:51):
very progressive audience in terms of who they want next,
who they think is going to be their next quote
organic star that I mean, we've seen it with Daniel
Bryn seeing it right now with Drew McIntyre, and we
could see it was SHANEA Basler, I mean in time
and again the other thing too, the women's wore a
rumble and this will be my final comment on it,
which again I really I liked it, I really did,

(01:00:12):
was Naomi's return. And you know, I tweeted this out
because I saw her come down the ramp and I'm like,
who the hell is that? Like you look at her
hair and you're like, oh right, And she looks like
if you guys have seen Austin Power, she looks like
Foxy Cleopatra where Beyonce played a part in that movie.
She is exactly like Foxy Cleopatra. I don't know if
anyone else made that connection, but it's good to see

(01:00:34):
her back. I'm glad that she's back. I hope that
she's on the SmackDown roster, and I hope that God
knows the SmackDown needs help on the women's side. But overall, yeah,
it was It was a good rumble. I liked that
they did, and yeah we had Molly Holly or Mighty
Molly as she came out. It was a bit of
you gotta always have nostalgia in the match and made
total sense to me, Muddy Molly coming down. She lasted

(01:00:57):
a few minutes, right, and she was what she was
and it was good to see her back too. And
but it was good also for Naomi, who I hope
is a mainstay and it wasn't just kind of a
one off and then she goes back into obscurity. But overall, yes,
I I hope that indeed Naomi stays and I hope
that Honestly, I don't know if I want to see

(01:01:18):
Becky go hold on to that championship beyond WrestleMania. I mean,
I think the fans are starting to feel it be like, Okay,
who will Who's next? Like we want to know what
that next who that next person will be that she
hands the baton to. And when Becky loses, it's gonna
be a big deal. And I can't see anybody more

(01:01:39):
of a big deal than Shanna Basler dethroning her at
at WrestleMania makes to me it has to be no
nobody else other than Shanna Basler. I just don't see
another another possibility. Plus a last thing, when you look
at their Survivor Series one on one interview dated with
each other, that was I can't That made me feel

(01:02:02):
so much. They had instant chemistry with each other. They
are cut from the same cloth. I loved their chemistry.
I loved their words for each other. They felt real,
and I think that they'll follow up with this at WrestleMania.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
All right, I miss I missed. Made me fun. Sorry
about that. On Naomi real quick. Yeah, it was awesome
to see her back. I like the look she got
going on. I mean she's beautiful anyway, but like that's
that that was kind of overlooked by Beth Phoenix. Uh,
you know, performance in the in the match, which was unfortunate,

(01:02:42):
and then the Santino Marilla thing, like you forget about
people like Naomi finally making her return. We didn't see
any Jack's, you know, like I said, no Sasha, so
that was kind of a big return, you know, and
we didn't I figured she was coming back in the Rumble,
So yeah, I hope that she gets right back into

(01:03:03):
the main event picture. She deserves to be there. She
was being awesome and being Naomi and how she always
is with the Sasha Becky thing. I totally agree, But
Rowsy's looming, and she put out a tweet or an
instagram I think right after the rumble and was like,
you guys thought I was returning tonight, you know, kind

(01:03:26):
of tongue in cheek, like, hah, not tonight, but I'm coming.
And I think if it isn't Basler, it's gonna be Rowsy.
You're gonna get Rowsy versus Becky too, And hopefully there
isn't a third party involved, because there should have never
been Charlotte, like shoehorn Charlotte. That's what my brother calls her.
She should have never been in that match. But you know,
we got to get there. I don't know if Rowsie's

(01:03:48):
just gonna show up like two weeks before Mania. I mean,
the Rock's done it, other people have done it, so
it could be something like that. But yeah, I can
see the crowd getting behind Shana, you know, if it
was Shana Becky, because yeah, I think the Becky runs
run its course, you know, And I don't necessarily I

(01:04:12):
hope though, it doesn't turn into like a stand punk thing.
Because Shana Basler is a born heel. She cannot be
a babyface. And that's the problem, you know, just because
the crowd is cheering for Basler, it's not necessarily because
they want her to be the good guy. They just
want the other person to get out, you know. So yeah,
they want the dominant, you know, machine to take her out.

(01:04:34):
It's just kind of the same thing with Brock. Brock's
never really been a baby face. He's had those moments,
but if you look back at it, it's because they
didn't like the other person more so they would rather
the heel take him out. This is the same thing
that happened with Punkin and Sina. Everybody got behind Punk
because they were sick of the John Cena stuff. They
didn't want them to be a face. But the company

(01:04:55):
took that as, oh, well, they're cheering for let's turn
face and we all know that like Punk do it,
but he's not in his element if he is in
a heel, and it's the same. I feel the same
way about Shana. Could Becky be a good heel, absolutely
one hundred percent, and they need to evother a character
just like they did Seth. You know, you can't keep

(01:05:15):
somebody in a holding pattern to the point where the
fans start to, you know, not like them, and then
you should change them right away. But you know, the
company right now, we're praising him, but it's still WW
and there's still w W logic, So we're gonna see
how We're gonna have to see how this plays out.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Yeah, I definitely agree. I think that, you know, overall,
the return of Naomi was definitely kind of overshadowed by
some other moments here, and I think that it was
kind of a one of those accepted moments of where
you kind of expected it to happen because she had
been going for I believe it was personal reasons and

(01:05:55):
things like that, so it wasn't an injury or anything
like that that was keeping her out, so it felt
like a natural place. So I think that's kind of
why it fell by the wayside a little bit. And
I think it would have been smart too when the
USO's returned to have her return alongside or you know,
the same night, kind of similar to the Beth Phoenix
and Edge situation here. But you know, that's just apples

(01:06:16):
and oranges. I guess they're kind of comparing things, But overall,
I think that they're doing a lot of the things
right for this women's division as long as they keep
kind of trending along this way. And I think, like
you said, Matt, I think it's time that we start
taking the belts away from the four horse women and
having them play into storylines, but maybe not necessarily be

(01:06:38):
the champion anymore. You know. I think that's something that
bogs down the women's division a lot of the time,
where it needs to have a belt involved for it
to be a feud, and I think that's kind of
a mistake and something that's holding back that division. And
if they start to move the belts away from the
four horse women and keep them as big names, I

(01:06:58):
think that'll do a lot of good for the division
go going forward.

Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
Yeah, one person that I've been surprised that they pulled
back on a lot is Alexa Bliss.

Speaker 5 (01:07:08):
You know, she came in first.

Speaker 6 (01:07:09):
I thought she had an impressive outing, but you know,
it wasn't too long ago that she was the face
of the raw division, and I think she was the
first woman to be the raw and SmackDown women's champion.

Speaker 5 (01:07:19):
It was her Charlotte Flair, but it may have been
her first, and you know.

Speaker 6 (01:07:23):
To Zach's point, I just think it's kind of getting
a bit redundant now with like Bailey, Charlotte, Becky Rin's repeat.
You know, when's the last time that someone other than
them have been, you know, a women's champion in eddie capacity?

Speaker 5 (01:07:39):
And the answer is, you know, we're closing in on a.

Speaker 6 (01:07:42):
Year ago now, you know, I believe Alexa Bliss was
champion in summer of twenty eighteen before Rousey Beater.

Speaker 5 (01:07:47):
But it's getting a bit stale now, and I think.

Speaker 6 (01:07:50):
That Bailey has suffered not so much through no fault
of her own, because I feel for the most part
that she has really, you know, excelled in this kind character,
but she's had no dancing partners, and I feared that
when they originally did this latest rendition of the brand split,
and I thought that Alexa Bliss would be a good
dance partner for her, and Lacey Evans has been an

(01:08:12):
all right holding or temporary contender, but there hasn't been
any legitimate contenders on the SmackDown side.

Speaker 5 (01:08:19):
Maybe Naomi fills.

Speaker 6 (01:08:20):
That void, but I think that they have to start
exploring options to be the face of the respective brands
outside of the classic four Horsewomen, and then just I
Sasha into it. It's kind of bizarre how she wasn't
involved in any capacity. So, I mean, I feel like
the women's division has gotten a little stale over the
last few months, but it's not like too far gone

(01:08:44):
that they can't get back on track leading into WrestleMania.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
No, they're They're definitely not too far gone, and I
think there's room for improvement, but there's a lot coming
down the line. I mean the Ronda Rousey, as you
alluded to, Mary, I did see that Instagram or tweet
or whatever the heck she put out there, basically trolling
the fans that thought she was gonna return. But I
read into it the same way you read into it.

(01:09:10):
That it was like, hey, uh, yeah, you all thought
it was gonna return tonight, but I'm not gonna return
when you think I'm going to look out. I mean
that that's kind of what I read into it. And
you know, maybe she's not gonna return for WrestleMania. If
I was gonna put my money down, I would say probably.
And the old logical person will be Becky and then
it leaves like, well, what would Shanna Basler do? I mean,
there's so many moving parts, And don't forget there are

(01:09:33):
two pay per views between now and WrestleMania. I mean,
that's how Roman Reigns is gonna get to the Fiend, right,
That's how it's gonna happen. That's how presumably Charlotte is
gonna get to Rhea Ripley there. I mean, so don't
forget there are two big stops that we have to
go through to get to Mania, and things can change
in a big way. I mean, we had one on

(01:09:53):
one Becky in Rondo, which which turned into a triple
thread after the about a month and you know, I
yelling about that, and I'm still yelling about how stupid
of a decision that was. But nonetheless, they wanted to
make sure Charlotte can always say that she was in
the first ever women's main event of WrestleMania, which is
I think a big reason they did that. But so

(01:10:13):
it's been an hour already and we've covered two matches,
so let's I would I could talk about these two
matches forever, just because of the different dynamics that happened here.
The returns, of course, the no shows as we mentioned
and alluded to with Russeven, Bobby Lashley, and Sasha, among
Nya Jackson others, which I was very surprised about Naya

(01:10:35):
Jackson not returning. I had been calling for that for
really weeks and weeks, and I've really got my ego
bruised about that not happening. And you know, I'm okay
with her not being in it. They clearly have other plans.
From what I'm reading, She's close to or is medically
cleared already, so I'd assume that she comes back prior

(01:10:55):
to WrestleMania and it inserts herself right back into the
women's division. But all right, well, let's move on to
another match that I think somebody mentioned earlier at the
beginning of the show, and that was The Fiend versus
Daniel O'Brien. And yeah, I'll get my thoughts quick and
then I'll toss it to to marry and we'll go

(01:11:15):
around the invisible table here is. I really thought this
was the best match that the Fiend has had since
he has been the Fiend. I liked that there was
no red light. I like the the physicality of the match,
the pacing of the match, it didn't seem too long.
The psychology it wasn't it wasn't heavy on finisher, finisher, finisher,

(01:11:39):
The Fiend gets up finisher, finisher, Like you know, we
all know the beloved Hell and the Cell that happened
a few months ago. It was a very well devised
planned It was the ending a little sloppy. Yeah, it
was kind of clunky at the end where he just
kind of stands up and then you know, basically you know,
gives him a manable claw, you know, and good night
the lights. It was a little weird. But other than that, like,

(01:12:01):
I loved everything about this match that I mean, it's
the best match you could possibly thought of you when
you saw this on paper. The only thing that I'm
surprised of, I'm not disappointed, I'm just surprised is that
there was no clue into what the weakness of the
Fiend is. My assumption and this is just my assumption,
and I alluded to this on a show last week,
is that this could be his source of power, could

(01:12:23):
be his mask, and if you try to de mask
him or pull his mask off, then that is that
will quote weaken him, as you know, that's my guess.
That's my guess, as the mask is maybe his weakness,
or maybe they never follow up on that whatsoever, as
Rambling Rabbit talked about a few weeks ago on SmackDown.
So anyway, I like this match. I think i'd give

(01:12:43):
a big thumbs up. Was it a five star match? No? No,
I mean if I was gonna rank it, i'd say
like three three and a half out of five. Solid match,
and I think it's time for the Fiend to move on,
or maybe he still kind of hangs in Daniel Bryan's
group until Roman Reigns is ready yet elimination chamber, which
is when I think that the stars were aligned to
finally make that program official.

Speaker 5 (01:13:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Yeah, it was a solid match. I don't have any
real complaints about it. I think I liked how it
seemed like Dani O'Brien would first off to go back
to the weakness, saying everybody was saying it was the
red light, and they got rid of the red light,
so obviously it's not that too. Like there was a
spot where Bray put on the man will claw on

(01:13:29):
him and he tried to get him in an arm
bar on the ropes, even though he had his hand
in his in his mouth, And that was the one
moment in the match that stood out to me because
it just showed Daniel Brian's psychology, his quickness, how he thinks,
how he's always countering everything, and that like even though
he's the underdog and a lot of things, he is
going to bite tooth and nail not to be the underdog.

(01:13:50):
It was kind of more of like a rebirth for
Danie O'Brien, showing why he's Dani O'Brien. For me, I
felt like it was the first match that Bray has
had that has and felt like an all out squash,
which a lot of the matches as him in the
Fiend persona, that's how it's come off. So it was

(01:14:11):
a solid match. I you know, I wanted Brian to
win because I just I don't know where they're going
with with Bray Wyatt. I just don't see storylines going
forward with as who's going to challenge him. You know,
everybody's saying Roman rines, but I just happened. Maybe it's
just me, Maybe I'm not picking up on those things.
So I thought that like Brian might get the title
and it'd be like a transitional thing going into Mania.

(01:14:34):
But there was a lot of history with Brey and
Brian at the Rumble, going back to twenty fourteen, which
was I was watching before the actual Rumble on Sunday.
Their feuds started. There was right after you know, Daniel
Bryan left the Family and they had their match there. So,
you know, maybe I was expecting a little more, no,

(01:14:55):
But at the same time, it didn't disappoint me. I
thought it was a solid match. It was a good
showing by both of them. You know, it showed Bray
being a monster, and it showed the quickness and the
you know this liness and everything that makes Daniel O'Brien
one of the best wrestlers on the planet and why
he shaved his head and went back to being the Dragon.
So I don't have a lot of commentary on it

(01:15:17):
because I didn't hate it. But it wasn't like, oh
my god, oh it was a solid match. It was good,
and I just don't know where they go from here.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
Yeah, I completely agree with a lot of your points there, Mary,
where it's just like I don't see where they're going
with the Fiend right now. There's not a clear path.
I actually thought this was going to be a low
light of the of the night, just because I thought
the strap match in general felt like a weird choice
to go with here. But I was proven wrong and

(01:15:51):
I should just know that whenever Daniel Brien's in a
wrestling match, it's going to be a good wrestling match.
I feel like that should just be a mental rule
going into any pay per view from now on for myself.
But it just kind of it hit on all the
right notes, but at the same time, it wasn't completely spectacular.
I think a lot of the way that the Fiend

(01:16:12):
has been handled has kind of held back the match
quality that he can have. They don't really know how
to handle him, whether they should have him just squashing
people or they should just have him have these kind
of more grueling battles, and I think they're kind of
lost in how to handle him. And I think really
only Bray Wyatt kind of knows how this character should
be handled, And I think that maybe where some of

(01:16:33):
the conflict comes in is because he's not making the
choices of who his opponents are and things like that
which help. You'll never have that kind of freedom in
the WWE in modern era, but it's just one of
those things where he does feel a little bit lost
at this point. And to your point too, Matt, about
the weakness, I definitely thought that they could have revealed

(01:16:53):
something or alluded to something that would have made sense
as to where they were going here. And I think
that as a counter to the mask being his weakness,
it could also be the hurt glove that he applies
the men of a claw with. That's one thing that
I've kind of had in my mind cooking up a
little bit here, because he does kind of heavily use

(01:17:13):
that for symbolic purpose of what he's intending to do.
So I wonder whether they're going with this, And I
know that there is some sort of plan, but I
wish that it was just a little bit more clear
at this point so we could have something to start
to sink our teeth into with bray Wyatt, I think.

Speaker 6 (01:17:34):
With bray Wyatt, unfortunately he's still feeling the effects from
that god awful hell in a cell match with Seth
Rollins back in October where they kind of booked themselves
into a corner that he had to win the Universal
title or else he would have completely stripped all credibility
from the Fiend character, and as a result, they put

(01:17:55):
the belt on him, at least in my mind, way
too soon, and he is clearly just in a holding
pattern with until Roman Reigns and him, at least in
my mind, inevitably clash at WrestleMania. As for Daniel Bryan
and his and the Fiend's match at Road Rumble, I
thought it was good.

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
Considering what it was.

Speaker 6 (01:18:17):
I still find that it took a back seat and
has been taking a back seat to Baron Corbin and
Roman Reigns on SmackDown for the last two months or so,
and I feel like that kind of hurt the build
to the match. Like Zach said, there wasn't a whole
lot of expectations for But in terms of the match itself,
I thought it was good. You know, Daniel Brennan and

(01:18:38):
Bray White have very good chemistry in the ring. I
like both wrestlers. The ending could have been better, but
all in all, I would give it a solid, you know,
seven out of ten match, and the red lighting not
being there definitely helped.

Speaker 5 (01:18:52):
So I guess what took it away for me?

Speaker 6 (01:18:55):
The excitement away from me heading into this match, is
that I knew, and I felt that it was just,
you know, a step along the way to Roman reigns
versus the Fiend. And there was never a real belief
for me that Daniel Bryan ever had a real shot
to win the belt.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Yeah. I felt that way too. I felt that Daniel
Bryan I was gonna put up a good fight, that
he would get closer than he did the first time.
But in his loss, we would find out at least
a bit of a some we would salvage the moment,
if you will, by finding out something about the Fiend
that is a little bit more progressive. You'd see something,
you'd learn something, and it was just kind of business

(01:19:33):
as usual. And you know, I'm okay with that. I
don't think it's getting stale just yet, but there needs
to be something we learn a little bit more about
the Fiend. And I'm fine with the slow burn. I
love slow burn. And maybe I'm just being conditioned to
WWE's style of one hundred miles an hour and no
patience with fans and all that kind of stuff, but
I'm all about the slow burn. And if we just

(01:19:54):
take a little extra time to learn more about the Fiend,
step by step, so be it. And I think that again,
they're not going to rush to Roman Reigns. And I know, Mary,
you don't think that they're gonna be going there. You
don't see signs of Roman Reigns. But that's I think
the whole point is that they have been so separate
for a while now that it, I mean, it begs
to have these two, the story begs to have these
two go one on one because who else is the

(01:20:16):
Fiend gonna challenge for a championship? I mean, look around
the roster on SmackDown, look around the field. There's not
a whole lot of guys that the Fiend could presumably
go one on one with and make it believable, especially
how the poisine is, the position of the Fiend has
been immortal or just kind of inhuman, and there has
been nobody on the roster on SmackDown anyway that you

(01:20:38):
would think, oh, man, that would be awesome to have
him face so and so it's really Roman Reigns like
that is the obvious pick, and especially around WrestleMania season.
So all right, guys, well, in the interest of time,
I'm gonna I'm gonna move on to the next match. Here,
and I'm actually gonna touch on Seamus and Shorty g
or as I like to call him, Chad Gable. Seamus

(01:20:59):
and Chad Gable, Well, you know what, I thought that
this match honestly was exactly what it was going to be.
It was going to be a match in which Seamus
comes out on top number one, which I think was
the right decision based on where they see Seamus going
and that it's a stepping stone for Seamus. So I
think having Shorty g having Chad Gable go in there

(01:21:23):
and do what he does his entire career in WWE,
put up a good fight, get the crowd invested, just
put on a clinic in terms of actual wrestling. Ultimately
to just come up short with a couple of hope spots.
That's then his gimmick. That's what he does, and it's
not surprising he lost here. I've kind of come to

(01:21:46):
the reconciliation that WWE is not going to do anything
major with Chad Gable, So I'm just fine. I'm fine
with them at least using him in a role that
is that is not quite to that top tier or
even that mid top tier, but as a guy that
is a gatekeeper and can have a good match with anybody,
and he's a good hand, and he can bring an

(01:22:08):
audience in and make the guy he's working with look
like a million bucks. You know, if that's the role
he's been designated to, so be it. It's better than
him being on like two or five Live or main
Event or just kind of in the abyss of nowhere.
So if this is as far as he'll go, then
I've accepted it. As far as Seamus goes, I think
that this program is over, and I think that Seamus

(01:22:29):
is moving on to bigger and better things. Who that
may be, I don't know, But overall, I think this
match was exactly the way that we thought it was
going to play out.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
To be honest, I like caught like a little bit
of this match, so I don't have that much input
about the technicality of the match. As far as characters go,
you know, Seamus is going to end up back in
the main event. See I've been saying since he returned, though,
is kind of falling flat. He went back to his
old look, but he's still kind of in the character

(01:23:02):
that he took on when he had the mohawk. I
really don't know what they're doing with him. I don't
think they know what to do with him. Chad Gable.
It's interesting that you're saying this, because he is he
is a technical wrestler. He is in the veins of
Kurt Angle and Shelton Benjamin and he's one of those
collegiate athletes. But he's also being built as the ultimate underdog.

(01:23:26):
I mean, he's kind of in the same position that
Daniel Brian was in. Daniel Brian, though, had a lot
more wins, and they they didn't give him a crappy
gimmick with Shorty g which is just insulting to Chad
Gable in general. I mean, they did take Brian and
put him in the Wyatt family when they shouldn't have,
and they had that whole thing going. But I wouldn't

(01:23:48):
count him out necessarily yet, because when an underdog starts
making ways and you know, like people get behind him,
sometimes that spark happens and the company does get behind
them and they'll have faith with him. I just think
they don't know what to do with his character, and
they're straying away from the typical Kurd Angle angle or

(01:24:12):
the Shelton Benjamin angle that you know, he was a
collegiate athlete and he was a wrestler, you know, all
that that stuff that those guys have done it because
they don't want to do it again, and like that's
kind of been you know, put on those guys. Those
are the guys who who carry that torch or that
that gimmick. So I don't know what they're gonna do

(01:24:32):
with him, but I wouldn't count him out yet because
he's got the underdog thing going for him, and I
think at some point he might have a breakout moment
where the crowd really gets behind them. But that all
depends on if they put him on TV enough and
people get familiar with him enough, and you know, he
has a one two three kid moment, you know, like
not to like throw way back, but you never know.

(01:24:56):
He has the talent. He's good. I think he it's
a good look, even if he's a small dude. And
we've learned in the last ten years, thank god, that
your size doesn't really matter. It matters about your heart
and your talent. So those are those are my opinions
about that whole match. Of course, Seamus was gonna win.
He's a main eventor he's been a main eventor he's

(01:25:18):
a triple H guy. But I don't know what either
character or what holds for them in the future. I
just hope that Chag is seamous, will be safe, He'll
be fine. I just hope Chag evil doesn't, you know,
fall to the realms of a drumacintire or ginger More
hall where they have to go away and then come

(01:25:39):
back and then prove themselves, or it turns into an
EC three thing like he's in a very precocious position.
I don't know if that was the right word to
use wrong words all the time, but I wouldn't count
him out yet.

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
Yeah, and I'm kind of glad you brought this one up, Matt,
because I remember a few months back when I first
start in this podcasting thing too, when we were talking
about Chad Gable when he was still Chad Gable, and
I mentioned the rumors that they would move to possibly
renaming him Shorty G. And we both kind of had
a laugh about it and said, you know, that seems

(01:26:15):
like something wwe would do, but we don't think they're
that stupid. And yet here we are, you know, months later,
talking about Shorty G getting his face kicked off by
Seamus on the pre show. I mean, it all has
kind of come to full circle here. But I think
that as Mary said, you know, he does have that
ultimate underdog feeling. I think where they're kind of messing

(01:26:37):
up is that they're trying to make him a little
too gimmicky with that. I think him coming back in
the he reminded me of Melvin the Superhero from Jeff
Dunham's act. If you've ever seen Jeff Dunham, where it's
just he's in the shiny blue and green. It just
was a horrible character move in my opinion, with how

(01:26:57):
they renamed him Shorty G and tried to make it
seemed like he actually came up with that name, which
was just obnoxiously laughable. It just made no sense to me.
And I think that, you know, it was a little
weird too having Seamus, you know, make his inbring reappearance
on the pre show. I know they're trying to kind
of condition the idea that the pre show is a

(01:27:18):
part of the pay per view just as much as
the main card, but it still has that feel of
if John Morrison can get a re debut on SmackDown,
why is Seamus stuck to the pre show of the
Royal Rumble and not even make an appearance on the
card if it's going to be a squash match, you know,
opening the card with it or something so that it
doesn't feel like so much of an afterthought. And like

(01:27:40):
to your point, Mary, they just don't seem to really
have much of a direction for him. It's just kind
of like they're like, oh, right, we're supposed to get
Shamus back out there, so let's show him in the
ring at the beginning of the Rumble and do it
that way.

Speaker 6 (01:27:53):
Yeah, it just seems like kind of pitched up for
Seamus for bigger, better things to you know, ease him
back in. Doesn't feel like Shorty G has a whole
lot to gain from this particular feud. You know, I
touched on it last time I was on the show
that I think that Shamus and bron Strowman would be
perfect dancing partners for one another, preferably with the Intercontinental

(01:28:14):
Championship or something.

Speaker 5 (01:28:15):
Along those lines, you know. Shorty G.

Speaker 6 (01:28:18):
Unfortunately, he really picked up steam during the Game of
Ring tournament as Chad Gable, and then they just put
their paws on it and really just derailed all of
his momentum.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
I just feel like it's not the worst thing in
the world.

Speaker 6 (01:28:31):
You know, there's worst spots for Chad Gable to be,
But unless he goes back into another tag team where
he's had success in the past, whether it be with
American Alpha or Bobby Rude or Shelton Benjamin, unless he's
in a tag team, I really don't see Shorty g
or Chad Gable or whatever rendition of him you want
to go with. I don't see him being relevant in

(01:28:51):
any kind of title picture. I think he would only
be on TV in such a role.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
Probably not, and it's more likely that he just again
he's just kind of the feel good underdog that likes
to make sure that everyone embraces who they are, and
it's that feel good PG message, and I just I
don't know, I have that feeling that they're just this
is nothing more than a stepping stone for Shamas. I mean,
I just don't believe that after this, that Seamus is

(01:29:20):
going to not go anywhere after this victory. I think
that Vince McMahon has always kind of had a liking
for Seamus. I think that's just kind of the way
that it's been and for Chad Gable. I mentioned this
on a show with Ashley that I did last week
in our previews show for the Rumble, that the WWE
has a habit of just taking guys who organically get

(01:29:41):
over and they don't have anything flashy. It's just kind
of a straightforward, you know, in ring prowess type of
I have a presence in the ring and I can
tell an awesome story and they're organically getting over. In
WWE says oh, hold on a second, we're going to
fix this, and then they throw some crappy gimmick on
it that is that is over the top and they

(01:30:01):
think everything has to be cartoonish and flashy colors and
all this stuff, and it completely just negates all the
progress that that person has made organically getting over when
they put the WWE spin on it. And I say
that in quotes, it's just it seems like that every
time they're like, we'll fix this, and it's like, no, no,
that's the thing. You're it's not broken, right, And that's

(01:30:24):
what it feels like to me with the with with
Chad Gable, Chad E fing Gable. I'm not gonna say shortage.
I hate myself every time I say it, so moving
on again, in the interest of time, I have to
move on to the next pre show match of Andrade Versus.
Oh God, why am I losing it? I'm sorry Andrade Versus.

(01:30:48):
Somebody picked me up here? Why am I losing it?
Humbertoto geez Umberto Korea, who they also have written off on.
Andrada was written off on Monday Night Raw. We all
know that due to a well thirty day suspension from
the wellness policy. So that was interesting that he was
written off this past week for a four week absence

(01:31:10):
from Annette Raw for a wellness violation. Again, everyone here,
here's that, and they go, wow, steroids, Like, that's what
the outsiders of wrestling think. Probably it could be just
a overuse of pain pills or you know, muscle relaxers
or something that shouldn't be in systems. It's not always steroids.
It's what everyone points to. But nonetheless, he's gone for
thirty days, but he still has the championship, and I

(01:31:33):
think that's interesting to me. And I'll get to rumble
match in just a second, but it's interesting to me
on the wellness perspective. Typically when somebody gets suspended that
they'll either drop the championship or embarrass them in some
kind of way before that they go out. I mean,
look what they did with Robert Rude, who got literally
buried by Roman Reigns with the announced table a number

(01:31:53):
of weeks ago on SmackDown before he was knocked for
his thirty day wellness violation. And yes he got his
head Deity too on the concrete by Umberto Carreo. And
I love the way Zelena Vega sold it. She is
so effing money, it's it's not even funny, how awesome
and how much she adds to his character. But I'm
glad they didn't take the title off him. They looked

(01:32:15):
at the bigger picture and said, yeah, he's gonna get
ding for this. Let's write him off. He'll come back
in four weeks. This is his first violation. I'm glad
that they didn't just say, no, we're gonna cut off
our nose to spite our face, and we're gonna we're
gonna show you it's the bigger picture here. But the
match at the Royal Rumble I thought was really good.
These guys took some crazy bumps. I you know, some

(01:32:36):
of them made me cringe in a way that it's like,
oh my god, and I expected them to put the
X sign up. They busted their ass. I'm Berto Careo
coming out on top makes total sense. I'm on board
for it. It was really more about I'm bertol Careo
getting a rub from the spotlight and getting this is
really his biggest match to date. It's a pre show,

(01:32:56):
but this is his biggest match in his career. Was
the pre show of the Royal Run. It was about
just showing that he can hang. He can certainly hang.
I like what I see with Emberto Carreo. I also
liked on Monday Night Raw the fire that he showed
after Zelena Vega interfered and he didn't just go aw shucks,
you know, and he just kind of walks up the ramp.
He showed fire on MONDAYNT Raw by beating the hell

(01:33:19):
out of out of Andrade and laying him out. I
like that. That's what I want to see from a babyface.
Doesn't always have to be saying vitam or say your prayers,
take your vitamins and kissing babies. This showed he showed
fire and I did not expect that, and I like that.
So all right, well your turn, guys, there's.

Speaker 3 (01:33:36):
A couple moving parsones. I'm gonna be merry. Uh One,
what about the thirty day not defense? Like, he's not
going to defend this title for thirty days. Everybody forgets that,
but they only use it when they want to use it,
which whatever. Two, he's not going to lose the title
because he's dating Charlotte Flair. Three yeah, wellness policy. If
he's using steroids, they're terrible steroids. It's got to be

(01:34:00):
something else. But as far as Umberto and Andrade Androtti
is what they wanted Alberto del Rio to be, even
though Alberto del Rio could speak better English than Andrade
ken he is a Spanish superstar that they wanted to
represent the Hispanic community and they got it. You know,

(01:34:22):
they've had so many hits and misses. I mean, Raymisterio's back.
But Ray Massiro at this point is a Hall of
Famer and he I saw an interesting conversation the area
asking like where would you rank him in the Hall
of Fame and people kind of like don't or greatest
of all time? They don't rank him in because he's
a lucid or and he's a smaller guy. I mean,
the man's had a fantastic curt He's still firing on

(01:34:46):
all cylinders with all the surgeries that he's had. So
they've been trying to fill the Mysterio void for a
long time and they thought it was del Rio. And
del Rio is a scumbag. And I will say that
right off the bat. I hate him. He did nothing
for me, his whole gimmick, even when he had the announcement, like,
he's just terrible. So they found it Andrade. So I
just kind of feel like Andrada is untouchable right now.

(01:35:09):
He is the face of their Spanish People division, whatever
you want to call it, of the WWA Humberto. I
don't know a lot about him. I didn't even know
he existed until he started doing spots on the main roster.
I guess he was in NXT originally. And he's kind
of like the equivalent to Cincara, who they thought Cincara

(01:35:32):
was going to be it and the Cio and you're right,
he showed guts. I just don't understand. I mean, I
understand why they didn't strip the title of them or
anything like that, because, like I said, they want him
to be the face of the division and he's doing
a hell of a job. And Zelena, I mean, I've
met thea a whole bunch of times in real life.
She's awesome, and she's a hard worker, and she's just

(01:35:54):
got the thing. Man, She's got the same thing that
AJV had, you know, she just has it when it
comes to the mic and her personality and her presence
and enhancing the male talent when there needs to be
enhancing and she can go too. So it was a
great match. I'm glad he beat him up and he
didn't walk away with his tail between his legs because

(01:36:15):
they need that. They want that focus to get their
demographics for that type of nationality and stuff like that,
and they're good guys and it once against proves just
like OSCA has been proving. The Vince McMahan, Oh, I
can't understand you in promos doesn't mean crap. As long

(01:36:36):
as they're putting on a show and they're telling their stories,
telling through you know, their characters and their personality, it
doesn't have to come down the language. So those are
my feelings about it. I didn't again, I was in
and out during the pre show, so I didn't really
catch your match. I caught the stuff on Monday Night Raw,
and I like the way that they executed it.

Speaker 4 (01:36:57):
Yeah, you know, I definitely agree to your point may
that it's aimed at the Hispanic demographic and they're definitely
looking to try and fill the void that Raymisterio and
Eddie Guerrero have left behind. And I think that in
a way, this Andrade suspension can be a blessing in disguise,

(01:37:17):
because I think there was some teasing with the idea
that Zelena could switch her loyalties over to Humberto when
he was kind of getting in the way of Andrade
and proving himself a little bit. And I think that
they have a fantastic chemistry. So if they do return Andrade,
I could see it being in some sort of capacity

(01:37:39):
where they set up a tag key match at WrestleMania
where you have Andrade and Umberto taking on Ray Masterio
and his son Dominic. I think there's a lot of
different ways they can go with this. That would be
my personal fantasy booking option. But I think that really
Humberto and Andrade are kind of showing what it takes
to be the ones to fill those shoes that you know,

(01:38:00):
Ray and Eddie have left behind to take that Spanish
community and really involve them in the product. And I
think that eventually they should expand out and not just
be you know, oh, Spanish wrestler one versus Spanish wrestler two.
But I think that will come with time. And I
think that having that actual face off with ray Masterio
and maybe his son Dominic, having that kind of blow

(01:38:23):
off with those three will definitely do a lot of
good for that and then they can kind of move
on and be a part of the regular picture. But
I think that their chemistry has been fantastic, and every
time you get those two in a ring, it ends
up being a good match. So I think they're doing
a lot of right things with what they did with this.

Speaker 6 (01:38:40):
Yeah, I'm personally not a fan of hum Virtuo Caio.
Like I, this week kind of changed me a bit
more in a positive direction. But I just really found
him vanilla and the matches are good, but I maybe
just as suckered for good storytelling. I felt like a
lot of it played way too much on just the
nationality part, just pushing the Latino narrative, and like that's

(01:39:02):
great and I like it, and I found that ring
Mysterio and Androtti had a lot of good matches, but
I just I want something more to it than just
nationalities colliding. You know, there has to be a bit
more meat to this trailine to draw me in. As
for and Roddy and the wellness policy, I think it
is a good move by w WE not stripping the

(01:39:22):
belt off of them, because they do clearly have big.

Speaker 5 (01:39:25):
Plans for him moving forward into the future.

Speaker 6 (01:39:27):
I actually read today that Paul Hayman really likes Andrati
and plans to push him even further. So aside from
the fact that the match itself I wasn't too intrigued
with and wasn't overly excited for, they have planted seats
to go in a whole lot of different directions for
exciting storylines down the road.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
In the heath and I'm looking forward to what they
have to bring to the table in regardless of whatever
reason that they're keeping on Drona the champion or pushing him,
whether it's nationality or not. The act as this guy
can perform, this guy is the real deal inside the ring,
and we all agree with Selena. Vega adds just so
much to his character and I think I can say

(01:40:10):
in uison that we are glad that you know, while
they tease Jelena Vega and her loyalty being swayed. I
am at least anyway I know I said the we collectively,
but that they did not decide to split these two up.
I think that they go together so well. And Zelena,
what she adds to his character is is just so

(01:40:31):
much personality. She adds that element that it's that extra
layer that he needs in order to get to that
next level. He has somebody that can can help him
cheat to win. He's a heel. Selena in her own
right has a hell of a presence. Aj Lee is
a great comparison. She just has that it. She can
cut a promo better than half the women on the roster.

(01:40:54):
She has the presence, the way she speaks, it's believable. Yeah,
she's she's we get to look at But you don't
really think about that part of it, particularly because and
I also mentioned this at some point last week that
this is a professional relationship between Andrade and Zelena. This
is not any kind of romantic relationship or teasing romantic relationship.

(01:41:17):
This has been one hundred percent business the entire time
that they've been together and I love that. I love
that dynamic that you're not even thinking that these two
are secretly dating, right, I mean, we all know it's
actually Charlotte, but in storyline world, you're not actually you're
thinking that. You're thinking that Zelena is truly interested in
making sure that Andrade comes out on top. He does
whatever he needs to win. And Selena Vega is one

(01:41:38):
hundred percent invested every single move in a match. I mean,
the camera pans to her every thirty seconds because it's
worth seeing because she is just such on the roller
coaster of ups and downs with every move in the match.
And Androde you know, when he gets knocked down, she
looks concerned. When he's about to win, she's, you know,
up in arms. I love her roller coaster of emotions.

(01:42:00):
They're not overdone cartoonish, They're just perfect to heal, manager ish,
if that's a thing, and I love everything about it.
These two are. I love where they could go. I
think United States Championship is a place that he could
live for quite some time. But I certainly could see
him in the WWE title picture, maybe even a year
from now, maybe sooner, but probably a year from now.

(01:42:22):
I think he'll be fully ready and fully developed into
this ww world to challenge for the w W Championship.
So I hate to keep doing this, but.

Speaker 3 (01:42:31):
Again, can I just chime in real quick going back,
I think it was Zach who said it the business aspect,
like with Zilina, like you know, it's not a romantic thing.
I truly believe that she could start like a faction,
you know, and be recruiting people. I don't know if
she's going to betray Andrade because she has been so

(01:42:53):
loyal to him, so she could turn into I mean,
she's got the chops, man, I mean, she's amazing. Like
you're saying, she could be like the next Missy Hyatt.
She could be the next you know, Sonny. Who's to
say that she doesn't start, you know, gathering these people
to dominate the whole entire, you know, the roster. At
some point that was just quick thought why you were speaking.

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
I didn't think about that with her as a faction. Yeah,
she could be a faction leader, no doubt. I mean,
when's the last time we saw a women faction like
a legitimate Now I'm talking riot squad that doesn't count
like a legitimate women's faction that you I don't know
the last time that's been done. I'm talking legitimate.

Speaker 3 (01:43:31):
I'm not even talking about women though. I'm talking about
a woman manager having guys, you know, like she could
do say like like she adds so much to Androtty's character.
She is Paul Hammon to brock Lesner, you know, because
there is there is a language problem sometimes, but you know,
it doesn't matter to me. I don't care about that stuff.

(01:43:53):
I love Oscar screaming in Japanese at everybody. It makes
me laugh. It shows that she's vicious. It just I
think she's like part of the yakuza when she does it.
But I'm just saying, having a woman have you know
her her guys, and she is Paul Haman to black
Lesser to Andrade. It's it's the same thing. She's a mouthpiece.

(01:44:15):
And I really feel that she could do that if
she wants to, instead of like going after all these
Spanish guys except the old Guard like Mysterio and what
have you, you know, start getting all the Spanish guys
together and have her clients help because she is the
business manager. Just quick thoughts, yeah, yeah, And.

Speaker 4 (01:44:34):
To your point too, Mary, that that's kind of the
thought process that I have behind the Umberto, you know,
joining forces with Zelena, because you could see that kind
of spark in her eyes of thinking of recruiting him.
And I think exactly what you were saying, you know,
having a stable would suit her so well because she
is such a good mouthpiece. And to your point too, Anthony,
I do feel that Umberto has been rather vanilla. He's

(01:44:56):
kind of just kind of been the hang around the
faces and oh yeah, I agree with that point. He
doesn't really chime in or have any personality to him yet.
He just kind of does what a face should do
without any real rhyme or reason to where he's building to.
So having him have a heel turn and joins Elena
and maybe attack Mysterio and Dominic or something like that

(01:45:18):
instead of helping, I think that would be a brilliant
way to evolve his character and to evolve Zelena's involvement
in the roster and really lead to something bigger and
better for everybody involved.

Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
All right, Well, if if you guys are satisfied on
that point, which is a good point, I honestly we
all like thinking about that. I never thought of Zelena
as a stable leader. But that is a Hey, Zelena,
There's more to Zelena than what's on the surface right now.
I don't think we've seen her full potential yet. And
if she, I think it wouldn't do her, you know,

(01:45:52):
it would do her disservice if she remains for her
career as just the manager towon Drade. I need I
want more from her, even if it's as the women's champion, right,
I mean, even if she becomes a women's champion on
smackdowne le row, at some point I could see that
she can go in the ring. She I don't think
that she is as I guess polished, if you will,

(01:46:13):
as like Becky or Charlotte, as the you know, some
of the top women. But she certainly I'd love to
see her his champion and then and then maybe even
have a stable of her own. But if she's gonna
be the mouth based for a stable of the you know,
Hispanic men or whatever, maybe they call law familia. It
wasn't that like something any Guerrero did was lat familia.
And that's ringing a bell with me. So yeah, she

(01:46:34):
could definitely do something like that. There is so much
untapped potential there that if they don't dig into what
she's truly capable of, they're missing the boat because there's
so much sitting there. And on Joy's reaping the benefits
right now. He's good in his own right, but without
Zelena he feels naked out there. There have been times
when Zelena has been either injured or just not there
and she comes down to the ring and you're like, oh, like,

(01:46:56):
this doesn't feel right. Where's Selena? And you don't normally
feel that with a manager, like you know, I'm not
a great comparison, but when Leo Rush wasn't there with
Bobby Lashley, it was like nah, like right, I mean,
you don't care as much. But so anyway, moving on,
and I really want your guys thoughts on this too
is Roman reigns and King Corbin with a false Kennedy
war match. My quick thoughts on this is, eh, I mean,

(01:47:19):
like I said on Twitter, it was a hard hitting match,
that it was a very physical match. It was kind
of what you expected, but I feel like it was
just another SmackDown match, Like it didn't hold a whole
lot of weight to it. There wasn't really much on
the line, and yeah, you had the predictable interferences with
Dolg Zigler, Robert Rude and the USO, so that was

(01:47:40):
really no shocker there. Eventually Roman gets the spear for
the victory and you know, hopefully this program is over.
I would think that it is. This one didn't stand
out to me as like, oh my god, you know,
I put this in the top three, not even close
to me this and it wasn't a terrible match. It
was just kind of like it felt like a SmackDown rerun.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
I got disagree with you for once. I felt it
was an actual Faul's count anywhere match, like they've pulled.
They've held back so many times on these gimmick matches
where they don't, you know, go full throttle. I liked
how they used the arena. They were in a baseball stadium,

(01:48:23):
so it wasn't like it was just backstage and somebody
getting popcorn thrown at themselves, so, you know, stupid stuff
that they've done in the past. They they legitimately you know,
went through the arena. They were using, you know, the tarts.
I made a Houston Astros joke during the pay per view.
I was like, who's gonna start banging on on on
garbage cans, topical humor. You know, I liked it. I

(01:48:49):
thought it was good. I thought it was a good
grudge match. I don't know if this is the end
of it. I hope it's the end of it, because
like I'm so wishy washed you with this Barren Core
thing because he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing.
Like I can't stand him. He's annoying, you know. The
dog food thing was just grinding my gears, you know.

(01:49:09):
And then like see him Punk came out and said
that he liked it because it was like traditional fucking
old Oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean the curse traditional
old school wrestling, but like, I don't know, I liked it.
I thought the involved I mean, we knew the USOS
and we knew Dolph and Barbury were getting involved, but
it added to it. And it's adding to that stable

(01:49:32):
that I've been pushing for months with the USOS and
Rains and despite them not being heels that they have
the bloodline, and then getting you know, all the Smoan
people together, and you could throw Naomi in there too
if you wanted to another you know, even though she's
not Simoan. She's married into the family. I love that aspect.

(01:49:53):
I think that him being with the USOS on a
regular basis, and the Ussos are Usos. They're a solid
tag team, they're awesome, they have great spots. Granted, you
know outside they've they've had some problems, but like whatever
their favorites, their legacy. It really adds to Roman's redemption story,

(01:50:13):
Like it takes away from the fact that he was
sick and he came back and we're not using that
as oh, that's why we like him. Now he's like
part of something that's bigger than him and it's not
just the focus of him, because he can't just focus
on him when the ussos are involved, because what are they?
Six time champs, seven time champs, Like, I don't know,
they might be a tag team forever, but you know,

(01:50:37):
maybe they couldn't do solo runs. But I feel like
the three of them together, it's just it feels better.
It's you're invested in it because you want to see
like this family storyline and them have him back, and
like now that the shield is like completely you know, obsolete,
because Dean Ambrose is gone and he that was that

(01:50:59):
was Rain's brother. You know, seth Rawlins has always been
shaky with everybody because he was the trader, he was
the Judas. But I don't know. I loved the match.
I thought it was good. I thought it was a
good falls count anywhere match. I love it. Like there
was the one spot I don't remember where it was
where they were out and ring and they went through
like some kind of table and I screamed like holy yes,

(01:51:20):
like I was invested in the match. And Corbin has
this like this just grating thing where you want to
see him get beat even by Roman Rings. Even if
you don't like Roman Renes, Baron Corbin has been a
good dance partner with him, because you actually hate Baron
Corbin more than you hate Roman Rines, despite whatever you
think about Roman Marines.

Speaker 4 (01:51:40):
Yeah, and I agree with a lot of your points
about about Roman and about the USO's Mary, but I
do kind of tend to fall more on the side
of Matt with this one as far as the match
itself goes. And I don't think that it's anything about
the match itself that was was particularly bad. I think
it's just the feud itself was so pulled and the
build up was so poor, and it really did make

(01:52:03):
a lot of sense as a grudge match and having
it be the blowoff, but it just didn't feel like
there was any build to it. And I think maybe too,
it also was a little bit of the syndrome of
being on the Royal Rumble card. It felt so less lesser,
and maybe if it was on a different pay per
view it would have felt like a bigger deal. But
having this false count anywhere match, which was done very

(01:52:24):
well and they did a lot of great spots and
used the arena quite nicely, I just felt like the
whole time that I didn't feel invested in it, and
I think that's exactly where the disconnect comes, and I
think where a lot of people are kind of ignoring
the match quality, which was very good because WWE kind
of forced our hand and made us not like it
because the build up was so bad. I'm completely agree

(01:52:47):
with you, too, Mary about I understand that Baron Corbin
is supposed to be a heel and I'm supposed to
hate him, but I just can't seem to get invested
in him versus Roman Reigns anymore. And it's a lot
to do with his character and I think they need
to find a fresher way rather than just having him
kind of poke the bear with the bigger fish in

(01:53:07):
the sea. And I think that it's just time that,
you know, they find a way to reinvent Baron Corbin,
and I really hope and pray that this is the
end of the feud and this is where it all ends.

Speaker 5 (01:53:20):
Yeah, I mean, I didn't mind the match.

Speaker 6 (01:53:23):
It was okay. I was expected that Roman Reigns would
go over. I lean more on the side with mattis
Well here and use Zach in the sense that it
did just kind of feel like a main event of SmackDown.
It was a very good match, but the payoff did
kind of fall flat a bit. I do think it's
undisputedly the end of their feud and their program, because

(01:53:48):
if you realize they didn't even have an interaction in
the rumble, I think Corbin was out by the time.
I think they are officially done with it, you know,
as a whole. I didn't mind this program between the
two of them. I feel like Baron Corban has slowly
started to find his own here, but it just I
hope that it's not a one and done with him.

(01:54:08):
You know, we've seen him many times where like, you know,
they push a guy heavily and then that's it and
good night to lights. I think that there's a place
for Corbyn beyond Roman Reigns. I thought maybe if he
could get back in the scene of the Interconnadal Championship picture.
But I mean, all in all, I wasn't you know,
enthralled with the match. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't

(01:54:30):
something that I was expecting after months and months to
be the payoff.

Speaker 1 (01:54:37):
Wow. So wow. We agree or disagree on some of
these opinions, which is good. And Mary seems to definitely
be the protagonist in terms of loving liking this match
much more than the rest of us did. But again
I think it's because maybe that the rest of the
world rumble was so damn good. Also, we look back
at in retrospective, you know, I mean, you stack the

(01:54:59):
matches up, this one was just kind of like, it's
kind of ho hum, And I understand that, you know,
this is truly a full of false count anywhere match.
It certainly was, and they lived up to that stipulation
no doubt, but it kind of also made Roman Reigns.
While he did win, the fact that he had the
ability to make any stipulation in the world, and he decides,
with all the interference that's that he's been dealing with

(01:55:20):
over the past few months, he decides to have a
false Ken Anywhere match in which he could be outnumbered easily,
even if the USO has come to his aid. You know,
Baron Corbin's got a lot of other men at his disposal.
Instead of deciding to say, hey, let's put ourselves in
a cage match where it's just you and I and
there can be no interference, and yeah, there can be
interference in cage matches, but at least the logic would

(01:55:41):
be there to not make him look like a dufist
for basically making the stipulation that would open him up
to be the most exposed to outside interference. But nonetheless,
it was an okay match. And I think that they
have moved on and the real test here is going
to be for Roman Rains as a babyface. He has
now eliminated Edge from the Royal Rumble. Again. Edge was

(01:56:01):
really meant to go into a program with Randy Orton,
which we've now seen and that's fine, but we've I
don't know if I was WWEE, I'd be starting to
be a bit concerned about this Roman Reign's babyface character
that they've done so well with over the last year
of mitigating booze, with him eliminating edge. He's now out
of the program with Baron Corbin. He gets into the

(01:56:23):
program presumably with the Fiend. We haven't seen it again.
I hate that it's still presumption. But where does Roman
Reigns go after this program into you know, from somebody
that the crowd organically and truly dislikes of Baron KORbin,
into somebody maybe that isn't as disliked. Does the Roman
Reigns factor, Does the Roman Reigns fever or sickness come

(01:56:47):
back to the fans and they say, no, oh yeah,
this is why I don't like this guy. That's right.
He was with Corbin for a while out of the
title picture doing his own thing. Comes back from cancer. Yay,
everyone's happy for him. And then and he gets shoved
into a program with somebody, maybe the Fiend, or maybe
a month or so away from that. But maybe the
feelings are starting to come back and we're contracting the

(01:57:10):
coronavirus and going, hey, yeah, this is why we don't
like Roman race. Could you see maybe some regression in
a crowd response. We'll get our answer maybe Friday night.
But what do you guys think? I think you muted yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:57:22):
Mary, It keeps remuting me. I'm sorry, I don't know
how to use a computer. It's twenty twenty. There's a
couple of days. Like as far as the card goes,
I still think the Bailey match was worse than this match.
The Bailey match did absolutely nothing for me, agreed my
personal opinion. As much as Lacy Evans has kind of

(01:57:44):
grown in the last couple of months, she was still
super sloppy. It was really quick, and I knew that
Lacy wasn't going over, Like there was no way that
Lacy was winning that title. And that's why, like the
whole Sasha thing that we talked about earlier was just
you know, Papasha or like I was just dumbfounded because
I didn't know where she was as far as Roman

(01:58:06):
with the with the baby face stuff. It's like, now
that we got Drew McIntire, I think there is more
leg room for if this faction continues with the USOS
for him to go heal. I mean it goes back
to the cht to see that he'll turn. I know
everybody wants it and it's never happened, but they've kind

(01:58:27):
of found somebody in Drew McIntyre where they don't really need.
That's why, like this whole you guys talking about fiend
and real marines. I know that, like he hasn't been
like in the he hasn't been in the main event picture.
I know he's a main eventor, but he hasn't been
in the title picture. They kind of drew him back
because they knew they damaged him so much and they're

(01:58:48):
rebuilding him up. But now they have this Drew McIntire
thing going on and like everything changes on a fly.
Like look at Dani O'Brien. He is the best example
of all this. They tried so hard to get the
crowd not to like him. Now I feel like you
got Drew McIntyre doing this thing right now where people

(01:59:08):
are behind him, and they did it right. They they
did it right, and the crowd is hot for him.
You know, I don't know where Roman goes from here.
I don't know where Daniel Brian goes after the theme
thing too, you know, and Daniel brien is now again
one of the top baby faces. I don't necessarily think
that there isn't wiggle room, and especially because now you're

(01:59:29):
starting to see this rumble totally showed Paul Haman's hands
in it, you know, and now you have Paul Hayman
in the picture. So I don't know. I don't know
where Roman is going, but I again I still think that,
you know, the Ussos have that gimmick going on where
they're kind of fan favorites, but at the drop of
the dime, they are able to be the bad guys

(01:59:50):
because of their persona and how they act. So who's
to say that like Roman finally doesn't give into the
dark side. I don't know where they're going with him.
This is me being conspiracy theory Mary, which we won't
even talk about my predictions, but you know, I see
a lot of movement for this. I think this was
the blowoff. I don't think the Corbyn thing is gonna

(02:00:10):
go on anymore. But now what do you do with Roman?
And if it is the fen again, I just don't
see it because he just hasn't been involved in that scene,
and if he does get involved with him, I just
feel like it's kind of like the safe choice, like, uh, well,
Roman's you know, the fighter and all that stuff. So
I have mixed opinions about it. But now that they

(02:00:33):
have other people emerging kind of picking up that torture,
that are better because Romans still gets a me reaction.
I mean, it's better than it was. I mean, I
was watching twenty fifteen Rumble and the Booze Whoo when
it started, it started, and it didn't stop until he
got sick, which is unfortunate. But I think there's a

(02:00:53):
lot of wiggle rooms you put Roman in something else,
but I don't know exactly what it is. But that's
you know, my opinion, my outtake, my fantasy booking, what
have you. I think there is room if he sticks
with the USSOS for them to kind of become a dominant,
you know, heal faction.

Speaker 4 (02:01:13):
Yeah, and I can completely agree with that. I could
definitely see them go in that direction. There's one particular
video I saw a while back of it was the
the USOS and Roman in a very clearly inebriated state,
and seeing him actually be organically Roman and having a
personality was great. It was nice to see him not

(02:01:35):
be this kind of forced superhero and I think that
leaning into the heel turn and allowing him to actually
be himself more is the right direction to go. And
I think there's tons of programs they could run, you know.
I think everything that happened in the Royal Rumbles seemed
to have a particular reason behind it, and I know
that there were some changes towards the end of it

(02:01:56):
with aj Styles getting injured, but I really feel like
roman reigns eliminating Edge was a calculated move, and I
see them eventually facing off in a basic way of
you know, taking the face energy, the crowd loving Edge
returning so much and using that to really, you know,
blow off this heel turn for Roman and really make

(02:02:18):
it as effective as possible. And I think that perfectly
will lead into a potential Fiend match up at WrestleMania
and make it make a lot more sense and kind
of start to shift the pieces around so it seems
to be a little bit more sensical, and you could
have the fiend playoff of him trying to heal the
not to have a pun there, but you know, try

(02:02:40):
to heal the heel Roman and you know, try and
make him back into the baby face he was, so
I think there's a lot of room there for this
to grow. And I think that it definitely makes a
lot of sense to finally pull the trigger on the
Rain's heel turn.

Speaker 6 (02:02:56):
Everything you guys said would be awesome, and I'm sure
Matt would agree with it. You know, I think he
opens the show with him saying, why don't they turn
Roman heel already?

Speaker 5 (02:03:05):
But it's not gonna happen.

Speaker 6 (02:03:06):
And you know, aside from the fact that we just
know Vince mcmah is stubborn that he'll keep him there.

Speaker 5 (02:03:13):
Just look at the SmackDown roster.

Speaker 6 (02:03:15):
Who's the next babyface that could possibly challenge the Fiend
for the belt? Braun Stroman, I don't think he's close
to that. They've already done Daniel Bryan the Miz just
turned heel, Like, who could it be? The answer is
Roman Reigns. It's unfortunate, but it seems like they are
on and an inevitable collision course together, just based on

(02:03:36):
the fact that there are no top level babyfaces on
SmackDown for the Fiend to go up against beyond Roman Reigns.
Like maybe in time they could build a Moustaf al
Ali up there and maybe Braun Stroman could get back
to that level. But you know, especially given the fact
that KOFE Case is back and in my opinion, rightfully

(02:03:57):
back in the tag team title picture, I just don't
see any way around beyond Rowan reigns and the Fiend
locking up at WrestleMania, let alone a Rain's heel turn.
I think that you know, they tested the waters at
Royal Rumble, and he would have gotten heavily bowed had

(02:04:18):
he been the winner. But I don't think that that's
going to change the course that he is on with
the Fiend at WrestleMania and probably is going to ultimately
end up winning the Universal Championship.

Speaker 1 (02:04:30):
I've just kind of devoid myself of pretending that WW
is gonna turn him heel again or again ever, because
the fact is that they have had a zillion awesome opportunities,
and I've been booking him heel for the last five
years since I really rumbled of twenty fifteen in Philly
and ever since then. I mean, imagine if he had

(02:04:51):
that night, come out after he won the Rumble, stood
on the second rolle they called an audible and he
just flipped off the crowd. Imagine the heat it would
have been it would have been nuclear heat, right, it
would have been you know, Monday Night Raw after he
beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania thirty three heat where they
just basically said f you Roman, like all that stuff

(02:05:11):
and he stood there for fifteen minutes and the crowd
buried him. And again, I'm not even gonna go down
that road. I've been down the road so many times.
I feel like I've made the road and paved it,
like I'm done with it. Until that actually happens, I'm
not gonna believe it. If it happens, I will. You know,
First of all, I'm gonna applaud them, But the second
of all, I'm gonna say, you know how much money
you missed out in the last five years, right, Like, Okay,

(02:05:32):
you're doing it, but is it too little too late?
So anyway, we have a couple of million matches?

Speaker 3 (02:05:39):
Sure, Okay, So if if Roman and Wyatt earn an
inevitable battle at WrestleMania and I'm not again, you guys
could be and I would not say I was wrong.
Why is the ultimate thing that Roman is gonna win? Like,
who's to say that? Don't keep going with Wyatt and

(02:06:02):
I and and and what has happened with every opponent
that that Wyatt has faced? Have they turned?

Speaker 1 (02:06:10):
They've changed?

Speaker 3 (02:06:12):
Who was to say that that isn't the that isn't
the angle that they are running at.

Speaker 1 (02:06:18):
It could be I mean, that would be genius. I
would look that seems Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:06:23):
I'm sorry, I can't believe that Roman is going to
I mean again, I've been a raw about Roman a
zillion times, but I can't see that Roman is the
guy to defeat the Fiend. I just I don't see it.
I can see them having a WrestleMania match. I can
see them having a title defense, that's sure, But what
did it make more sense that, Like, everybody's been pushing

(02:06:45):
for this, and if they're listening to people and they're
kind of it seems right now that they're doing smart things.
Every guy that that guy's face has turned the opposite
of what they were. So it's a perfect opportunity for
them to term Roman if he loses to the Fiend
at WrestleMania. And opponents for the Fiend, you have Alistair Black,
who could come out of nowhere. If you're going to

(02:07:05):
supernatural route, that guy knows about the occult. Maybe he'll
go after him, and you still have the Youngertaker, even
though we don't want to bring that up. Okay, I'm done.

Speaker 1 (02:07:14):
Good observation though, the Fiend is that has been kind
of the side effect of facing the Fiend. Everyone has changed,
even Daniel Bryan has said, you know, and he has
changed too. I mean that's where he got his first
real baby face return to Babyface program. And yeah, we
knew with Finn ballor obviously that was well documented where
he turned heel right, And so that could be the

(02:07:37):
ultimate destination for WWE because the fans right now, the
overwhelming belief is that it is Roman, it's the Fiend,
it's at WrestleMania, and it's where the championship and Roman wins. Well,
maybe we get to Roman versus the Fiend, but the
ultimate goal is to not have Roman win, but to
maybe in a loss, turn his turn his character to

(02:08:00):
the dark side. I mean, because that's what the goal
of the Fiend is. And I don't know what do
you guys think about that proposition?

Speaker 4 (02:08:09):
Yeah, I'll go right ahead, Anthony, Oh sorry about.

Speaker 5 (02:08:12):
That, buddy. Look, I think it would be fantastic.

Speaker 6 (02:08:16):
I just I don't think there is really a point,
and I hope I'm wrong. I just don't see there
being a point into even investing ourselves into such a storyline.
I'd be willing to bet one hundred bucks Canadian on
the fact that Roman Reigns will walk out of wrestling
at thirty six as.

Speaker 5 (02:08:37):
The Universal Champion.

Speaker 6 (02:08:39):
I think that it's taken Vince McMahon everything in his
human power to hold back on putting the world title
right back around Roman's ways when he returned about a
year ago, because remember he relinquished the Universal Championship, he
never actually lost it, and he had regained it and
I only had it for about two months after not
being world champion for almost two years.

Speaker 5 (02:09:01):
So I just think that they've.

Speaker 6 (02:09:03):
The way they've booked him over the last calendar year,
you know, very sheltered opponents. You know, he returned last
year forming with the Shield almost right.

Speaker 5 (02:09:12):
Out of the gate.

Speaker 6 (02:09:13):
Then he went up against Shane McMahon and was standing
side by side with the Undertaker and had that feud
for almost the whole summer. Then he had the who
done at Angle, which ultimately he wound up at the
side of Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan's never getting got booed,
so more cheers behind Roman, and then he went up
against Baron Corbyn, who's arguably the most hated heel in

(02:09:35):
the company right now, so he got cheered too. It
just seems that it's been calculated booking by w w
E and good booking, and to their credit, they've got
they've made a lot of progress with Roman Reigns by
keeping him somewhat on the back burner out of the
world title picture. But you just see the way that
they've smartly booked him, got the crowd to kind of
slowly but surely get more behind him that I just

(02:09:59):
can't see any other scenario of him not conquering the
Fiend because yeah, there's Alistair Black, but he's on roll
right now. But I'm sure they could bring him over
in a superstar shake.

Speaker 5 (02:10:12):
Up or what have you.

Speaker 6 (02:10:12):
But I just don't see a way how Roman Reigns
is in World Champion come post wrestling at thirty six.

Speaker 4 (02:10:22):
Yeah, and I can agree with you a lot on that, Anthony.
I do see that that's kind of the direction that
they're going towards, is eventually having Rains have the belt again,
because like you said, they kind of have sheltered him back,
and you know, or the fiend rather sheltered back. And
I think that in this case it makes a lot
of sense to build it. But I think because of

(02:10:43):
what WWE has been doing more recently, the trend of
kind of switching away from popular belief, as you know,
a lot of people had Roman Reigns predicted as the winner.
The plans were originally to have Roman Reigns be the
victor here. I think that that kind of spells to
them building towards something a little bit bigger than just
the obvious. And I think that if they do kind

(02:11:04):
of pull finally pull the trigger on the heel turn,
that it would make sense because really this idea of
trying to make the fiend a heel hasn't worked either.
So you know, leaning into that a little bit and saying, okay,
we're going to completely switch the rolls on you before Wrestlemanian,
We're going to have you, you know, cheering for bray Wyatt,
you know, maybe trying to lean into healing people as

(02:11:26):
opposed to hurting them now, or you know, maybe he
comes out as Sweater Bray Wyatt or you know, mister
Rogers Bray Wyatt, however you want to turn that side
of him. But I could definitely see them going a
lot of different ways to kind of go away from
the obvious. And I think a lot of people have
it predicted, like you said that Roman Reigns is going

(02:11:46):
to walk out of there with the belt, which could
definitely still feels like the right move and kind of
maybe not the right move, but kind of the writing
on the wall. So I think if they switch up
the rolls, it'll make it a lot more interesting before
then all right, Well.

Speaker 1 (02:12:02):
What I'd like to do is just touch on these
last two matches and then I'll give you guys a
chance to talk about anything else maybe we didn't want
to or didn't cover in terms of the rumble and
any other final thoughts. But the last two matches, I'm
grouping them together because the one match, honestly with Lacy
Evans and Bailey is not really worth too much of

(02:12:24):
a discussion because it was just kind of a by
the numbers type of match. It was very standard. It
kind of felt like kind of a bit of a
break in terms of the pacing of the show. That's
not to say this was a bad match, Like there
were no real bad matches on the show. I don't
think there was one, but this one wasn't really particularly exciting.

(02:12:47):
Bailey wins, and I think that's still the right move.
Some people thought that it was, you know, Lacy Evans time,
and they are certainly heavy handing this military connection, and
she's a mom, so we're supposed to relate with her,
and I'm starting to come around to her character. It's
it's taking some time. But again, I don't have a

(02:13:08):
whole lot to say about that match, rather than write
booking just kind of an average match. It was what
it was, and Bailey came out on top as she
should have. And then the other match was Becky Lynch
versus Oska. That match what I loved it. That really
was to me clearly the superior women's match of the

(02:13:30):
show outside of the Rumble, of course. But Becky Lynch here,
she collected her debt as she said, she had Oscar
tap out. As Oscar was about to dispense the Green Miss,
she kicks her the miscos all over Oscar's face, of
which apparently she's immune and didn't really react to. Nonetheless,
we had Becky Lynch tap her out. There's some great

(02:13:53):
spots in that match. These two. Anytime that they want
to give them twenty minutes to go, it's going to
be a good day in the ring. I loved it.
I think that these two tore it up. Becky Lynch
winning was the right move. It would have made no
sense to drop the belt to Oscar, who's also the
women's tag team half half of the Women's Tag team champions,
So the right move here, but it certainly got me

(02:14:15):
emotionally invested. Oscar, to me, is doing some of the
best work she's done since she dropped the belt last
year to Charlotte inexplicably unsmacked down. We all know how
I feel about that before WrestleMania and then didn't give
a damn. So to me, this is the best that
she's been position wise, she feels more comfortable on the mic.
I'm actually getting a little bit charmed by her yelling

(02:14:37):
in Japanese every week. It's weird. Even though I don't
understand her. It's she's just so cartoonish and over the top.
She's so bad that she's good on the mic. It's weird.
I don't know how to feel about it. In the ring,
there's no question she's off the charts, but just performance
wise on the mic, it's she's just so bad it's good,
and I think she's reached that level and she seems

(02:14:58):
more comfortable too. So again, Becky and Becky and Oscar
certainly tore it up, and then Lacey and Bailey kind
of just there, would you what did you think? Mary?

Speaker 3 (02:15:12):
I agree with like most of everything you said. The
Bailey Lacy match came off like it felt like a
filler match to me, and I know it was for
the world title, but it just kind of felt like
a rest match for everything else that was going on
the card. It was the lead. It was a good match.
I'm not saying it wasn't. It was just the bottom
match for me. I like that they changed Lacy's character.

(02:15:34):
It's working better for her going the military route and
being the mom because I didn't want to pay attention
to her whatsoever when she was doing the hail gimmick
and Bailey's Bailey. You know, like it was a good match,
but it wasn't, you know. The show stealer of the show,
Becky Oscar was awesome. I love the kick and the

(02:15:56):
miss going into the air, and I also like that
you know, even though she lost to Becky, I wanted
her to win. I thought she was gonna win because
I thought that was going to be the end of
the title rate for Becky. Obviously it's coming after Mania,
who knows. But I just like the fact that she lost.
In the next night, she was on Raw and she

(02:16:16):
was challenging you know, Charlotte and trying to pay her dues,
you know that, Like she basically, even though you couldn't
understand there in Japanese, she's basically saying, you screwed me
out of my stuff last year, and that was right,
and I would have beaten you if I was in
the rumble, you know, because she won the Rumble, and then,
you know, didn't they end up having a triple threat

(02:16:36):
with her, like she didn't really get like her shot
or a rousey came out and it completely, you know,
disregarded her win. So I enjoyed the match. I thought
it was a really good match on both of them.
I liked everything about it. But I really liked that
it wasn't just like, oh, Becky beat her, and now

(02:16:57):
she's getting thrown to the side and she's not being
taken seriously as a serious hitter in the woman's division
and they still have her right there with Charlotte.

Speaker 4 (02:17:05):
Yeah, I agree with you on a lot of points there, Mary,
I think that ultimately, on the first match side of
things with Lacy Evans versus Bailey, I felt like, really
to sell the face turn of Lacey Evans, I felt
like this was the right time to pull the trigger
and maybe set up a potential Mania feud that had

(02:17:26):
a slow burn between Bailey and Lacey with her taking
the belt and go on this face route and kind of,
you know, being the polar opposite of Bailey story where
she's gone heel and she became champion. You know, having
Lacy Evans turn face and become champion would be kind
of this good contrasting storyline to build upondo Mania, but
not having her win the belt here it just kind

(02:17:47):
of feels like, well, you know, she tried, but she
couldn't beat her. And although you know there it was
some cheating involved and things like that, I felt like
it just felt fell really flat because there had no
reason to be invested. You felt like Bailey was going
to come out with the victor, and she did because
it was kind of too short of a few to
have it go any other way. But I think, you know,

(02:18:09):
with her momentum turning face, I think they've squandered a
lot of the momentum Bailey had when she turned heel.
So I thought that they would have kind of learned
and tried to pull the trigger a little bit more
with Lacy Evans. So I would have liked to have
seen her walk out as champion, but I understand why not,
and I think it ended up kind of being a
poor match. I wouldn't even go as far as to

(02:18:30):
say it was that good, It just didn't. It felt
very out of place on an otherwise very good card.
So but on the polar opposite of that again would
be the Osca in Becky match, which I thought really
tore it down. And you know, to your point too, Matt,
with Oscar on the microphone, it reminds me a lot
of to Jerry when he was doing his run in

(02:18:50):
the WWE. And you know, of course sharing the green
myst as a parallel there too, which is he does it.
It feels like she has no reason to need to
and it's like she's above it, and it kind of
helped sell that heel side of her too, So I
and I thought this match between them was excellent. I thought,
like you said, Mary, the finish with the kick to

(02:19:11):
the guy in the in the midst was excellent. And
I just think that they're doing a lot of right
things with everything, but I think that Osca is someone
that they've kind of gotten wrong in a lot of ways.
But this match was very good and I think that
they should continue to build something towards her getting a
title in the very near future. However they can achieve that.

Speaker 6 (02:19:33):
Yeah, both of these matches well. Obviously the Lacy Evans
Bailey one fell flat. It was not the worst thing,
and like, I really like it Lacey Evans. I'm kind
of being a bit biased, but it wasn't anything more
than a placeholder match, And while the Osca and Becky
match were significantly better, it's still just felt like a

(02:19:55):
placeholder match for waiting for Becky to get engaged bigger
and better things, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:20:02):
I found they did a really good build to.

Speaker 6 (02:20:04):
The Becky and Oscar match, contrary to the one on
the SmackDown side of things. I'm interested to see where
they go beyond this. On both for both championships, I
think it was the payoff for both championships, with both
women's champions retaining the titles clean I'm hoping on the
SmackDown side of the things, it's Alexa Bliss, and I

(02:20:27):
think it may be almost set in stone that will
be Shana Basler on the side of Raw. So I'm
anxious to see where they go beyond these feuds from now.

Speaker 1 (02:20:39):
I am too, and I hope Alexa Blis gets more
of a prominent position. She had a nice showing at
the Royal Rumble, which was promising, and like you said,
I mean, she was the face of Raw not too
long ago, and obviously Ronda Rowsey came and dethrowed her
pretty quickly. But I think, yeah, Alexa Bliss, it's time
to kind of position her more as an actual maine

(02:20:59):
of event, pretty consistent main event star, because she is
just that. I'm tired of the five feet of fury.
And you know, I remember when she first was called up,
they were kind of just knacking on her for her height,
and it's like, come on, guy, I mean even the
announcers were talking about she's only five feet five feet
of fury. I don't you know, I don't need that.
And so nonetheless, I think that Alexa Bliss is in

(02:21:22):
for a potentially big twenty twenty year, and I hope
that she is. But so I think we're all kind
of an agreement on the Becky Lynch and Oscar match
tore down certainly was the star of the women's show
other than the Rumble. But yeah, Bailey and Bailey and uh,

(02:21:44):
oh my gosh, I'm like losing it because it's so late,
uh pushing up Lacey Chez. So I got like, my
bedtime is like usually right around now. But that's okay,
it's it's it's Rumble review time. So yeah, Lacey is
a girl, a woman that is is really they're trying
to transition her into this believable and relatable and they

(02:22:04):
hit all this military stuff from the audience, at least
on a on air type of presentation because they were
trying to get the military background. Obviously use that as
a as a well, well you know, we'll talk about
this when you turn babyface makes total sense, right, I mean,
you don't want to boo a veteran typically, So anyway,
I think there is a big year also involved for

(02:22:27):
Lacey Evans, and I think this was the test for
her at the pay per view, and I think that
she she somewhat past the test. You know, she is
not the greatest in ring performer of all time, but
she's still somewhat new. She's a little bit green. That's fine,
and you know, it takes time to get into the
you know, feelige your chemistry with your opponent, and if

(02:22:49):
she had more matches down the line with Bailey, they
should in theory and in using your logic, should be better.
So we'll have to see about that. We'll have to
see if Lacey just kind of fades into the background
after this. Certainly Friday night on SmackDown will tell us
whether or not that she's going to remain in the
Tattle picture or just kind of goes by the wayside
and we get some new contenders, which I kind of

(02:23:11):
think is more likely to happen. So any final comments
on the women before we move on? All right, Well,
so I'll just kind of open up the floor then.
Is there anything that maybe you guys didn't wanted to
expand upon, or that I didn't touch on, or any
kind of final thoughts on the rumble and raw from
last night?

Speaker 3 (02:23:33):
Well, obviously, the edge in Brady organ storyline going forward.
I mean, that's the biggest thing that happened in the
last forty eight hours other than the rumble. So what's
your thoughts on it, Matt Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:23:45):
All right, Well my thoughts are I liked it. I
really What I really loved was not just Randy Orton
and his his just the way that he did it
so methodically and him teasing getting rated RKO back, which
is kind of ironic by the way that Edge is
the rated R superstar in a PG television environment, right,

(02:24:08):
so he's not really He's kind of like the neutered
rated R superstar the wanna be right because it just
doesn't make sense. But I love the nickname. I love
everything about Edge. So I love the way that Randy
Orton came down, he teased the reunion and gave him
a hug, and then boom, RKO puts him down, and
then he took his time getting the chair, positioning the chair,

(02:24:29):
and then eventually you know, you're thinking, oh, someone gonna
come out and save him. Someone can come out and
save him. Nobody comes out and saves him, which is
kind of I don't know. I'm fine with it because
you have to put a program together for these two.
But it's from turn like logically like there's no one
backstage and Randy Orton's taking his time, and you know
he has a triple fusion next surgery. No one's gonna

(02:24:50):
come out to potentially save him whatever. I'm not getting
on that point. But I love the way that they
presented this, Randy Orton hitting the concerto on on Edge Edge,
the way that he sold it. This is the other
part of it. The facials from EDGE when he first
got RKO was like, what just happened, and you're concerned

(02:25:11):
about his neck? He looked like he was concerned about
his neck, because it was as if you could read
through his eyes of what his thoughts were. I loved it.
I think this is a great first program for EDGE.
From what I'm reading, he's signed a three year contract
with WWE. I think he's in it for the long haul.
He could have a resurrected Michael's career of what Seawn

(02:25:32):
Michaels did in two thousand and two coming back. I
hope that's the case. I loved his promo there at
the beginning, saying I wanted to end this on my terms.
I didn't want to go through my life, saying what
if everything was done right? Edge reminded us that he
is what he says he is, and I loved everything
about this segment. I mean, I can't say enough about it.

(02:25:53):
It put instant heat on Randy Yorton, a guy that
has been getting over even as a heel because of
his RKO. I think that's going to finally change now
that you have Edge on the other side of the
coin with this program. So I'm going to going forward
to this. Do I think this is going to lead
all the way to WrestleMania? It could, I was I

(02:26:13):
would love to pair Edge up with Seth Rollins. But
if this leads all the way to WrestleMania, there's a
lot to pull from. There's a ton of history with
these two, so I'd give the ending of this an
a plus all the way around.

Speaker 3 (02:26:26):
Yeah, everything you said was spot on, even though you
know Edge was clearly clear to be in that ring.
He was in the rumble. I mean, he was doing
fears and he's in the best shape of his life.
I mean, he's a little grayer, like you said, but
he looked fantastic on Sunday Day. It was the most

(02:26:49):
unsettling thing I've watched on professional wrestling in a long time.
Like I was invested. I knew everything was okay and
they wouldn't be doing this to him if he could
legitimately like get injured or rehurt his neck or spine
or anything like that. But I had my hands over
my face, you know, over my nose in my hands
the whole time I was watching it, and I was

(02:27:11):
just uncomfortable watching it, and I was screaming at the TV, going, Randy,
don't do it, you know, And we all know that
Randy is that snake and that's what he does. And
I don't know what Randy's reasoning is going to be
when he comes out and says it. I mean, sometimes
he doesn't give an answer for his actions. You know.
It could be jealousy that he stole the spotlight, you know,

(02:27:32):
and that like he's gotten all these alcohloids since he's retired,
and he's a Hall of Famer, but you know, Randy's
the legend killer. It's the first real I mean, we've
been talking about Randy being good the last couple of months,
and when he's good, he's compelling, and sometimes he's just
one of those filler or in stop pause mode or
you know, you don't really know what they're doing with him,

(02:27:53):
but when they put him in this villain role and
they give him a dance partner that he wants, he
can literally make you hate him on the drop of
a dime. And like, even when he was holding him
and like and like kind of coddling him, that he
hated himself for doing this because this was his best
friend that dragged him out of the you know, the

(02:28:15):
lowest ditch he was in in his life when Randy
was having all those problems. It was just it was perfecto.
It was it was a plus. There's no better person
for Edge to come back to the WWE and revise
his career with other than Old Guard, and that's Randy Orton. Still,
even though you know, Randy's really never been out with

(02:28:36):
injuries and stuff like that, it's kind of you know,
I'm just happy. But this is the most compelling storyline
that I think Randy has had since when he was
doing the punk kicks to people's heads. And I just
wanted to praise it on both of them. It was
good and Ed was like, let's do it, and let's
let's sell it, and he did it. It was fantastic.

Speaker 4 (02:28:57):
Yeah, I completely agree to your points. Mary. I think that,
you know, everything that they've done with this storyline has
been great, and I think that it's really a program
with a lot to build upon, as you said, Matt,
and I think that it's something that is very although
it's using older stars, it feels very much like forward

(02:29:18):
progress for WWE in a lot of ways where it's
giving us a lot of what we want in the
sense that we wanted Edge to return in a big
way and have a big, uh something big to come
back to. So and like you said too, Mary about
the stop and go at nature of Randy Orton, giving
him a big person to go after just felt like
all the right moves. And I think that that can

(02:29:40):
be said a lot about the forward progress leading off
of Royal Rumble. I think that they're leaning towards a
lot of really great things and it's very encouraging stuff.
And it's always the best time of year going into Mania,
but it feels like they're making a lot of the
right moves, which I think is the biggest takeaway for
me from The Rumble and this episode of Raw.

Speaker 6 (02:30:00):
Yeah, I just think Randy Orton is a good guy
to pair Edge up with to you know, break him
back into things. They have a you know, a history
to play off of. Randy Orton's basically a ring general
and there could have a five star match with a
broomstick so he can help Edge along if there is
any ring rust, even though it didn't seem to be
the case at the Rumble. And you know, to your point, Matt,

(02:30:22):
they could you know, not string this out to wrestling
and have Edge, you know, just beest or had Randy
Orton be a stepping stone fore Edge on the way
to wrestling. You know, I think that two pay per
views between now and then, so a lot of things
can happen.

Speaker 5 (02:30:37):
All I know is that this is a good pay.

Speaker 6 (02:30:40):
Per view for these pay per view, a good program
for these two to get involved in with one another.
And I'm really excited to see where they go with it.

Speaker 1 (02:30:50):
Yeah I am too. And you know, I'm thinking back
to what the reasoning could be. What we'll hear from
Randy and well Edge got eliminated or Orton eliminated by
Edge in the Royal Rumble. There's something there. There's also
a comment that was made when Randy or when Randy
Orton feigned an injury a number of weeks ago to
lure in aj Styles ultimately to hit an RKO. He

(02:31:13):
mentioned Edge in his promo that you know, I knew
a guy Edge and he had to end his career,
and he paralleled his speech to kind of Edges from
nine years ago. So that was I think definitely by
design for sure. So look, I'm well looking forward to
this program. Do I want it to string out another

(02:31:34):
three months ten weeks? Probably not. I mean, I'm not
saying it wouldn't be a great program, but again, I'd
love to see Seth Rollins with his group versus Edge,
and I think there's a lot there. But again, I mean,
we're kind of fantasy booking given the fact that we
don't even know what's going to be on the Super
Showdown or the Elimination Chamber matchups. So this is all

(02:31:57):
just kind of conjecture at this point. But I really
think that this this is gonna be a program. Regardless
of where it ends, or how quick it is or
how long it is, it's going to be an enjoyable program.
These are two professionals, one at the top of his game,
one getting back into the game. But doesn't look like
he's missed a step. This is going to be enjoyable
all the way around. So any of us thoughts on anything, guys,

(02:32:19):
before we kind of right up into the sunset.

Speaker 3 (02:32:24):
I think I'm good. I'll bring on my conspiracy theories
I got squashed another time.

Speaker 5 (02:32:29):
Okay, Yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 4 (02:32:32):
Yeah, I think I covered just about everything on my
end too.

Speaker 1 (02:32:37):
Awesome. Well, guys, this has been super enjoyable. I've this
is awesome. I want to thank everybody for joining me,
Zach for filling in for Ashley, and you know, maybe
we can redo this for the WrestleMania show, or you know,
maybe make this a kind of an annual pay per
view thing. Well, we'll see. But this has been a

(02:32:57):
lot of fun. And I want to thank you guys
for staying up so damn later. I don't really know
what you guys bedtimes are, but certainly devoting a significant
amount of time to coming on and talking wrestling.

Speaker 3 (02:33:07):
Thank you. I'm about to go get tacos. This isn't
my bedtime yet.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
Tacos. I'm jealous like Taco.

Speaker 3 (02:33:16):
Bellaco right after all?

Speaker 1 (02:33:20):
Right, well, I want to keep you from Taco bell
so but Anthony and Zach, thank you for for popping
on and we will be in touch shortly as well.
And uh uh definitely, Zach, thank you for for your
A E W reviews. You've been doing awesome, So thank
you all the way around.

Speaker 4 (02:33:39):
Thank you, Matt and it was a pleasure of working
with you guys. And I definitely would love to get
back on and do this again for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:33:47):
No, definitely. Like I said, maybe we'll make this more
of a consistent thing, So stay tuned.

Speaker 3 (02:33:55):
Really enjoyable talking to you guys. I'm so happy that
we formally met through Skype tonight. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:34:05):
Well that's how you meet people now, right, That's how
I actually met my wife on match, Like so actually
it's funny. I don't know why to bring this up,
but we met on match, but then on Tinder. We
actually matched on Tinder at the same time, and she
ignored me on Tinder and like I was like, what
the hell, Like why are you marrying me? When we
laugh about that now, but she completely blew me off
on Tinder and I was like, hey, what are you

(02:34:26):
doing and she like didn't respond, So we just laugh
about it now. But we actually officially met on match,
so yeah, that's how you meet people now, right.

Speaker 4 (02:34:33):
So yeah, that's funny. Me and my fiance met through
ai M first and then through Facebook. So I mean
we got pretty pretty similar parallels going on there.

Speaker 5 (02:34:43):
Aim.

Speaker 1 (02:34:44):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (02:34:45):
Yeah, go and really throw back there when AIM was
still the place to be when you were trying to
meet people.

Speaker 1 (02:34:51):
Yeah, yeah, you do. You put like a notification when
your crush would come on. Mine was like a cash
register or something. And no, she's online, right, you have
a way messages and stuff. I remember that.

Speaker 4 (02:35:00):
Yeah, the good old days of the internet.

Speaker 1 (02:35:03):
I know the kids will never know today, they'll never
know the struggles of flip phones and oh god. All right, well, guys,
thank you so much for joining me. It's been a blast.
And I will talk to all of you sometime down
the line soon and so thanks again and enjoy the
rest of your night. Enjolia Tako was Mary.

Speaker 3 (02:35:19):
I will.

Speaker 1 (02:35:23):
Bye, guys.

Speaker 4 (02:35:25):
I have a good night, guys.

Speaker 3 (02:35:27):
Night me too.

Speaker 1 (02:35:28):
Good night. Hey guys. So, retirement may or may not
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(02:35:49):
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(02:36:12):
of what you should be investing in. So head on
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Speaker 2 (02:36:19):
Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to
subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss
a show, or head to wwepodcast dot com and for
all of these shows add free head over to Patreon
dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll see you

(02:36:40):
next time.

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