September 23, 2025 • 45 mins
Let's talk Monday Night Raw that aired September 22nd, 2025. One that saw Asuka turn on Iyo Sky, Bayley vs Roxanne, Stephanie Vaquer's first appearance since winning the Women's World Title, Seth & Cody face-to-face and much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to
the WWE podcast show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The one that everybody wants.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Me is godst three sixteenths.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Just with your ass is my arm, you can acknowledge me.
Time to talk about Night Raw as we now enter
Crown Jewel Season and it comes to us in just
three weeks from Perth, Australia, not Saudi Arabia. Lord knows,
we're going to be hearing and seeing enough of that
(00:48):
venue over the coming years. And we have again three
weeks until that event, and big news already coming out
for that. Yes, it's on a Saturday, as many of
us knew, but it is also going to feature John
Cena versus AJ Styles. That is confirmed. AJ Styles and
John Cena. It's happening. Seena put on X do you
(01:12):
guys want it? And they're letting it happen. I mean
they are literally letting John Cena dictate whatever the fans
want to have happened. And he's saying he's not choosing
his opponents. But if he wasn't, then he'd let he
put out a poll. He wouldn't just put one person
out there. Whatever. A just Styles is a great opponent
for John Cena because of their history from about a
(01:34):
decade and change ago, and they certainly I think could
work well together. Still, it's about essentially exhibition matches at
this point. With four appearances left, John Cena is just
doing whatever he wants to do and the fans want
to do, and there's not much left now. It does
beg to be answered the question of who is his
(01:55):
final opponent. Some still believe it's brock Lesner. I hope not.
You know who I want, And Adam Copeland on aew
did pay tribute to John Cena my doing the five
knuckle shuffle, So it doesn't look like they're gonna be
able to have some kind of reunion over in WWE
(02:15):
for Adam Copeland because of contractual obligations. But we will
see miracles can happen, and that would be a perfect
final opponent. So if it is brock Lesner, I mean
it is brock Lesner, but I mean it is also
Saturday Night main event, and that will be coming to
us what the mid December, December thirteenth or something like that,
So we'll get into that as the months and well
(02:38):
weeks roll on here. Not too much longer than about
three months left of John Cena's career and then it's
all over. So let's uh look, get to Monday night.
Rag in a moment, but I can't not point out
that just the miserable reactions to Wrestle Palooza, and not
(02:58):
just from vans, not just from fans, but from ESPN itself. ESPN.
This is according to the Sportster, but ESPN published a
write up of the plee on its website, assigning a
letter grade to each match in an overall grade for
the show. That overall grade is a C, confirming that
it's probably not pleased with how the first show of
(03:19):
its new deal with WWE unfolded. The breakdown notes the
Women's World title match saved the show and opinion it
seemed to share with the bulk of the fans, and
they said that the best match of the night by
far was stepping of a Kr versus Yo Sky, which
I concurred with, and they gave that a B plus,
(03:40):
but everything else was a C or lower, with the
opening match of John c And and brock Lesner getting
a C minus. Yikes. Now this doesn't affect their current deal.
I mean, they can't back out because they put on
a lackluster show. It's just a bit of a a
bit of a letdown, a bit of a surprise. As
(04:02):
I said earlier in my review show that it's really
surprising that WWE did not put on a better show
or executed better or have bigger surprises or something in
store here because of the fact that this is the
first time they've ever appeared on ESPN for a ple
so it is pretty incredible that the show was so bad.
(04:25):
But it'll quickly be forgotten because we forget everything quickly,
because we're in the digital age of things in our
face all the time, and it'll go by the way
side quickly and they'll bounce back. I'm not worried about it.
I'm sure their next pl you know, we could be
giving it critical acclaim. It's just the way this thing,
this thing goes, and I'm not again if i'm WWE,
(04:45):
it's just like, Okay, yeah, we didn't get off on
the right foot, but we got a lot of time
to make it up. So but yeah, it is not
WWE's style too, you know, to to have a bad
jumping off point whenever they're changing cable networks or wherever.
They change a from a cable to a streaming platform.
(05:07):
This is not their style, not their deal. Now I've
seen F grades. I would not give the pl an F.
I mean that's a little extreme. But alrighty, well, let's
go to it. Let's go to Monday Night Raw because
we do have a lot to talk about here. Despite
the fact that some people gave this show an F two,
I did not think this show was that bad. I've
(05:27):
heard some convoluted I was a mess. I didn't think
it was that bad. I mean, there was some segments
that it didn't make sense. It wasn't a very star
studed night. Yeah, I give you that. But it US
came to us from Evansville, Indiana at the Ford Center,
and it opened with a recap of Russell Palooza, which
I'm sure they'd love to forget about quickly. And we
(05:49):
had Cody Rhoads come out and we had Joe tessitourn
commentary with Wayde Barrett's of Wade Barrett's back. That's good.
Cody asked the crowd, as he always does, which is
what I want to talk about? And he said they
could talk about Crown Jewel and the ring he was
wearing from winning last year's champion versus Champion match over Gunther,
(06:11):
which I'm sure ninety nine percent of us forgot about
because it meant absolutely nothing. If this match is going
to afford the winner a piece of jewelry, then it
effectively is affording you nothing. I'm sorry. The only ring
that matters in pro wrestling is the Hall of Fame one,
and they aren't challenging for that. So sure, I do
(06:35):
appreciate though that at least there is a remembrance of
what happened last year with Gunther and Cody. Now Cody won,
and there is something to be said for that, because
typically they just hope you forget, and we didn't, and
neither did Cody, and I'll give him credit for that.
So we had Seth quickly come out, and Rollins had
(06:56):
them all stay at ringside, meaning Breaker, Reed and Hayman.
And he said that he's had Crown Jewels Circle on
his calendar since they both walked out of SummerSlam as champions,
and he said it should be as simple as made
the best man win, but it's not because it runs
deeper than that. With the two of them, he said
he knows that the fans in the locker room think
(07:17):
of him. He asked what Cody thinks of him. Cody said,
it's complicated. He said Rollins made some questionable decisions, and
Cody said Rollins changed his life by agreeing to face
an opponent he didn't know it WrestleMania, which we all
know turned out to be Cody. He said it shouldn't
be that simple. He just had Cess's wife on his
(07:37):
podcast the other day. Cody asked Rollins what he thinks
of himself. He said Rollins could be the absolute best
on any given day, but Rollins is now hiding behind
three goons. Cody brought up the ring he was wearing,
and Rollins said they had to talk about the watch
he was wearing. Rollins said it was the watch that
Cody bought him the night before WrestleMania. He said was
(08:00):
the first time he's worn the watch, and Rollins's question
whether the gift was genuine, adding that Cody was always
says the right glowing things about him. Now for then
the next part, I mean, Rolins could have easily come
back at Cody here when Cody pointed out the fact
that he's hiding behind goons. What I would say to
(08:23):
Cody is no, Cody, I'm building to the future. I'm
helping these guys become the future of the company while
you focus on yourself, Well, you're self centered. I'm helping
build the next generation of this company. Tell me that
wouldn't have been good. Now, I don't know if it's
a very heel thing to say, so it doesn't align
(08:45):
with what the bad guy would say, But boy, that
would ring true and sting. I cut promos on my
head that I'm sure on the spot I would flob
But easy to armschair quarterback, is it not?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we have.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Rollins then take issue with Cody claiming he's the quarterback
and the person to lead the WWE into the future,
and Rolinds said, it's not a two man show. I'm
the alpha, claim Seth. And then Cody said that they'd
had three matches together they were all one on one,
and he wondered how many of those matches Rollins won,
(09:19):
and he exited the ring and that was that so yeah,
which obviously Cody Roades beat Seth Rollins all three times. Now,
Rollins should absolutely win this one. There's nothing on the
line other than a piece of meaningless jewelry, and I'm sorry,
it's totally meaningless, and so Cody can afford a loss
here and he doesn't need two rings. Okay, it's preposterous.
(09:42):
So Rollin's given the fact that he there's nothing on
the line for Cody, meaning he can't drop the belt.
Neither can Rollins. It's about it's an exhibition with a
made up prize, is what it is. And we need
Seth Rollins to continue to his momentum, perhaps to brock
Less at some point. Then you have to have Rowlins
(10:03):
keep rolling, all right, So we then have a Jimmy approach.
Approach Jay backstage and shook hands with him. Jimmy said,
was it was trashed that they lost a breaker and
read at Russell Palooza, and Jimmy said he went to
Raw general manager Adam Pierce to get a rematch, but
(10:23):
he informed him that Jay already got a singles match
with La Knight. And Jay had a bandage on his
forehead from the cut he suffered, and he thinks they
would have won the tag match had a Night not
been the ref And Jay said they had a lot
to take care of and they get to it once
he got through Night. So it looks like Jay is
(10:43):
not in concussion protocol as was reported by many outlets.
You might have seen it as well, that Jay, you know,
he suffered a cut, many of us didn't know where
the hell had happened, but that he was also under
some kind of concussion protocol and that is actually not right.
So good to here on Jay's end. Absolutely good to
(11:05):
hear that you know it's just a cut and nothing
more severe. So then me have an actual match. Our
first match of the night, Penta, Eric and Ivar take
on KOFE, Kingston, Xavier and Grayson Waller in a no
DQ match. The match went ten minutes exactly according to
these calculations here, with Penta and Eric and Ivar beating
them in a no DQ match. The finish was Kingston
(11:29):
trying to send Penta into the sponsored table, not just
a regular one, it has to be a sponsored one
and that was set up in the corner of the ring,
but Penta stopped short and then Kofe charged and was
suplexed through the table. Penta went to the ropes. Waller
hit Penta with a kendowstick and then joined him on
the ropes, and then he fought back with a Mexican
Destroyer that was just awesome and got to victory. I
love how the Mexican Destroyer is actually a finish. It
(11:52):
should be. It's essentially a spike pile driver for all
intents and purposes. When you look at what it's doing,
it also looks badass, so it should be a finish.
I've seen this move be a transition move or a
false finish move that you know is never going to
actually finish a match for years. It's nice to see
it be brought back as a finish at least tonight.
(12:14):
Last night. Okay, so we had a backstage Judgment day stuff.
I mean, I'm brushing over judgments Judgment Day stuff because
I'm just bored by the Judgment Day now. I'm bored
to tears by them. This group needs to be disbanded.
They've done everything they can do. Congrats, here's your roses,
here are your flowers. Dom needs to go off on
(12:36):
his own. Finn Balor out of all of them, needs
to go off on his own. We have Roxan Perez
need to go off on her own, you know, and
they just all they all need to go. They all
need to go, even JD. Yes, I'm just bored to tears.
So I don't even really care what they're doing. I
(12:57):
just don't. I'm sorry. I know if you guys are
fans of the judgment to I mean, at one point
they were the hottest thing going on while they were
a shining light with especially with Our Truth, and when
he was involved in it, the comedic element that he
brought to the show, that was all great. And yes,
when Rio was there in the tension with Rhea and
Live and then Dom cheats on Rio would Live, that
was all really good television. It's dead, it's dead, recognize
(13:22):
it and move on.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The key is here, of course, you know, from a
creative standpoint, you've got several men that you probably don't
know what to do with. If you separate them, then
you have four different men that you have to have
four different storylines and storylines and goals for which, of
course takes more effort and time. And I don't know
if they want or have the drive to do that
(13:46):
instead of just lumping them together. You see that a
lot when you could tell creative is nothing for anybody,
and they just lump a bunch of people together that
otherwise would have nothing. And so sure, it's better than
them not being on TV, but then you risk the
group being a complete boor on TV, and right now
they were a complete bore. So there's that. They mean
they're going to reach a breaking point here. But backstage,
(14:09):
we have a happy Bailey approaching Lyra and asked if
she wanted to be in her corner. Lyra reminded Bailey
that she yelled at her. Oh my god, it gets worse,
don't worry. Bailey acted like she had no memory of it,
and Valkira said she would do it if it meant
a lot to Bailey. After Bailey walked away, Stephanie walked
past Valkyria and yeah, so we had Stephanie come out
(14:32):
as the new Women's World Champion and Testatornono that Vicaire
is the first South American born Women's World Champion in
w W history, So sure cool. I guess. Stephanie spoke
of this being her dream and how she didn't know
if it would happen, but she sacrificed and I don't know.
(14:57):
She also mentioned her father was standing at ringside. I
mean that was I guess a semi a very mild
heart feeling, heartwarming moment. Pierce told the coor is it
for Kervcour I've heard whatever. I'm gonna call it whatever,
I'm going to probably change it up, and that a
crown jewel. Sh'll face the winner of Friday's triple Threat
(15:17):
for the w W Women's Championship, and Vacierre said she
would be there, and Pierce said he knew she would
be and then introduced her again as the new champion,
and that was it. So again, outside of the quick
moment with her dad, which was the only really entertaining
(15:37):
part of this promo, there, I didn't get much from her.
If you've never heard her speak before, well now you
kind of know why she doesn't get a whole lot
of promo time. Her accent is incredibly thick. It was
very hard to make out what she was saying if
you were just casually paying attention. If you have subtitles,
I would turn them on because you need them. With her,
(15:58):
I've even got to the point where I can understand
Oscar pretty well, but she was she made Oscar look
like she's, you know, fluent in English. It's such a
heavy accent, very difficult, but hey, I mean they're giving
a little bit of time here, so there's there's that's
the one thing. Okay, I guess all right. We have
(16:18):
Stephanie then walking backstage and she encountered Nicki Bella and
they hugged. Then Rhea Ripley showed up and smiled and
congratulated her, and then Ripley recalled telling her that she
would be coming for the belt, and Vicaierre said, Mommy,
I'm ready, and then Oscar and Kyrie Sane showed up,
and Oscar said Vicaierre didn't deserve to be champion, and
(16:40):
Nikki said Vicered deserved it and would be an amazing champion.
Thanks for the completely empty, soulless comments from Nicki Bella.
Can we be done with her please? Vicerre told Oscar
that she would be thrilled to show her why she's
the champion anytime she wants to fight. Then Ria Ripley
(17:02):
gets in Osca's face and.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We have.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The Karen Bella walk away. But Ripley said she's been
trying to stay out of Oscar's way out of respect
for EO, but she's getting tired of Oscar's attitude. Oscar
said she's sick of Ripley and warned her to stay
away from Sky or she'd show her why she's not
ready for OSCA, and Ripley said she's ready for OSCA
and then said they could settle it in the ring.
(17:29):
Then she accepted so saying, grabbed Ripley's hand and was
about to apologize, but ran off again. Her little lap
dog just does whatever Oscar says, which is ridiculous. So
we have the next match here, which is Bailey versus
Roxanne Perez, and this match went ten minutes and forty
(17:53):
seconds with Bailey beating Roxanne. And it's after Bailey's demeanor change.
I had Perez by the hair, pulled her back inside
the ring, and then Perez spun Bailey around. Bailey hit
the Bailey to belly, a knee strike and a rose
plant for the victory. After the match, Bailey rolled Roxanne
to the floor. Valkyria entered the ring and applauded Bailey
(18:16):
and hugged her. Bailey then shoved Valkyria to the mat
and yelled at her for touching her, and also said
her outfit looks stupid, and Bailey rubbed her temples and
exited the ring. So I don't know, I mean again,
this is this is a personality change. From Bailey that
(18:39):
I'm still loosely on board with. I don't particularly feel
like this is going to land in the way that
they think it's probably going to land with the three
faces of Foley or some kind of mental shift she's
going through her identity crisis. I can see what they're
aiming for, but the execution I think is not going
(19:02):
to land well because it's difficult to do. How do
we know what's gonna set off Bailey? Do we even care?
If Bailey is gets set off? Is she good? Should
we cheer for her or not? When she has this
personality shift? What triggers it? What started this whole thing
to begin? With so many unanswered questions that I'm sorry,
(19:26):
I don't have the faith that they're gonna answer. We're
just supposed to just see Bailey. Oh, the announcers are
supposed to probably guide us through. Oh you can see
that shift? Okay, Well, why and why should we care
if she wins or loses? Do we like this?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Do we not?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Do we like the good version of her? And then
when she snaps, we boo that there's too many elements
going on here, so it's gonna be difficult for them
to land the plane very nicely where we understand and
like we've seen this before too. We've seen it with
actually Ken Shamrock. He would just snap in the middle
of a match and you couldn't control obviously Mick Foley
(20:02):
with the three faces of Foley, even Hulk Hogan to
some degree where he would, you know, get his superpowers
in Hulk Up. Not really a personality shift as it
is just pressing Superman mode. But you understand my gist
here where something gets triggered, something happens and they get
that that change of personality, and I don't I don't
(20:23):
know if they know where they're going. And I mean again,
it just seems like identity crisis. Cool, but where are
we going with it? Am I supposed to be good? Bad?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I don't know if they've answered those questions. So backstage,
Jimmy who catches up with Cody Rose. They exchanged pleasantries
and then Cody asked how Jay was doing. Jimmy said
Jay wasn't listening, but he might listen to Cody, who
said he would talk to him. Cody entered Jay's room
locker room, and they shook hands and he sat down
(20:57):
and he spoke about Jimmy and asked if was okay.
Jay said he was. Cody spoke about the highs and
lows and failing on the big stage more than once.
Jay stared at the w W Championship belt, and Cody
said he believes in Jay, who shook his hand and
he would find his way back to the top. So
Jay kind of going through a bit of a low
point here. I still don't need to see Jay turnheel.
(21:20):
If they go that road, they go that road, but
I just hope it's against If they do turn j
that is, it just gives Cody another opponent, and that
could be the foreshadowing to do that. But perhaps it
does reinvigorate Ja to a point where the fans may
accept him as champion, because they certainly didn't this time around,
(21:40):
you know, and certainly management didn't at least from a
this you know, a secondhand perspective where they look at
him and they didn't feel like he was champion. And
I said that all along, and he just didn't fit
the role, even though he was getting great reactions. He yeah,
still it didn't fit. And I don't know what this
is for Ja. It could be the start of a
(22:00):
heel turn, but Lord, please don't let it be against Jimmy.
We know that we don't need another version of that.
That was just horrible. So Roos versus j D McDonough
was next and the match went ten and a half minutes,
with Russev predictably beating j D McDonough after Dom was
about to help him out after he was put in
(22:22):
the accolade and he froze and he let McDonough tap out,
and that's when Finn Balor hit the ring, struck Russev
to break up the accolade while Dom was still frozen
on the apron, and Balor scolded Dom as they headed
up the entrance aisle. This was the right move on
a couple of levels. Number One, it continues the tension
(22:45):
with Dom and Finn if you still care about that
that's been going on forever. It puts Russev back in
killer mode as he's chasing the Intercontinental title, he's chasing Dom,
and it does make you wonder if Russev facing Dom
for the title is going to result in Russev winning,
because maybe Finn and JD have had enough of Dom
(23:06):
and they end up dropping Dom. The from the group
now I'd like the whole group to disband. But if
they're telling the story of Russev trying to chase Dom
and Dom avoiding him and ducking him, and then Russev
eventually faces him and then neither JD or Finn come
to the aid of Dom, then you have a new
interkind little champion. I don't know if they're going to
(23:28):
go that road, but it seems like this is the
first chapter of that story, and I mean, I'm fine
with it. I'm fine with it. And as I said
earlier too last week, the week before, it gives some
life to the belief that when you win a match
that has seemingly no consequences other than pride at a
ple e, that it does result in a title match
(23:50):
or down the line. And this is the case here
with Russev beating Seamus at the last plee. And was
it a pl or a televised match, I can't remember.
I think it was a peely, But we had Russev
beach Seamus and that afforded russe of the opportunity to
move forward. So that's good. But boy, does Finnbaler need
(24:11):
to get the hell out of that group? Please? Okay?
So we had some more backstage EO and Oscar stuff.
Oscar said the match was happening and she would teach
Rhea respect and she didn't need advice from someone who lost.
And EO tried to speak with Sane after Oscar left,
and Saint said Oscar is the reason they were there,
(24:32):
and she was hesitant while they're saying they must listen
to her, and Oscar called for Sane. No, okay, yeah,
I mean there's just more more here. Girl, here, girl,
come sit, sits it you want to treat I mean
it's more of that crap of Oscar treating you know,
Kyrie like this, which is its absurd. I mean Kyrie
saying's thirty seven years old. I mean Oscar is not
(24:54):
that much older than her. It's it's a weird dynamic
that it really disrespects Kyrie. I don't coming to the
defense of Kyrie without not a lot of people are
really even focusing on here. She's just a you know,
she's a side character, but it is kind of disrespectful
to her on a real level. I mean, Kyrie deserves
better than this. Not that she needs to be Women's
(25:15):
World Champion, but Kyrie deserves a little bit higher of
a level of respect than this. I think so on
that level too. Also, the one thing I didn't mention
with Valkyria and Bailey, Valkyria is kind of in the
same boat as Kyrie, saying very subservient to Bailey. Bailey
can do anything, treat her however she wants, and Lyra's like, oh, okay,
(25:40):
why do you hate me? Please like me? Please like me.
And that's very much the way that Kyrie is with
Oscar is the way that Lyra is with Bailey. And
it's not a relationship that's appealing to watch. These women
and the men everybody in the company are world class athletes.
(26:00):
They're on national television. You're supposed to believe that that
you should at least have a base level of respect
for yourself, and that's not coming across very well for
either of these women, who are acting like twelve year
old girls or even younger that they need this approval
from their idols, even though they are all they are
(26:23):
accomplished wrestlers themselves and working in the biggest wrestling company
in the world on national television. I know I'm making
this a little more real than it needs to be.
I guess I'm just very off put by that type
of on air relationship. That's just my own feelings, So okay,
(26:44):
let's continue on here. We had Jackie Redman interview La
Knight and asked about the way he refereed the tag
team match at Russell Palooza, and Knight said he was
trying to make sure Jay was okay. When Jay shoved
him out of the way, he took a spear. Knight
said he wasn't trying to hurt Jay, but he would
if he had to, and Knight said Jay would get
(27:05):
a BFT for his troubles. Jay stood in the concourse,
which just resulted in fans yelling yeat and Jay looked
into the camera and asked for his music to play.
And he comes to the crowd and does this thing,
which it's not my thing, but he does his thing
and a lot of people like his thing. But La
Knight and Jay so then have their match, which was
(27:29):
fairly quick, I mean nine minutes and fifteen seconds, with
Jay beating La Knight after he hit a suicide dive
threw him back in the ring. Jay followed up with
this and super kicked the Knight before covering him for
a near fall and then Jay charged Knight, who kicked
him before dropping him with the DDT. Knight hit his
top row elbow and then set up for his finish.
(27:51):
When he saw bron Breaker and Bronson Reid. He fought
them off, but the Jay then speared him and followed
up the NUSO splash. JAYU so beats Ally Night as
I said, and after the match, j exit the exits
the ring, heads backstage. Jimmy comes out and asks Jay
to come help him, saying Breaker and Reeve We're gonna
kill Night. Jay headed backstage, Jimmy grabbed a chair, came
(28:14):
in the ring and that was that. Again. I don't
know where this the Angry Jay story is going. It
is being teased here that he could be joining the Vision.
Jay joining the Vision would I mean, it would certainly
add a massive name to a maybe the hottest group
(28:36):
in the company right now. It would. But does it
make sense this Jay joining Seth's movement makes sense? Maybe?
I mean seeing a heel J is something we haven't
seen in three four years longer, maybe since he was
with Roman and just doing whatever Roman wanted him to do.
(28:58):
And so it's been it's been a hot minute and
having JB reinvigorated after his World Heavyweight Championship loss. A
just a blatant no mission by the company that they
didn't believe in Jay's world champion, which is what happened.
Let's make no mistake. I'm not going to hide the
truth there or sugarcoat it. The company simply didn't believe
in Jay Uso carrying the world title. They had bigger
(29:18):
plans for the title than Jay Uso. That's just it.
And Jay being angry about that and turning it into
a storyline. It does make sense. It does make sense.
So I mean, I'm interested, I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued, all right.
Seth Rollins was unseated in his dressing room and looking
at the watch that Cody Rhods gave him. Becky Lynch
(29:40):
paced behind him and vented about Cody the USSO, CM
punk A j Lee and being the greatest, and then
Becky told Rollins that she was going to make an example.
Rollins looked up.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
And that was that.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
We I mean, we have more. I mean, I just
I can't. I can't any more about Rhea rippling EO,
or rather Oscar and EO. And there's another segment that
I'm just going to move on from. We have let's
see backstage, Maxine Dupre ask Adam Pierce for a match,
and Pierce spoke about how competition or how competitive the
(30:18):
the vision is, and he asked her to let him
find the right opponent. Okay, good, that's I mean, that's good.
Aj Styles and Dragon Lee showed up after Dupre left,
and Styles said the Americannells were starting to piss him off,
and Lee said they wanted the Americanos in the ring
(30:39):
next week, and Pierce said he would talk to them,
but the match was on, and Styles told Pierce that
he should avoid signing additional Americanos, which is kind of
a funny line. I mean again, we're all ready for
that to end as well, a lot of storylines that
were just kind of like, okay, okay, as he needs
to go, let's move on. Just kill it dead, you know,
Sam with your oconnos here, So then we get the
(31:02):
main event. Ria Ripley versus Oscar certainly worthy the m
main event here with Ria Ripley beating Osca in seventeen
minutes and fifteen seconds. Osca told Sane to go after Ripley.
This is at the end here and Kyrie held her
wrists while making a fist and made her way to
(31:23):
the other side of the ring, and Sane climbed on
the apron and threw a backfist that Rhea stopped, and
then Osca tried to hip attack Ripley, who moved, which
caused Oscar to knock Sane off the apron, and Ripley
rolled up Oscar and got the three counts. But that's
not all. That's not all, folks, because there's more we had.
(31:49):
After the match. Oscar Spray missed in Ripley's eyes some
blue mist, and Oscar had Sane enter the ring and
throw some punches and kicks. Yoskai comes in, tried to
with Oscar to stay away from Ripley, and as Oscar
acted emotional, hugged Sky and then hit her with a
backfist and ordered Sane to attack Sky. That's, of course,
(32:11):
where Saying just has no control over herself and is
subservient to everything, in all anything and everything, Oscar says,
and she gives in and attacks Sky. Sane held Sky
while Oscar threw a kick at her head.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We had the insane elbow on Sky, and that's it.
So Ria Ripley gets a victory over Oscar, Kyrie continues
to play slave to Osca. EO is now squarely in
the Babyface aisle here teaming with EO to take on
likely Kyrie, saying and Oscar. So that's probably going to
(32:51):
be a tag match at Crown Jewel and Perth, I
would think, But no Women's world title on the line.
Unless they're going to involve multi multiple women. It could
be a fatal four way of sorts with Osca and
Stephanie and Rhea and Kyrie. I mean, they could certainly
do that, you know, there's no doubt about it. But
(33:14):
if not you then it's gonna be the a tag
team match, and actually is I'm thinking about it. If
they're doing a triple threat on Friday for the winner
facing Stephanie, then yeah, you can't do it a fatal
four way. So that there, I just I just argued
against my own point because it's not gonna happen since
the Friday night SmackDown triple threat, which again is on SmackDown,
(33:37):
yet it affects him on a net raw. Is just
I mean, okay, can we just say that the brand
splits over? Can we just declare it because it's I mean,
you're having now official sanctioned matches by the company that
are happening on opposite shows affecting the other show. I mean,
these aren't just people invading or whatever. So yeah, I
(33:58):
hope they can just pretend that this split didn't happen.
And because there's no point in pretending anymore, they don't.
They haven't tried in a long time. But there. I
hope you guys enjoyed the mind a net Raw review.
A little bit, a little bit short on time, so
with it last few minutes. What I like to do
is go through any of the big news coming out here. Uh,
(34:19):
and let's go. Let's see her. What's my? What's my?
What's one of my favorite sites? Now you guys know,
y'all know Wrestling inc. Oh, Piper Niven. Here's some news
on Piper Niven if you're interested in her injury report. So,
she is currently injured and according to fight Ful Select,
Niven is sidelined with a serious neck injury, though an
(34:43):
official diagnosis has not yet been given to her. Nonetheless,
sources to the outlet believe that Niven will eventually come
back from the injury. For months Niven served as the
bodyguard for Chelsea Green alongside Alba Fire and they make
up the secret hervists, which I don't like. I don't
herve us. Whatever. The team has been very I mean,
(35:04):
the team has great chemistry. I will give them that.
And Niven last wrestled it on August twenty second, the
episode of SmackDown, there picking up a big win over
Charlotte Flair, and she then accompanied Green and the NXT
North American Champion Ethan Page to their mixed tag team
match on an XT heat Wave on August twenty fourth.
(35:26):
So just kind of giving some background, but it looks
like she is dealing with an undiagnosed serious neck injury.
Any neck injury is serious, so just by defaulted serious
because it's in the neck. But how can they be
confident that she's going to return if they don't know
what's wrong with her? I mean, what if what if
her you know, her her spinal cord is being compressed
(35:47):
between her discs. You know, she's just one move away
from several How do you know? I mean, God forbid
obviously wouldn't want that to happened, But trying to make
a point, it's kind of a silly thing to say,
kind of an ignorant thing to say. If they believe
are they there? They do believe that she'll be back soon,
(36:07):
but they don't know what the injury is. There's no diagnosis.
That's kind of a stupid statement, I will say that.
So hopefully I'm wishing the best for Piper Niven, because
that's anytime you deal with the neck, that's about as
serious as it gets. I mean any other body part,
any other body parts on your head and neck. I
mean anything from your arms and your joints and your
I mean your elbows, to your shoulders, to your knee
(36:29):
can blow out, to broken teeth, to brow I mean,
to broken even a broken nose, a broken femur, I
mean some brutal injuries. I would take any injury over
you know, a concussion or or a you know, neck injury.
So best of luck for her, for sure. And let's
(36:50):
see what else we have. Let's see some new trademark
filing suggesting that w W will be teaming up of
these these stars. So if you're interested in this kind
of stuff. A new vignetta in this week's Raw did
talk about a masked a trio of masked stars called
Los Americanos as trailblazers for Lucha Libre, and we even
(37:15):
as far to say that three pave the way for
Lucha Libre's global popularity more so than any other families
such as the Guerreros Orbisterios, and while that claim has
yet to be proven on television, a new trademark suggests
that the Cheerio will be moving forward as an official
unit in the company. Okay, I guess so the Los Americanos.
Oh boy, I mean I really hope that this is.
(37:40):
It sounds like it's going to be a thing. So
Americanos are not going anywhere? Hm? There they are, Okay,
well they are putting. I mean after the acquisition of
Triple A, they are really starting to push the Lucha
Libre style of wrestling into the company, which is fine.
I mean they are just taking this the w W
(38:01):
into a whole different stratosphere. TKO has just totally I
don't know if reimagined restructured maybe because Reimagined gives them
too much credit. It sounds like everything they've done is
just perfectly worked out and for the better. I mean
some of the things they've done, I think I've been
for the better. Some of the production, the promos have
felt better from what I understand, the working conditions and
(38:23):
the time off and all that is great. Even though
I'm a fan, I can understand and I agree with it.
You know, all of that's true. And but here here's
some of the downside. I think we can agree that
the advertising is out of control. The advertising on the
damn tables, to the ring canvas, to every five seconds.
(38:48):
I mean, you see some kind of advertisement. The pushing
of celebrities being shown in the crowd all the time.
I don't even like the producer credits. I don't like
the producer credits because I don't I to feel like
an actual episodic television event. I mean, we all know
it's episodic, but if you see the credits, that means, yeah, guys,
(39:12):
shows over Remember the overruns on USA, on TNN wherever
they were at the time, UPN for some of you
that may remember that for SmackDown the CW. Anybody remember
the CW Did they have that where you are? That
was when SmackDown was on the CW and UPN. And
(39:33):
I don't know if anybody that's ringing a bell with
anybody I mean, it's just the local stations here, but
I remember the overrun specifically. I'm on a net raw.
You didn't see producer credits the only time you knew
that it was the end of the show. Maybe you
might have seen the USA logo or the WW logo
and the bottom left. But even then, even though after
that would go away, sometimes the show would still continue.
(39:54):
It'd be nice to just I don't know. When I
see producer credit, it's like you might as well just
put writers. Writers for the show include Triple H everybody,
why don't you all come out and take a bow?
You know what I mean. It's that kind of stuff
with the respect for Kfabe. Sure, k Fabe is dead,
but I don't need to remind it of every five seconds.
I like to be living in my fantasy land and
(40:15):
pretending that what I'm seeing is real, just like when
you watch a movie. You know, there's no better analogy
than that. It's not unique to pro wrestling that we
need to be reminded. I mean, it does nothing but
hurt the emotional investment. That's how you make How the
company makes money is emotional investment. We are emotional beings
(40:36):
by nature. We want to get connected with the character,
with the story, and when we're not, what do we do?
We're just going How do I know? Because if you
watch a star that doesn't have anything going on and
you see a match, you're going to be on your
phone scrolling. You might not even be listening. You might
even just skip the match all together and go do
something that means you don't care about the character. If
(40:59):
you don't care about the character, you're not going to
watch the show, right So there? Okay, Well, I mean
there's lots of other stories going on here. Let's see.
This is the last one I'll talk about. This is
let's see here. The title of this is backstage report
(41:20):
on feud between aj Lee and Becky Lynch. And this
I'm trying to decipher if this is storyline. Okay. So,
as per Fightful, sources behind the scenes in WWE informed
them that Lynch was praised for the way she and
aj Lee she led aj on her return match at
(41:40):
Russell Palooza and were pleased with how the match panned out.
The outlet further claimed that many on the roster had
told them that Lynch has helped out many returning stars
and the Irish star has looked at it as a
welcome challenge, and WWE also trusts her when she's put
in such positions. Lynch is reportedly the number one Troy
for stars returning to the ring after a long absence,
(42:03):
and she's proclaimed herself to be the best women's star
of all time. And while she has earned the backstage plaudits,
I don't know what that means. The mixed tag team
match itself wasn't a pleasant one for her and Rollins,
as they lost the nearly thirty minute match. So, okay,
so this is your storyline, I mean regarding the fact
(42:25):
that I mean a lot of people who come back
want to work with her, which is I mean, yeah,
she has done very well. I mean I still don't
like the Lyra Valkyria chemistry that they had, but their
matches were very good generally other than the one just
incredibly horrible Botch. That's just just horrible with Becky Lynch.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
But the.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Matches that have but generally been very good. She can
be trusted with that. She does and has done a
great job as Intercontinental Champion. She is exactly who you
need to add value to a championship that just came
out of it has the intercontinental name akin to the Men's,
but it doesn't have any actual value or lineage yet.
And Becky Lynch is the perfect candidate to hold that
(43:10):
for a long time, so you can, in future promos
and future women that hold that, remember who used to
hold it, Why Becky held it? You know how big
of a star she was, what she meant to the company,
what she did in her own career. All of that
is absorbed by the lineage of whatever championship you are holding.
(43:31):
And I think that, I mean, the longer Becky holds it,
the more value she's adding to it. So I have
no inkling, no need to have Becky drop that belt
anytime soon. She seemingly is fitting that role perfectly. So there.
Well that'll do it for my Monday Night Raw review.
If you like this show, but every time you click
(43:52):
on it you dread the ads that you hear, well,
there's a perfect way to get rid of that. Patreon
dot com, slash WWE podcast, or you can click on
the ad free or subscription button on Apple though they
are both great ways to go add free and get
yourself just in a streamline position, you hit play no ads, nothing,
just my voice, which to some of you may be
(44:12):
the not what you want. But if you if you've
listened this far, I would think that it's not so bad.
So all right, Well that'll do it. I'll be back
on Friday with your mailbags. We'll send in your questions
to mailbag at WWE podcast dot com.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Thanks everybody, 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 WWE podcast dot com.
And for all of these shows ad free head over
to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll
(44:47):
see you next time.
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to
the WWE podcast show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The one that everybody wants.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Me is godst three sixteenths.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Just with your ass is my arm, you can acknowledge me.
Time to talk about Night Raw as we now enter
Crown Jewel Season and it comes to us in just
three weeks from Perth, Australia, not Saudi Arabia. Lord knows,
we're going to be hearing and seeing enough of that
(00:48):
venue over the coming years. And we have again three
weeks until that event, and big news already coming out
for that. Yes, it's on a Saturday, as many of
us knew, but it is also going to feature John
Cena versus AJ Styles. That is confirmed. AJ Styles and
John Cena. It's happening. Seena put on X do you
(01:12):
guys want it? And they're letting it happen. I mean
they are literally letting John Cena dictate whatever the fans
want to have happened. And he's saying he's not choosing
his opponents. But if he wasn't, then he'd let he
put out a poll. He wouldn't just put one person
out there. Whatever. A just Styles is a great opponent
for John Cena because of their history from about a
(01:34):
decade and change ago, and they certainly I think could
work well together. Still, it's about essentially exhibition matches at
this point. With four appearances left, John Cena is just
doing whatever he wants to do and the fans want
to do, and there's not much left now. It does
beg to be answered the question of who is his
(01:55):
final opponent. Some still believe it's brock Lesner. I hope not.
You know who I want, And Adam Copeland on aew
did pay tribute to John Cena my doing the five
knuckle shuffle, So it doesn't look like they're gonna be
able to have some kind of reunion over in WWE
(02:15):
for Adam Copeland because of contractual obligations. But we will
see miracles can happen, and that would be a perfect
final opponent. So if it is brock Lesner, I mean
it is brock Lesner, but I mean it is also
Saturday Night main event, and that will be coming to
us what the mid December, December thirteenth or something like that,
So we'll get into that as the months and well
(02:38):
weeks roll on here. Not too much longer than about
three months left of John Cena's career and then it's
all over. So let's uh look, get to Monday night.
Rag in a moment, but I can't not point out
that just the miserable reactions to Wrestle Palooza, and not
(02:58):
just from vans, not just from fans, but from ESPN itself. ESPN.
This is according to the Sportster, but ESPN published a
write up of the plee on its website, assigning a
letter grade to each match in an overall grade for
the show. That overall grade is a C, confirming that
it's probably not pleased with how the first show of
(03:19):
its new deal with WWE unfolded. The breakdown notes the
Women's World title match saved the show and opinion it
seemed to share with the bulk of the fans, and
they said that the best match of the night by
far was stepping of a Kr versus Yo Sky, which
I concurred with, and they gave that a B plus,
(03:40):
but everything else was a C or lower, with the
opening match of John c And and brock Lesner getting
a C minus. Yikes. Now this doesn't affect their current deal.
I mean, they can't back out because they put on
a lackluster show. It's just a bit of a a
bit of a letdown, a bit of a surprise. As
(04:02):
I said earlier in my review show that it's really
surprising that WWE did not put on a better show
or executed better or have bigger surprises or something in
store here because of the fact that this is the
first time they've ever appeared on ESPN for a ple
so it is pretty incredible that the show was so bad.
(04:25):
But it'll quickly be forgotten because we forget everything quickly,
because we're in the digital age of things in our
face all the time, and it'll go by the way
side quickly and they'll bounce back. I'm not worried about it.
I'm sure their next pl you know, we could be
giving it critical acclaim. It's just the way this thing,
this thing goes, and I'm not again if i'm WWE,
(04:45):
it's just like, Okay, yeah, we didn't get off on
the right foot, but we got a lot of time
to make it up. So but yeah, it is not
WWE's style too, you know, to to have a bad
jumping off point whenever they're changing cable networks or wherever.
They change a from a cable to a streaming platform.
(05:07):
This is not their style, not their deal. Now I've
seen F grades. I would not give the pl an F.
I mean that's a little extreme. But alrighty, well, let's
go to it. Let's go to Monday Night Raw because
we do have a lot to talk about here. Despite
the fact that some people gave this show an F two,
I did not think this show was that bad. I've
(05:27):
heard some convoluted I was a mess. I didn't think
it was that bad. I mean, there was some segments
that it didn't make sense. It wasn't a very star
studed night. Yeah, I give you that. But it US
came to us from Evansville, Indiana at the Ford Center,
and it opened with a recap of Russell Palooza, which
I'm sure they'd love to forget about quickly. And we
(05:49):
had Cody Rhoads come out and we had Joe tessitourn
commentary with Wayde Barrett's of Wade Barrett's back. That's good.
Cody asked the crowd, as he always does, which is
what I want to talk about? And he said they
could talk about Crown Jewel and the ring he was
wearing from winning last year's champion versus Champion match over Gunther,
(06:11):
which I'm sure ninety nine percent of us forgot about
because it meant absolutely nothing. If this match is going
to afford the winner a piece of jewelry, then it
effectively is affording you nothing. I'm sorry. The only ring
that matters in pro wrestling is the Hall of Fame one,
and they aren't challenging for that. So sure, I do
(06:35):
appreciate though that at least there is a remembrance of
what happened last year with Gunther and Cody. Now Cody won,
and there is something to be said for that, because
typically they just hope you forget, and we didn't, and
neither did Cody, and I'll give him credit for that.
So we had Seth quickly come out, and Rollins had
(06:56):
them all stay at ringside, meaning Breaker, Reed and Hayman.
And he said that he's had Crown Jewels Circle on
his calendar since they both walked out of SummerSlam as champions,
and he said it should be as simple as made
the best man win, but it's not because it runs
deeper than that. With the two of them, he said
he knows that the fans in the locker room think
(07:17):
of him. He asked what Cody thinks of him. Cody said,
it's complicated. He said Rollins made some questionable decisions, and
Cody said Rollins changed his life by agreeing to face
an opponent he didn't know it WrestleMania, which we all
know turned out to be Cody. He said it shouldn't
be that simple. He just had Cess's wife on his
(07:37):
podcast the other day. Cody asked Rollins what he thinks
of himself. He said Rollins could be the absolute best
on any given day, but Rollins is now hiding behind
three goons. Cody brought up the ring he was wearing,
and Rollins said they had to talk about the watch
he was wearing. Rollins said it was the watch that
Cody bought him the night before WrestleMania. He said was
(08:00):
the first time he's worn the watch, and Rollins's question
whether the gift was genuine, adding that Cody was always
says the right glowing things about him. Now for then
the next part, I mean, Rolins could have easily come
back at Cody here when Cody pointed out the fact
that he's hiding behind goons. What I would say to
(08:23):
Cody is no, Cody, I'm building to the future. I'm
helping these guys become the future of the company while
you focus on yourself, Well, you're self centered. I'm helping
build the next generation of this company. Tell me that
wouldn't have been good. Now, I don't know if it's
a very heel thing to say, so it doesn't align
(08:45):
with what the bad guy would say, But boy, that
would ring true and sting. I cut promos on my
head that I'm sure on the spot I would flob
But easy to armschair quarterback, is it not?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we have.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Rollins then take issue with Cody claiming he's the quarterback
and the person to lead the WWE into the future,
and Rolinds said, it's not a two man show. I'm
the alpha, claim Seth. And then Cody said that they'd
had three matches together they were all one on one,
and he wondered how many of those matches Rollins won,
(09:19):
and he exited the ring and that was that so yeah,
which obviously Cody Roades beat Seth Rollins all three times. Now,
Rollins should absolutely win this one. There's nothing on the
line other than a piece of meaningless jewelry, and I'm sorry,
it's totally meaningless, and so Cody can afford a loss
here and he doesn't need two rings. Okay, it's preposterous.
(09:42):
So Rollin's given the fact that he there's nothing on
the line for Cody, meaning he can't drop the belt.
Neither can Rollins. It's about it's an exhibition with a
made up prize, is what it is. And we need
Seth Rollins to continue to his momentum, perhaps to brock
Less at some point. Then you have to have Rowlins
(10:03):
keep rolling, all right, So we then have a Jimmy approach.
Approach Jay backstage and shook hands with him. Jimmy said,
was it was trashed that they lost a breaker and
read at Russell Palooza, and Jimmy said he went to
Raw general manager Adam Pierce to get a rematch, but
(10:23):
he informed him that Jay already got a singles match
with La Knight. And Jay had a bandage on his
forehead from the cut he suffered, and he thinks they
would have won the tag match had a Night not
been the ref And Jay said they had a lot
to take care of and they get to it once
he got through Night. So it looks like Jay is
(10:43):
not in concussion protocol as was reported by many outlets.
You might have seen it as well, that Jay, you know,
he suffered a cut, many of us didn't know where
the hell had happened, but that he was also under
some kind of concussion protocol and that is actually not right.
So good to here on Jay's end. Absolutely good to
(11:05):
hear that you know it's just a cut and nothing
more severe. So then me have an actual match. Our
first match of the night, Penta, Eric and Ivar take
on KOFE, Kingston, Xavier and Grayson Waller in a no
DQ match. The match went ten minutes exactly according to
these calculations here, with Penta and Eric and Ivar beating
them in a no DQ match. The finish was Kingston
(11:29):
trying to send Penta into the sponsored table, not just
a regular one, it has to be a sponsored one
and that was set up in the corner of the ring,
but Penta stopped short and then Kofe charged and was
suplexed through the table. Penta went to the ropes. Waller
hit Penta with a kendowstick and then joined him on
the ropes, and then he fought back with a Mexican
Destroyer that was just awesome and got to victory. I
love how the Mexican Destroyer is actually a finish. It
(11:52):
should be. It's essentially a spike pile driver for all
intents and purposes. When you look at what it's doing,
it also looks badass, so it should be a finish.
I've seen this move be a transition move or a
false finish move that you know is never going to
actually finish a match for years. It's nice to see
it be brought back as a finish at least tonight.
(12:14):
Last night. Okay, so we had a backstage Judgment day stuff.
I mean, I'm brushing over judgments Judgment Day stuff because
I'm just bored by the Judgment Day now. I'm bored
to tears by them. This group needs to be disbanded.
They've done everything they can do. Congrats, here's your roses,
here are your flowers. Dom needs to go off on
(12:36):
his own. Finn Balor out of all of them, needs
to go off on his own. We have Roxan Perez
need to go off on her own, you know, and
they just all they all need to go. They all
need to go, even JD. Yes, I'm just bored to tears.
So I don't even really care what they're doing. I
(12:57):
just don't. I'm sorry. I know if you guys are
fans of the judgment to I mean, at one point
they were the hottest thing going on while they were
a shining light with especially with Our Truth, and when
he was involved in it, the comedic element that he
brought to the show, that was all great. And yes,
when Rio was there in the tension with Rhea and
Live and then Dom cheats on Rio would Live, that
was all really good television. It's dead, it's dead, recognize
(13:22):
it and move on.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The key is here, of course, you know, from a
creative standpoint, you've got several men that you probably don't
know what to do with. If you separate them, then
you have four different men that you have to have
four different storylines and storylines and goals for which, of
course takes more effort and time. And I don't know
if they want or have the drive to do that
(13:46):
instead of just lumping them together. You see that a
lot when you could tell creative is nothing for anybody,
and they just lump a bunch of people together that
otherwise would have nothing. And so sure, it's better than
them not being on TV, but then you risk the
group being a complete boor on TV, and right now
they were a complete bore. So there's that. They mean
they're going to reach a breaking point here. But backstage,
(14:09):
we have a happy Bailey approaching Lyra and asked if
she wanted to be in her corner. Lyra reminded Bailey
that she yelled at her. Oh my god, it gets worse,
don't worry. Bailey acted like she had no memory of it,
and Valkira said she would do it if it meant
a lot to Bailey. After Bailey walked away, Stephanie walked
past Valkyria and yeah, so we had Stephanie come out
(14:32):
as the new Women's World Champion and Testatornono that Vicaire
is the first South American born Women's World Champion in
w W history, So sure cool. I guess. Stephanie spoke
of this being her dream and how she didn't know
if it would happen, but she sacrificed and I don't know.
(14:57):
She also mentioned her father was standing at ringside. I
mean that was I guess a semi a very mild
heart feeling, heartwarming moment. Pierce told the coor is it
for Kervcour I've heard whatever. I'm gonna call it whatever,
I'm going to probably change it up, and that a
crown jewel. Sh'll face the winner of Friday's triple Threat
(15:17):
for the w W Women's Championship, and Vacierre said she
would be there, and Pierce said he knew she would
be and then introduced her again as the new champion,
and that was it. So again, outside of the quick
moment with her dad, which was the only really entertaining
(15:37):
part of this promo, there, I didn't get much from her.
If you've never heard her speak before, well now you
kind of know why she doesn't get a whole lot
of promo time. Her accent is incredibly thick. It was
very hard to make out what she was saying if
you were just casually paying attention. If you have subtitles,
I would turn them on because you need them. With her,
(15:58):
I've even got to the point where I can understand
Oscar pretty well, but she was she made Oscar look
like she's, you know, fluent in English. It's such a
heavy accent, very difficult, but hey, I mean they're giving
a little bit of time here, so there's there's that's
the one thing. Okay, I guess all right. We have
(16:18):
Stephanie then walking backstage and she encountered Nicki Bella and
they hugged. Then Rhea Ripley showed up and smiled and
congratulated her, and then Ripley recalled telling her that she
would be coming for the belt, and Vicaierre said, Mommy,
I'm ready, and then Oscar and Kyrie Sane showed up,
and Oscar said Vicaierre didn't deserve to be champion, and
(16:40):
Nikki said Vicered deserved it and would be an amazing champion.
Thanks for the completely empty, soulless comments from Nicki Bella.
Can we be done with her please? Vicerre told Oscar
that she would be thrilled to show her why she's
the champion anytime she wants to fight. Then Ria Ripley
(17:02):
gets in Osca's face and.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We have.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The Karen Bella walk away. But Ripley said she's been
trying to stay out of Oscar's way out of respect
for EO, but she's getting tired of Oscar's attitude. Oscar
said she's sick of Ripley and warned her to stay
away from Sky or she'd show her why she's not
ready for OSCA, and Ripley said she's ready for OSCA
and then said they could settle it in the ring.
(17:29):
Then she accepted so saying, grabbed Ripley's hand and was
about to apologize, but ran off again. Her little lap
dog just does whatever Oscar says, which is ridiculous. So
we have the next match here, which is Bailey versus
Roxanne Perez, and this match went ten minutes and forty
(17:53):
seconds with Bailey beating Roxanne. And it's after Bailey's demeanor change.
I had Perez by the hair, pulled her back inside
the ring, and then Perez spun Bailey around. Bailey hit
the Bailey to belly, a knee strike and a rose
plant for the victory. After the match, Bailey rolled Roxanne
to the floor. Valkyria entered the ring and applauded Bailey
(18:16):
and hugged her. Bailey then shoved Valkyria to the mat
and yelled at her for touching her, and also said
her outfit looks stupid, and Bailey rubbed her temples and
exited the ring. So I don't know, I mean again,
this is this is a personality change. From Bailey that
(18:39):
I'm still loosely on board with. I don't particularly feel
like this is going to land in the way that
they think it's probably going to land with the three
faces of Foley or some kind of mental shift she's
going through her identity crisis. I can see what they're
aiming for, but the execution I think is not going
(19:02):
to land well because it's difficult to do. How do
we know what's gonna set off Bailey? Do we even care?
If Bailey is gets set off? Is she good? Should
we cheer for her or not? When she has this
personality shift? What triggers it? What started this whole thing
to begin? With so many unanswered questions that I'm sorry,
(19:26):
I don't have the faith that they're gonna answer. We're
just supposed to just see Bailey. Oh, the announcers are
supposed to probably guide us through. Oh you can see
that shift? Okay, Well, why and why should we care
if she wins or loses? Do we like this?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Do we not?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Do we like the good version of her? And then
when she snaps, we boo that there's too many elements
going on here, so it's gonna be difficult for them
to land the plane very nicely where we understand and
like we've seen this before too. We've seen it with
actually Ken Shamrock. He would just snap in the middle
of a match and you couldn't control obviously Mick Foley
(20:02):
with the three faces of Foley, even Hulk Hogan to
some degree where he would, you know, get his superpowers
in Hulk Up. Not really a personality shift as it
is just pressing Superman mode. But you understand my gist
here where something gets triggered, something happens and they get
that that change of personality, and I don't I don't
(20:23):
know if they know where they're going. And I mean again,
it just seems like identity crisis. Cool, but where are
we going with it? Am I supposed to be good? Bad?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I don't know if they've answered those questions. So backstage,
Jimmy who catches up with Cody Rose. They exchanged pleasantries
and then Cody asked how Jay was doing. Jimmy said
Jay wasn't listening, but he might listen to Cody, who
said he would talk to him. Cody entered Jay's room
locker room, and they shook hands and he sat down
(20:57):
and he spoke about Jimmy and asked if was okay.
Jay said he was. Cody spoke about the highs and
lows and failing on the big stage more than once.
Jay stared at the w W Championship belt, and Cody
said he believes in Jay, who shook his hand and
he would find his way back to the top. So
Jay kind of going through a bit of a low
point here. I still don't need to see Jay turnheel.
(21:20):
If they go that road, they go that road, but
I just hope it's against If they do turn j
that is, it just gives Cody another opponent, and that
could be the foreshadowing to do that. But perhaps it
does reinvigorate Ja to a point where the fans may
accept him as champion, because they certainly didn't this time around,
(21:40):
you know, and certainly management didn't at least from a
this you know, a secondhand perspective where they look at
him and they didn't feel like he was champion. And
I said that all along, and he just didn't fit
the role, even though he was getting great reactions. He yeah,
still it didn't fit. And I don't know what this
is for Ja. It could be the start of a
(22:00):
heel turn, but Lord, please don't let it be against Jimmy.
We know that we don't need another version of that.
That was just horrible. So Roos versus j D McDonough
was next and the match went ten and a half minutes,
with Russev predictably beating j D McDonough after Dom was
about to help him out after he was put in
(22:22):
the accolade and he froze and he let McDonough tap out,
and that's when Finn Balor hit the ring, struck Russev
to break up the accolade while Dom was still frozen
on the apron, and Balor scolded Dom as they headed
up the entrance aisle. This was the right move on
a couple of levels. Number One, it continues the tension
(22:45):
with Dom and Finn if you still care about that
that's been going on forever. It puts Russev back in
killer mode as he's chasing the Intercontinental title, he's chasing Dom,
and it does make you wonder if Russev facing Dom
for the title is going to result in Russev winning,
because maybe Finn and JD have had enough of Dom
(23:06):
and they end up dropping Dom. The from the group
now I'd like the whole group to disband. But if
they're telling the story of Russev trying to chase Dom
and Dom avoiding him and ducking him, and then Russev
eventually faces him and then neither JD or Finn come
to the aid of Dom, then you have a new
interkind little champion. I don't know if they're going to
(23:28):
go that road, but it seems like this is the
first chapter of that story, and I mean, I'm fine
with it. I'm fine with it. And as I said
earlier too last week, the week before, it gives some
life to the belief that when you win a match
that has seemingly no consequences other than pride at a
ple e, that it does result in a title match
(23:50):
or down the line. And this is the case here
with Russev beating Seamus at the last plee. And was
it a pl or a televised match, I can't remember.
I think it was a peely, But we had Russev
beach Seamus and that afforded russe of the opportunity to
move forward. So that's good. But boy, does Finnbaler need
(24:11):
to get the hell out of that group? Please? Okay?
So we had some more backstage EO and Oscar stuff.
Oscar said the match was happening and she would teach
Rhea respect and she didn't need advice from someone who lost.
And EO tried to speak with Sane after Oscar left,
and Saint said Oscar is the reason they were there,
(24:32):
and she was hesitant while they're saying they must listen
to her, and Oscar called for Sane. No, okay, yeah,
I mean there's just more more here. Girl, here, girl,
come sit, sits it you want to treat I mean
it's more of that crap of Oscar treating you know,
Kyrie like this, which is its absurd. I mean Kyrie
saying's thirty seven years old. I mean Oscar is not
(24:54):
that much older than her. It's it's a weird dynamic
that it really disrespects Kyrie. I don't coming to the
defense of Kyrie without not a lot of people are
really even focusing on here. She's just a you know,
she's a side character, but it is kind of disrespectful
to her on a real level. I mean, Kyrie deserves
better than this. Not that she needs to be Women's
(25:15):
World Champion, but Kyrie deserves a little bit higher of
a level of respect than this. I think so on
that level too. Also, the one thing I didn't mention
with Valkyria and Bailey, Valkyria is kind of in the
same boat as Kyrie, saying very subservient to Bailey. Bailey
can do anything, treat her however she wants, and Lyra's like, oh, okay,
(25:40):
why do you hate me? Please like me? Please like me.
And that's very much the way that Kyrie is with
Oscar is the way that Lyra is with Bailey. And
it's not a relationship that's appealing to watch. These women
and the men everybody in the company are world class athletes.
(26:00):
They're on national television. You're supposed to believe that that
you should at least have a base level of respect
for yourself, and that's not coming across very well for
either of these women, who are acting like twelve year
old girls or even younger that they need this approval
from their idols, even though they are all they are
(26:23):
accomplished wrestlers themselves and working in the biggest wrestling company
in the world on national television. I know I'm making
this a little more real than it needs to be.
I guess I'm just very off put by that type
of on air relationship. That's just my own feelings, So okay,
(26:44):
let's continue on here. We had Jackie Redman interview La
Knight and asked about the way he refereed the tag
team match at Russell Palooza, and Knight said he was
trying to make sure Jay was okay. When Jay shoved
him out of the way, he took a spear. Knight
said he wasn't trying to hurt Jay, but he would
if he had to, and Knight said Jay would get
(27:05):
a BFT for his troubles. Jay stood in the concourse,
which just resulted in fans yelling yeat and Jay looked
into the camera and asked for his music to play.
And he comes to the crowd and does this thing,
which it's not my thing, but he does his thing
and a lot of people like his thing. But La
Knight and Jay so then have their match, which was
(27:29):
fairly quick, I mean nine minutes and fifteen seconds, with
Jay beating La Knight after he hit a suicide dive
threw him back in the ring. Jay followed up with
this and super kicked the Knight before covering him for
a near fall and then Jay charged Knight, who kicked
him before dropping him with the DDT. Knight hit his
top row elbow and then set up for his finish.
(27:51):
When he saw bron Breaker and Bronson Reid. He fought
them off, but the Jay then speared him and followed
up the NUSO splash. JAYU so beats Ally Night as
I said, and after the match, j exit the exits
the ring, heads backstage. Jimmy comes out and asks Jay
to come help him, saying Breaker and Reeve We're gonna
kill Night. Jay headed backstage, Jimmy grabbed a chair, came
(28:14):
in the ring and that was that. Again. I don't
know where this the Angry Jay story is going. It
is being teased here that he could be joining the Vision.
Jay joining the Vision would I mean, it would certainly
add a massive name to a maybe the hottest group
(28:36):
in the company right now. It would. But does it
make sense this Jay joining Seth's movement makes sense? Maybe?
I mean seeing a heel J is something we haven't
seen in three four years longer, maybe since he was
with Roman and just doing whatever Roman wanted him to do.
(28:58):
And so it's been it's been a hot minute and
having JB reinvigorated after his World Heavyweight Championship loss. A
just a blatant no mission by the company that they
didn't believe in Jay's world champion, which is what happened.
Let's make no mistake. I'm not going to hide the
truth there or sugarcoat it. The company simply didn't believe
in Jay Uso carrying the world title. They had bigger
(29:18):
plans for the title than Jay Uso. That's just it.
And Jay being angry about that and turning it into
a storyline. It does make sense. It does make sense.
So I mean, I'm interested, I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued, all right.
Seth Rollins was unseated in his dressing room and looking
at the watch that Cody Rhods gave him. Becky Lynch
(29:40):
paced behind him and vented about Cody the USSO, CM
punk A j Lee and being the greatest, and then
Becky told Rollins that she was going to make an example.
Rollins looked up.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
And that was that.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
We I mean, we have more. I mean, I just
I can't. I can't any more about Rhea rippling EO,
or rather Oscar and EO. And there's another segment that
I'm just going to move on from. We have let's
see backstage, Maxine Dupre ask Adam Pierce for a match,
and Pierce spoke about how competition or how competitive the
(30:18):
the vision is, and he asked her to let him
find the right opponent. Okay, good, that's I mean, that's good.
Aj Styles and Dragon Lee showed up after Dupre left,
and Styles said the Americannells were starting to piss him off,
and Lee said they wanted the Americanos in the ring
(30:39):
next week, and Pierce said he would talk to them,
but the match was on, and Styles told Pierce that
he should avoid signing additional Americanos, which is kind of
a funny line. I mean again, we're all ready for
that to end as well, a lot of storylines that
were just kind of like, okay, okay, as he needs
to go, let's move on. Just kill it dead, you know,
Sam with your oconnos here, So then we get the
(31:02):
main event. Ria Ripley versus Oscar certainly worthy the m
main event here with Ria Ripley beating Osca in seventeen
minutes and fifteen seconds. Osca told Sane to go after Ripley.
This is at the end here and Kyrie held her
wrists while making a fist and made her way to
(31:23):
the other side of the ring, and Sane climbed on
the apron and threw a backfist that Rhea stopped, and
then Osca tried to hip attack Ripley, who moved, which
caused Oscar to knock Sane off the apron, and Ripley
rolled up Oscar and got the three counts. But that's
not all. That's not all, folks, because there's more we had.
(31:49):
After the match. Oscar Spray missed in Ripley's eyes some
blue mist, and Oscar had Sane enter the ring and
throw some punches and kicks. Yoskai comes in, tried to
with Oscar to stay away from Ripley, and as Oscar
acted emotional, hugged Sky and then hit her with a
backfist and ordered Sane to attack Sky. That's, of course,
(32:11):
where Saying just has no control over herself and is
subservient to everything, in all anything and everything, Oscar says,
and she gives in and attacks Sky. Sane held Sky
while Oscar threw a kick at her head.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We had the insane elbow on Sky, and that's it.
So Ria Ripley gets a victory over Oscar, Kyrie continues
to play slave to Osca. EO is now squarely in
the Babyface aisle here teaming with EO to take on
likely Kyrie, saying and Oscar. So that's probably going to
(32:51):
be a tag match at Crown Jewel and Perth, I
would think, But no Women's world title on the line.
Unless they're going to involve multi multiple women. It could
be a fatal four way of sorts with Osca and
Stephanie and Rhea and Kyrie. I mean, they could certainly
do that, you know, there's no doubt about it. But
(33:14):
if not you then it's gonna be the a tag
team match, and actually is I'm thinking about it. If
they're doing a triple threat on Friday for the winner
facing Stephanie, then yeah, you can't do it a fatal
four way. So that there, I just I just argued
against my own point because it's not gonna happen since
the Friday night SmackDown triple threat, which again is on SmackDown,
(33:37):
yet it affects him on a net raw. Is just
I mean, okay, can we just say that the brand
splits over? Can we just declare it because it's I mean,
you're having now official sanctioned matches by the company that
are happening on opposite shows affecting the other show. I mean,
these aren't just people invading or whatever. So yeah, I
(33:58):
hope they can just pretend that this split didn't happen.
And because there's no point in pretending anymore, they don't.
They haven't tried in a long time. But there. I
hope you guys enjoyed the mind a net Raw review.
A little bit, a little bit short on time, so
with it last few minutes. What I like to do
is go through any of the big news coming out here. Uh,
(34:19):
and let's go. Let's see her. What's my? What's my?
What's one of my favorite sites? Now you guys know,
y'all know Wrestling inc. Oh, Piper Niven. Here's some news
on Piper Niven if you're interested in her injury report. So,
she is currently injured and according to fight Ful Select,
Niven is sidelined with a serious neck injury, though an
(34:43):
official diagnosis has not yet been given to her. Nonetheless,
sources to the outlet believe that Niven will eventually come
back from the injury. For months Niven served as the
bodyguard for Chelsea Green alongside Alba Fire and they make
up the secret hervists, which I don't like. I don't
herve us. Whatever. The team has been very I mean,
(35:04):
the team has great chemistry. I will give them that.
And Niven last wrestled it on August twenty second, the
episode of SmackDown, there picking up a big win over
Charlotte Flair, and she then accompanied Green and the NXT
North American Champion Ethan Page to their mixed tag team
match on an XT heat Wave on August twenty fourth.
(35:26):
So just kind of giving some background, but it looks
like she is dealing with an undiagnosed serious neck injury.
Any neck injury is serious, so just by defaulted serious
because it's in the neck. But how can they be
confident that she's going to return if they don't know
what's wrong with her? I mean, what if what if
her you know, her her spinal cord is being compressed
(35:47):
between her discs. You know, she's just one move away
from several How do you know? I mean, God forbid
obviously wouldn't want that to happened, But trying to make
a point, it's kind of a silly thing to say,
kind of an ignorant thing to say. If they believe
are they there? They do believe that she'll be back soon,
(36:07):
but they don't know what the injury is. There's no diagnosis.
That's kind of a stupid statement, I will say that.
So hopefully I'm wishing the best for Piper Niven, because
that's anytime you deal with the neck, that's about as
serious as it gets. I mean any other body part,
any other body parts on your head and neck. I
mean anything from your arms and your joints and your
I mean your elbows, to your shoulders, to your knee
(36:29):
can blow out, to broken teeth, to brow I mean,
to broken even a broken nose, a broken femur, I
mean some brutal injuries. I would take any injury over
you know, a concussion or or a you know, neck injury.
So best of luck for her, for sure. And let's
(36:50):
see what else we have. Let's see some new trademark
filing suggesting that w W will be teaming up of
these these stars. So if you're interested in this kind
of stuff. A new vignetta in this week's Raw did
talk about a masked a trio of masked stars called
Los Americanos as trailblazers for Lucha Libre, and we even
(37:15):
as far to say that three pave the way for
Lucha Libre's global popularity more so than any other families
such as the Guerreros Orbisterios, and while that claim has
yet to be proven on television, a new trademark suggests
that the Cheerio will be moving forward as an official
unit in the company. Okay, I guess so the Los Americanos.
Oh boy, I mean I really hope that this is.
(37:40):
It sounds like it's going to be a thing. So
Americanos are not going anywhere? Hm? There they are, Okay,
well they are putting. I mean after the acquisition of
Triple A, they are really starting to push the Lucha
Libre style of wrestling into the company, which is fine.
I mean they are just taking this the w W
(38:01):
into a whole different stratosphere. TKO has just totally I
don't know if reimagined restructured maybe because Reimagined gives them
too much credit. It sounds like everything they've done is
just perfectly worked out and for the better. I mean
some of the things they've done, I think I've been
for the better. Some of the production, the promos have
felt better from what I understand, the working conditions and
(38:23):
the time off and all that is great. Even though
I'm a fan, I can understand and I agree with it.
You know, all of that's true. And but here here's
some of the downside. I think we can agree that
the advertising is out of control. The advertising on the
damn tables, to the ring canvas, to every five seconds.
(38:48):
I mean, you see some kind of advertisement. The pushing
of celebrities being shown in the crowd all the time.
I don't even like the producer credits. I don't like
the producer credits because I don't I to feel like
an actual episodic television event. I mean, we all know
it's episodic, but if you see the credits, that means, yeah, guys,
(39:12):
shows over Remember the overruns on USA, on TNN wherever
they were at the time, UPN for some of you
that may remember that for SmackDown the CW. Anybody remember
the CW Did they have that where you are? That
was when SmackDown was on the CW and UPN. And
(39:33):
I don't know if anybody that's ringing a bell with
anybody I mean, it's just the local stations here, but
I remember the overrun specifically. I'm on a net raw.
You didn't see producer credits the only time you knew
that it was the end of the show. Maybe you
might have seen the USA logo or the WW logo
and the bottom left. But even then, even though after
that would go away, sometimes the show would still continue.
(39:54):
It'd be nice to just I don't know. When I
see producer credit, it's like you might as well just
put writers. Writers for the show include Triple H everybody,
why don't you all come out and take a bow?
You know what I mean. It's that kind of stuff
with the respect for Kfabe. Sure, k Fabe is dead,
but I don't need to remind it of every five seconds.
I like to be living in my fantasy land and
(40:15):
pretending that what I'm seeing is real, just like when
you watch a movie. You know, there's no better analogy
than that. It's not unique to pro wrestling that we
need to be reminded. I mean, it does nothing but
hurt the emotional investment. That's how you make How the
company makes money is emotional investment. We are emotional beings
(40:36):
by nature. We want to get connected with the character,
with the story, and when we're not, what do we do?
We're just going How do I know? Because if you
watch a star that doesn't have anything going on and
you see a match, you're going to be on your
phone scrolling. You might not even be listening. You might
even just skip the match all together and go do
something that means you don't care about the character. If
(40:59):
you don't care about the character, you're not going to
watch the show, right So there? Okay, Well, I mean
there's lots of other stories going on here. Let's see.
This is the last one I'll talk about. This is
let's see here. The title of this is backstage report
(41:20):
on feud between aj Lee and Becky Lynch. And this
I'm trying to decipher if this is storyline. Okay. So,
as per Fightful, sources behind the scenes in WWE informed
them that Lynch was praised for the way she and
aj Lee she led aj on her return match at
(41:40):
Russell Palooza and were pleased with how the match panned out.
The outlet further claimed that many on the roster had
told them that Lynch has helped out many returning stars
and the Irish star has looked at it as a
welcome challenge, and WWE also trusts her when she's put
in such positions. Lynch is reportedly the number one Troy
for stars returning to the ring after a long absence,
(42:03):
and she's proclaimed herself to be the best women's star
of all time. And while she has earned the backstage plaudits,
I don't know what that means. The mixed tag team
match itself wasn't a pleasant one for her and Rollins,
as they lost the nearly thirty minute match. So, okay,
so this is your storyline, I mean regarding the fact
(42:25):
that I mean a lot of people who come back
want to work with her, which is I mean, yeah,
she has done very well. I mean I still don't
like the Lyra Valkyria chemistry that they had, but their
matches were very good generally other than the one just
incredibly horrible Botch. That's just just horrible with Becky Lynch.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
But the.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Matches that have but generally been very good. She can
be trusted with that. She does and has done a
great job as Intercontinental Champion. She is exactly who you
need to add value to a championship that just came
out of it has the intercontinental name akin to the Men's,
but it doesn't have any actual value or lineage yet.
And Becky Lynch is the perfect candidate to hold that
(43:10):
for a long time, so you can, in future promos
and future women that hold that, remember who used to
hold it, Why Becky held it? You know how big
of a star she was, what she meant to the company,
what she did in her own career. All of that
is absorbed by the lineage of whatever championship you are holding.
(43:31):
And I think that, I mean, the longer Becky holds it,
the more value she's adding to it. So I have
no inkling, no need to have Becky drop that belt
anytime soon. She seemingly is fitting that role perfectly. So there.
Well that'll do it for my Monday Night Raw review.
If you like this show, but every time you click
(43:52):
on it you dread the ads that you hear, well,
there's a perfect way to get rid of that. Patreon
dot com, slash WWE podcast, or you can click on
the ad free or subscription button on Apple though they
are both great ways to go add free and get
yourself just in a streamline position, you hit play no ads, nothing,
just my voice, which to some of you may be
(44:12):
the not what you want. But if you if you've
listened this far, I would think that it's not so bad.
So all right, Well that'll do it. I'll be back
on Friday with your mailbags. We'll send in your questions
to mailbag at WWE podcast dot com.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Thanks everybody, 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 WWE podcast dot com.
And for all of these shows ad free head over
to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll
(44:47):
see you next time.
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