Let's talk Monday Night Raw that aired August 18th, 2025. A show that saw Naomi announce she is pregnant, Becky Lynch take on Natalya, Iyo Sky vs Raquel Rodriguez, Jey Uso vs Bron Breakker and much more!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-wwe-podcast--2187791/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-wwe-podcast--2187791/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre, and you're listening to
the WWE podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Stop the show, the one that everybody wants me God
tell ste sixteen.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I just glip your ass is my eyn you
can acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, it's time for the Monday Night Raw review. Hope
you're all doing well here on this Tuesday in August nineteenth,
twenty twenty five. With Clash in Paris just around the
corner next weekend already, not this coming weekend, but the
following weekend. It will be Clash in Paris, but there
will not be Naomi walking in as Women's World Champion.
(00:58):
And that is because, as we now know, it has
been revealed that Naomi is pregnant. Now I had posted
a video if you had watched me, I actually put
it up on YouTube. Follow me on YouTube. By the way,
I'm posting some videos there more often than I used to.
Some kind of like five minutes or the last ten minutes,
(01:19):
just some news worthy items and things that I just
want to get off my chest. If you want to
follow me there, check out YouTube. Again. The WWE podcast
is obviously where you'd look. But Naomi went on Stephanie
McMahon's podcast, because who doesn't have a podcast these days,
And she announced with Jimmy Youso that they're pregnant and
(01:40):
they're expecting. So first of all, first and foremost congratulations
to that couple, happiness, wishing a healthy baby, all that
kind of thing, And I do genuinely mean that because
they're deserving of it. And I have to say, there's nothing,
nothing quite like being a parent. It may not be
(02:00):
like being Women's World Champion, but in a lot of ways,
I could say that being a parent is much more
rewarding than any kind of material possession you may have.
Sounds cliche and kind of, you know, soft and gooey,
but I mean, if you're a parent, you kind of
know that. But Naomi, for a professional wrestling perspective, from
(02:20):
a wrestling fans perspective, we are getting our knees cut
off at the pass here because selfishly, one hundred percent selfishly,
as fans, we don't get to see a full Naomi
run with this iteration of her as Women's World Champion,
which does suck. Again, from a totally selfish perspective, this
(02:41):
is a it's a blow to the women's division. I mean, also,
you have Bianca Bellair who's injured. You know that, there's
also that now we have Naomi go down, So this
is it is It is a blow to the women's
division again specifically because we had Bianca Bellair, or rather
we have Naomi who was on fire finally found herself
(03:04):
and she gets pregnant, which again sounds like, oh man,
she got pregnant. Yeah, I mean, but for us as
fans selfishly, we're looking at this very selfishly, it does
suck because now she gets taken off TV and she's
gonna be I don't know when she's due, it's probably
in seven She doesn't look that pregnant, so I'm guessing
it's seven months or six months that she's due, and
(03:28):
that would mean even after that, she's going to take
some time to be a mom. And even if she
decides to come back, you know, you're probably probably looking
at a year after that. So guys, it could be
eighteen months minimum before we see Naomi in a ring again.
Of course, you could have it earlier return if she
comes back at all. But Naomi's gonna go and be
(03:50):
a mom, and I'm happy for her, happy for Jimmy
and you know, really genuinely am because there's nothing quite
like it in this world. So yeah, but again, those
of you that don't have kids, who don't give a
damn or just are you know, we're all looking at
this through the what about me perspective, It does stuck, suck,
And I get that because I was on Naomi's side
(04:13):
as well. I've been praising her for months about this
gimmick that she's had and now she's tearful on raw,
showing the clip of her on Stephanie McMahon's podcast, The
crowd gave her a standing ovation and she goes and
is walking off into the wilderness as we will crown
a new Women's World champion, which is an interesting feed
(04:34):
in and of itself, an interesting discussion as to who
should be the next Women's World Champion. We can talk
about that too tonight and maybe as the Monday nights
roll by and we crown a new champion in the
coming weeks. Now, that's one big story. And I was
totally wrong again on YouTube. I was saying that it
can't be pregnancy. I know many people are saying it,
(04:56):
but it can't be because you can't, you know, w
W would have announced it, and I assumed that it
was a just a concussion something that they were being
precautious about. But it is pregnancy, and it makes sense
that she was able to come out and just kind
of say goodbye to fans and you know, announce her
pregnancy and WWE now gets to move on. So while
(05:21):
pregnancy was an option, I will admit I did not
think it was pregnancy based on what I had heard,
but now we know it is, and hey, it's a
great outcome, best of all outcomes really, because if it
was a long term injury from Naomi, that'd be even worse,
I think. Alrighty, so that's the Naomi news as we
all know, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Here.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We are going to go through by a net raw,
go through match by match, maybe even cover some other
things on the side. But I want to welcome you
to the show and offer you an opportunity to go
totally ad free. For all the ads you hear throughout
the show, you can get them com just deleted. You
can get them out of your life by going to
WWE podcast over on Patreon on that's patreon dot com
slash WWE podcast. If you just listen to the ads
(06:04):
and you just shake in your head. Well, there's a
good option for that, and also an option available to
you on Apple Podcast as well. Click the subscribe button.
Do you get an AD free trial? You can check
it out for free if you are just a AD
free listener. I know I do that to my favorite
podcast as well, and it's it's such a better listening experience,
and you're like, yeah, you see the small charge come out.
(06:26):
I do it for all the wrestling shows as well,
not just my own, not just my own which I
subscribe my own show, but I know I actually don't
subscribe AD free. That would be silly to pay myself.
But I know that AD free listening there's a big
value in that because you can just listen to your show.
You don't have to hit that skip ahead button to
go through the ads, and it's a streamlined listening experience
(06:47):
which I would encourage you to take advantage of. Now
let's go through mondaet Rayah, And I do want to
talk about the Bailey thing too, you know what, I'm
just gonna talk about it now. I'm gonna instead of
going in order right now, now, I do want to
talk about this Bailey bizarreness that has unfortunately unfolded here
(07:08):
because last week I was encouraged by what I saw
last week. It looked like things are moving in a
good direction. That Bailey was going a little bit darker,
but we weren't sure exactly where, and it was it
was heading in a direction that we haven't seen from
(07:30):
Bailey thus far. I was worried it was maybe going
to duplicate Nikki Cross or somebody else we've already seen,
and it didn't know. We got an answer this week,
and I don't know if they've unfortunately headed that way,
but it's a bizarre direction. This Bailey thing has taken
a weird turn where she's responding to camera effects, you
(07:56):
know what I mean. I understand that they're they've produced
in a way that it's supposed to look like we're
inside her head, but it was an The interview style
they were doing was just fine. It was like a
documentary style that you know, you got to hear from
Bailey in that seemed more real than just your typical
sit down interview that they do on raws or smackdowns.
(08:17):
It was a documentary type style of sit down which
added a nice different production feel to it and talking
about how she's never felt less and wanted more, probably
the biggest line from that promo last week, and you're like, okay, cool, well,
I'm on board. What does this mean? And it felt
grounded in something. She's disappointed, she's kind of lost, And
(08:37):
this week we got to see wwe unfortunately overproduced this
whole thing, and we saw it completely take a different turn,
where again we are supposed to be seeing inside of
Bailey's head, hearing the voices she's hearing. Suddenly, I guess
it's supposed to be all of her insecurities and the
(08:58):
devil on her shoulder talking to her about you're not
good enough and mocking her previous gimmicks about ding dong hello,
the role model gimmick, her being a tag team champion,
like all of these previous iterations of Bailey and the
failure she's had in the summer slam all of them,
(09:18):
and Bailey's trying to shut the voices out. How is
this exactly okay? Even if you believe this was a
successful version of Bailey that we're starting to see, Even
if you believe this was a success, it was a
It was an effective segment for Bailey and her character.
(09:38):
How exactly is this going to translate in the ring?
How exactly are you going to have her fighting with
the voices and trying to not you know, trying to
suppress her insecurities, and what does that look like? You
can't have You don't have the benefit of those those
effects in real life. You can't warp space and time.
(10:00):
You know, it's like having an Instagram filter in real
life that doesn't exist. You can't do it. You know,
it's got to be before you post it, before you
release the footage or the picture to the public. You
make changes, but you can't do that in real life.
How does this translate? How does this translate? I'm a
(10:21):
bit concerned. Yeah, I was overproduced. I've heard that word used,
and I think it's an accurate one. It was one
that just when it went too it went too much
the other way where instead of being grounded in reality,
we're now getting kind of a hocus pocus deal and
hopefully that can maybe correct course, because as as effective
(10:42):
and intriguing as last week was, this one went just like, Okay,
they're going to cartoon land, got it? It feel like
sometimes Vince McMahon is back I swear to God. I mean,
he's not, but it's like the spirit of the ghost
of Vince McMahon. He's not dead, but it feels like
he somehow is still manipulating, manipulating, you know, certain segments
(11:05):
of the creative on a regular, you know, regular basis.
On RAW, I don't know. So I did not like this,
despite the fact that I like to sit down interview format.
I'm not a fan of wherever that part of Bailey's headed.
If you're gonna have her just you know, react to
voices and things that she's suddenly hearing. But there I
(11:28):
want it's comment on that. But let's get started here.
As a Monday night, RAW came to us from where
were we here, Oh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of course, at the
Infinity Mobile Arena, and we had the Vision, Seth Rollins,
bron Breaker, Bronson, Ree Paul Hayman come out and Rollins
was dressed Uh just I mean, I I don't understand
(11:54):
what Seth Rollins is doing. A big fan of the Vision,
big fan of Seth Rollins. I like what Breaker and
Bronson have become in front of our eyes, specifically Braun
a Breaker. I could do without the outlandish outfits by Seth.
I was hoping we were past this now. I was
(12:15):
really hoping that after he morphed into the visionary or
rather the vision I should say that we would get
the outfits of Clownville, that they would be no more.
And that's not the case. I don't I don't know.
(12:35):
There's another complaint for all of you that say he
most hate wrestling. Yeah, well I can critique it when
I see this see fit and Seth Orllins' outfits. He
needs to find some kind of consistency. To me, it
doesn't add anything to his character. It's just distracting in
a way. That's it doesn't add to his character, it
doesn't add to the presentation. It's just kind of like
(12:56):
what stupid outfit he's going to wear this week? And
I felt that way he was a good guy or
bad guy, and now he's back to being a bad guy.
And I think it's it doesn't do anything for me.
I don't care how ridiculous it is where he thinks
these things up, where he finds the material, how outland
does he think he can go or be? It doesn't
You don't want your outfit being a distraction in an
(13:18):
otherwise in an otherwise entertainment presentation that should be about
your in ring ability and your promos and your personality
and your outfits should not be a distraction. And I
think it's it's become a net negative for the seth
Rollins character in an otherwise nearly flawless character for at
(13:39):
least for this version of it. So there, But I
also had some people before I get into this segment
even more with Hayman with over the top introductions for
all the men and an OTC chant breaking out and
the rest of it. There's been some people who have
commented that I have been critical of the product but
(14:02):
also being critical of the people who say that the
product has been boring and there's no direction, and I've
been contradicting myself. Well, for those that need enlightenment, Okay,
here's the revolutionary AHA moment for you. It is possible
(14:25):
to be critical about specific elements of a television show
while also still having no issue with the general direction
of that show. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
They can both exist in the same reality where you're
critical of a particular show and I'm critical of every show.
(14:47):
You guys, hear me? I point out things that you
just want me to shut up about. But it's just
my brain, it's how it works. But I can also
at the same time recognize that the product generally is
headed in a good direction. Again, microvision versus a macro vision,
that's the difference. That's how they can both coexist. There,
(15:10):
I hope, I hope I clarified that. Now, Paul Hayman
come as I said, and comes out and gives the
overtop over the top introductions for all three men, and
Haymond said the fans weren't chanting OTC. They were chanting
Paul E. And then a PAULI chant followed it, and
Hayman mentioned that Rollins has pinned Roman reigns twice at WrestleMania.
(15:32):
Seth held up the mike to speak, but Jay Uso
comes out and he stopped on the steps as he
does in the crowd, and spoke from there, and he
said he was tired of hearing the vision talk and
threaten his family. He also had a bunch of children
say the word yeat. I don't know you not a
fan of it, but I get why he did it.
(15:53):
Then Rollins tried to fire up Breaker by saying that
Jay thinks he can beat him and that his family
is more important than breakers family. Breaker got so fired
up that his allies had to stop him from leaving,
and Haymon questioned Jay, interrupting them. In Philadelphia. Haymond said
men settled their differences in a nearby bingo hall by
having matches with notice qualifications or countouts, and he talked
(16:16):
about Sam Man, Rob Van dam Knew Jack Saboo, Dudley Boys,
and also mentioned the late great Tommy Dreamer, and Hammond
said he knew that Dreamer wasn't dead yet, but he
said that Dreamer, that Dreamer should be UHH, got it.
(16:36):
Breaker acted surprised that Dreamer was still alive, and Jay
said that great minds think alike because the only rules
he needed were extreme rules. So, I you know, I
have to say, good promo by Himon and that just
almost comes at a default compliment every week. Fun moment
(16:59):
here talking, you know, telling a joke at Dreamers expense.
That was fun and bringing up extreme rules. I mean,
there is absolutely no distinction between a you know, a
no disqualification match and no holds barred match, a street fight,
a Philadelphia street fight, whatever you want to call it.
(17:21):
There's there is absolutely not differ between that and an
extreme rules match. None. But they're all just marketing. I mean,
it's just a different way to label a match when
in reality it's just the same thing as saying no disqualification.
It's just it's got a more fun label to it.
So it was it was cool here. I mean, I
haven't heard the extreme rules stipulation be used in a while,
(17:42):
and having him bring up and resurrect and extreme rules
type of match given the backstory with him in ECW,
so it was fun. So EO Sky was showing a
gorilla and Oscar and Kyrie showed up. Oscar apologized for
Sky last week, saying said to let them know if
she needed help. Sky said she knows they would always
(18:04):
have her back, but she needed to do it on
her own, just as Oscar has done in the past.
So Sky high five to Oscar and Kyrie, and then
she comes out and faces Raquel Rodriguez. The match went
eleven minutes with EO Sky beating Raquel. The finish was
EO going up for a suicide dive on Raquel, who
(18:27):
caught her and rolled through. Rodriguez sent Sky into the
ring post and then back in the ring, Rodriguez set
her up for a finish, but Eo avoided it and
hit her with the bullet train attack. Sky went up
top and hit the over the Moon salt for the victory. However,
after the match, Perez attacked Sky and then Rodriguez held
(18:50):
Sky while Perez superkicked her. And then Ria Ripley comes
out to a big ovation and cleared the heels from
the ring and Ripley using crazy big boots. I mean,
she had some excellent big boots in that match, or
rather the post match. I mean she I didn't know
her legs looked like they were a mile long last night.
(19:12):
And I don't mean that from a you know, a
sexual perspective or anything, just they looked really long. And
that's a compliment because she delivered some excellent looking boots,
particularly the last one that she delivered to Raquel, who
also sold it nicely and got knocked out of the ring.
And it's a nice Yeah, it's a nice segment here
because Rhea's still getting the desired reaction. The women's division
(19:36):
is a little bit thin with some injuries, key injuries
now and one pregnancy in the women's division. So Ria
Ripley continues to carry the women's division on her back.
She's not the only person, but she is the primary
holder of the women's division. And this tension now with
EO and Kyrie, it continues to the show, and we'll
(20:00):
talk about that in a little bit too. But Raquel
is getting some nice shine here as well, given the
fact that prior to this, Raquel Rodriguez was getting nothing,
I mean, she was having nothing happening, so much less
than eleven minute match where she has a hard fought
loss against EO Sky. But Ria Ripley coming to the
(20:20):
aid of EO Sky and doing the right thing is
a plus for Rhea, who continues to again have a fun,
nice little run here and continue to make EO look
like you know, she's vulnerable, can hold her own, but
certainly needs some help when her companions both Oscar and
(20:45):
Kyrie are either knocked down or aren't available. So yeah,
So we then have Jackie Redman interviewing l. A. Knight,
who started to speak about being tired of the vision
interfering and see him. Punk comes in and asked for
a second and Knight had Redmond stay. Punk said they
(21:09):
needed to be on the same page, and Knight said
he has two title matches or has had two title matches,
and Punk stuck his nose in both of them, and
he said their issues aren't personal, they're about business. Punk
talked about working together to avoid the Vision's numbers game,
and La Knight spoke about how he would end Clash
in Paris with the title belt in his hand. All right,
(21:32):
and then Corey hyped up jay Us versus bron Breaker
for the Extreme Rules match as the main event of
the show, as it should be. And then Xavier Woods
comes out with Kobe Kingston and Grayson Waller and Cole
set up a triple A Triple Many of video recap
not recrap, and then Graves at a graphic talked about
(21:53):
Triple Many was the most viewed in history with four
point three million viewers in the last twenty four hours,
which is true. I mean, when you have the biggest
wrestling company in the world take you know, and buy
your promotion, you would hope that it's the record number.
I mean, that's that should come without saying, you know,
but certainly a still a worthy accolade. And I did
(22:18):
see Omas and who is it Mini Man or something
or what I forget is that I don't watch it,
but I saw the Omas segment. I saw it. Miniature man,
I don't know, I'm close, I'm close, whatever the hell
his name is. So the segment with you know, a
one foot man versus a seven and a half foot
(22:40):
giant was a hell of a visual see. Yes, I
saw that. But that's about all I saw from triple Mania.
A little bit of Dominic I think bron Breaker was there.
I saw some quick things. I didn't really watch a
bunch of the highlights. But yeah, so all right, So backstage,
Sky thanked Rhea Ripley for helping her. Oscar and Kyrie
(23:01):
then show up. Osca did not look happy and took
issue with Sky letting Ripley help. After telling her and
saying that they couldn't help, Ripley and Osca bickered and
Sky stopped them and through just an embarrassing, just hissy
fit before leaving again acting like this is what I'm
(23:23):
talking about. I know that some people have said, well,
you know, men can have talking over each other in
yelling mattress, but men don't bicker like again some when
you hear women in wrestling, this is how they're presented often. Right,
they're once talking to the ones, you know, trying to
talk over, and it just becomes almost this high school
(23:45):
vibe either or middle school vibe of two girls in
a yelling match, right, And I don't like that presentation.
I have never liked it. And it continues here and
then you have you have Sky literally throw a tantrum
like a child. And I'm not blaming Eo Sky for this.
(24:07):
She was she was told to do this, clearly, and
it was just embarrassing. You guys are professionals making millions
of dollars a year and you are acting like children.
Now again, I know she was told to do this,
so I'm not getting on Eo. But that's the kind
(24:29):
of little stuff that brings down the women's division. A
more mature presentation I think is preferable, at least in
my taste, not this bickering, yelling over each other, cat
fight type of hissy fit garbage. The women if they're
you know, if they're strong, independent women, which we're all
(24:51):
supposed to believe that they are, and that's what the vision,
no pun intended, of the women's division should be, then
this doesn't exactly support that goal. Again, I know, super
small stuff, some stuff you know don't even care about
or notice. But it's the small stuff that's the easiest
(25:12):
to fix. And this is this to me, is just
it's garbage, not the segment itself, just those two particular things.
Now here's some positives. I know that I mentioned Osca
turning heel her face doesn't really matter because Osca has
been both, probably equally throughout her career. I mean, she's
(25:38):
turned so many times I can't keep track. But this
version of Osca, if she's going to be mad and
she looked pissed, that's a version of Oscar I'd like
to see, because even the heal version of Oscar would
be obnoxious and annoying and bombastic and cartoonish. And it
(25:58):
was kind of the same even at his babyface. But
if Auscin, it's going to be more of a just
kind of an angry character filled with rage. I want
to see what that looks like. She had some great
body language here to go with this segment, So all right.
Penta versus Xavier Woods was the next match, with Penta
(26:21):
beating Xavier in just under ten minutes, and the finish
was Penta jumping off the back of Woods and hit
Kingston and Woods and then let's see here, Penta came back,
hit the Destroyer and got the victory after Woods tried
(26:42):
to hook Penta with an inside cradle. So Penta wins
with the Destroyer. And that was good. I mean Penta, well,
it's good in the sense that if you want Penta
to rebuild a little momentum, it's good. But Xavier Woods,
who I continue to support, and I hope that he
gets a singles run and break out, break out of
(27:03):
this stagnant this stagnant kind of like I guess, somewhat
of a bad guy vibe that we're supposed to get
from Xavier. This kind of flat, that's the word I
was looking for. It's a flat version of his heel
character that him and Woods showed after they turned on
(27:25):
Big Eie. And that's you know, that's still kind of frustrating,
certainly frustrating, because Xavier is capable of more. I've said
that before, I'll continue to say it. And by the way,
we also did a carrying cross sign watch and there
was another fan who held a carrying cross sign of
we want Cross, which I'm great. I really enjoy that. Yeah,
(27:50):
so keep it up, I mean we want cross signs
should appear. It is the civic duty of every city
who has a hellbised event to hold a just one
person on the camera side, to have a we want
cross side. That's it, just one person, that's your homework.
(28:15):
So then we have footage air from Triple Mania of
Dom saying he would see Vin Kingo at World's Collide
and Raymisterio Mackdom as they cross paths and let's see here.
We then had World Tag Team champions Finn Baler and
(28:35):
j D McDonough with Dom take on Dragonly and mister
Iguana in a non titled match. This match went nine
minutes and fifty seconds, just under ten like the previous match,
with Finn Baaler and JD beating Dragonly and Mister Iguana
in nine minutes and fifty seconds. The finish always got
to go over the finish because, in case you didn't
(28:56):
see the show, Dragonly caught Balor with a super kick.
JD then distracted the referee while Dom grabbed Lee's foot
Ballor hit Lee from behind with a shotgun drop kick,
and then Balor followed up with a coupdi gras and
got the victory, but After the match, Dom cleared the
broadcast table and was trying to put Dragon Lee on
(29:17):
top of it. But Vin Kingo Vin Kingo, right, I
think that's just how you say it. I'm not gonna
say it's l he o heho, del ving Kingo. I
think embarrassing. I know she showed so he showed up
on the barricade and dropkick Dom off the broadcast table,
and then Vin Kingo avoided Balor and then took him
(29:39):
down with her karana, and Vin Kingo entered the ring,
hit McDonald with a dropkick, followed up with a double
knee on McDonough and then Dom hit Vin Kingo from
behind and Lee ear into the ring as he was
put down by Balor, and McDonough hell Vinkingo's legs while
Dom went up and hit a frog splash and they
all stood over king I, Vin king Go and celebrated
(30:02):
with their tattle belts. You noticed that the heat for Dom, though,
still is not nearly what it was, and I think
that it's because fans are starting to find Dom a
little endearing. It started to WrestleMania, WWE wasn't ready for
them to wasn't ready for us to start cheering Dom
(30:24):
and they kind of just decided, no, we're just gonna
keep him heal, and they have. But yeah, Dominic masterial
is he's not nearly anywhere near as hated as he was.
I mean, he's getting a little bit of heat because
he's attacking people from behind and these performers that you know,
ninety five percent of us couldn't pick out of a
lineup if they weren't in WWE as wrestling fans, and
(30:47):
you know, Dom, he's getting just your typical heel heat.
But it's not your go away my god, we hate
you so much heat that he had for almost two years.
All right, So let's see we had Jackie Redman asked
Becky Lynch why she attacked Natalia last week, and Becky
(31:09):
said that Natalia attacked her and said she was giving
Maxine to pre a pep talk after the match and
Natalia shoved her. So she defended herself and she would
prove tonight that Natalia doesn't belong in the ring with her.
What did she just completely copy and paste Drew McIntyre's
(31:30):
logic into this, because it's exactly what Drew said about
Cody Rhodes and how he said he didn't attack Cody,
he was just acting in self defense. It's exactly I
mean did. It's essentially a copy and paste logic here,
so that was kind of weird. But then again, the
Bailey video aired in some more detail. Here she looks
(31:52):
stressed and for some reason, again we could hear her
inner dialogue and her in her voice talked crap to
her and now she's nothing, and the voice promised to
steer her in the right direction if she listened, but
she plugged her ears and the voices stopped, and yeah,
so it's just ridiculous again that we can hear her thoughts.
(32:19):
It went from just reality based to cartoon in a week,
and it's a shame. Maybe they can correct course. It's
still early in whatever this version of Bailey's going to be,
but it was just certainly not not a not a
version that I'm on board with if they're going to
go with inner voices and all that, okay. Becky Lynch
(32:42):
then took on to Italia for the Women's Inner Continental Championship.
Both Maxine do Pre and a cur at Tsaur were
at ringside here, and Alicia Taylor was as always here
delivering the in ring introductions for the title match. The
match was kind of quick though, seven minutes and fifty seconds,
with Becky Lynch predictably beating Natalia In again seven minutes
(33:06):
and fifty seconds with the disarmour. After the match, Dupree
got to Lynch to break the hold because Lynch wasn't
breaking the disarmour, and that's when Lynch came back in
the ring and attacked Duprex and Nicki Bella comes out
and she worked over some punches, and Nicki hit Lynch
(33:27):
with the rack attack and stood over her. And then yeah,
that's kind of kind of it, and then Natalia, as
always takes a back seat. Nicki Bella got a decent pop,
a decent pop for what she did, and you know,
she certainly hit all of her spots that she needed
(33:47):
to hit. I still don't look at Nikki Bella as
a serious women's contender for anything. I mean, you guys
know how I feel about Nicki, But she, to her credit,
hit her spots this week. And how about that for
an ignorant male giving her a compliment for simply doing
her job, I know, unheard of. So yeah, I mean,
(34:12):
there's not much here to say other than you know
Natalia continues to lose every match. I'm gonna look at
Natalia's stats while I'm here. I'm so curious. Let's see
win loss record for Natalia. I'm so curious of what
this is? The Internet wrestling database. So here, here we go.
(34:34):
This is gonna be interesting. Okay, So Natalia and wins
and losses. I think this is only televised events. I
believe this is televised only. So she's had four hundred
(34:55):
and fifty five wins and this is career four hundred
and fifty five wins and five hundred and sixty eight losses. Yeah,
I mean that's yeah, that's bad. But I thought it
was gonna be way worse than that. Maybe I been wrong,
So yeah, I mean sometimes those stats are fun to
(35:17):
look at. And you know, you can look at wins
and losses broken down by double count out, you know,
a draw, double DQ, submission, pretty much any finish you
can think of, it's broken down and she's lost. If
you're curious about these kinds of stats. Natalia has lost
the majority of her matches by pinfall at seventy one percent.
(35:40):
She's lost the next closest to have submission by twenty
percent and then the rest are count out dq another
So yeah about that. But those are some stats. I
bet you didn't know. See what you learn? You learn
these completely useless facts here on the show. All right,
don't you feel smarter? Just say yes. So we then
(36:04):
have Jackie Redmond interviewing Seamus and then RUSTV shows up.
Seamus and Russov start to fight, but they're pulled apart.
Adam Pierce does what he always does, keeps his cool
and blows a gasket and they said they're not going
to do that tonight, but to meet one more time
in a good old fashioned Donniberg match at Clash in Paris,
(36:27):
which is fine, it's fine. I mean, these two, while
I thought their rivalry was over when Seamus won, these
two have a hell of a history and they work
great together and they're physical. This match is going to
be very physical, with lots of bruises on both men's
bodies coming out of that match at Clash in Paris.
So while there's not a huge vested interest in who
(36:48):
wins it, it's still going to be entertaining and that's
all we can really ask for from this match. So,
I mean, because what else is on the line. Somebody
explain to me what's on the line exactly besides just
entertainment value and pride? Right, So, alrighty, well, we then
(37:09):
have a broadcast team set up a clip of Stephanie
McMahon's podcast that would drop after raw and Stephanie said
it was a bonus edition with Jimmy Usso and Naomi
as I mentioned earlier, and opened the show with with
you know, the announcement of her pregnancy. So Jay Ustill
was warming up backstage when Sam Punk showed up and
(37:30):
said he wanted to help Jay make it to Paris.
Jay said he appreciated it, but doesn't want to owe
anyone any favors, and Jay and Punk shook hands before
Jay left, and Adam Pierce stood in the ring and
as we said, he introduced Naomi and you know, she
held up her belt, she got emotional, the fans chanted
(37:53):
her name, and she said this was hard and told
him to play the rest of the footage from Stephanie
McMahon podcast, and she said, yeah, y'all need to proceed
with caution because there's a baby on board and wow. Yeah,
in the ring, Pierce said, everyone in the building is
happy for her. And congratulated her, and she said she
(38:15):
bet that Pierce was happy for her, and said it's
not her first time relinquishing the title. She said she
gave it up the first time, but this time she
wasn't handing him anything. She said her homemones were jumping
and told him to get the hell out of her face.
And Naomi sang the goodbye song and did her laugh
and the fans joined in, and Naomi told Pierce that
(38:36):
she hoped he tripped in his church shoes. Yeah, that
was weird. Naomi said the women backstage should thank Big
Jim because they had no chance to take the title
off her. But thanks to Big Jim, he likes to
Netflix and chill if you know what I mean, and
you deserve it. Champ broke out and on the bright side,
(38:58):
I guess the bloodline continues, and she said for some reason,
this led to an oc che che. Yeah, so I
mean it's kind of yeah. I mean, it's no secret
that you know, Jimmy is very active. I'll leave it
at that with with Naomi, that's that was on I
think total divas at one point, and I mean she's
(39:19):
even publicly saying it here, kind of awkward, you know, basically, Okay,
we we like to. We like to, especially Big Jim
my husband, he likes to. Uh, you know, it's just
kind of weird, kind of weird. Let's see how old
is Naomi. I'm looking at her age here. Let's uh,
(39:42):
Naomi is thirty seven. Thirty seven? Wow, Okay, I didn't
think she was that old. Well, good for them, all right,
let's continue on here. Kind of weird, kind of kind
of weird here. But uh, she said that she you know,
she looked at the custom belt and said she would
(40:02):
lay it down a baby USO chance started and Naomi
said she would give the the hyphers a chance to
do what they wanted with the title and said that
she would be coming back to pick up where she
left off, and whoever has that title when I do,
I strongly advise you proceed with caution and left. Yeah.
So I'm again, I'm happy, right. I don't know what
(40:25):
else to say. I don't know what else to say
about it, So Pardi said enough. So we had Cole
talk about Stephanie Bacoorr And how she was supposed to
have a title match at Clash in Paris, and Cole
announced the start time for Monday's Raw on Netflix in Birmingham, England.
The broadcast team listed the following matches on next week's show,
which is Rio Rugby versus Rox San Perez and Penta
(40:47):
versus Kofi Kingston and Graves hyped up John Cena for
Friday in Dublin, Ireland. We then have Jays and Broun
Breaker in an extreme rules match, physical match, long match
twenty minutes long by today's standards, for sure. The finish
(41:08):
was Breaker setting up a table inside the ring. Jay
superkick Breaker, who ended up on the table. Jay went
up top and Reid shoved him off. The fans chanted
Roman Reins and then his entrance music played while Breaker
was at ringside, and then Breaker ran right into a
spear by Roman Reins, who then hit Reid with a
(41:29):
superman punching Rains rolled Breaker inside the ring. Jay supercreicked Breaker,
who landed on the table and then Jay hit the
USO splash. They put Breaker through the table and got
the three count. After Jay USO won, Rains helped Jay
out and his music played while Rains was chalking trash
(41:49):
at Bronson Reid and Reid said he would take Roman's
shoes again, but Hayman talked him out of going there
and read his own forehead with a chair while the
credits role the producer credits rolled. So that's good. I mean,
first of all, we could. You can't get a dequ
finished with an extreme rules match. The only way to
(42:12):
get a crappy finish is if there's some kind of
referee stoppage, which did not take place here, thank god.
And this was a very eventful raw again, not just
because of the announcement by Naomi and her once again
having to relinquish the women's world title, but also because
of Rowan reigns, an unexpected appearance by him, unraw. The
(42:36):
tension between l A. Knight and Ciampunk that is right
now just kind of a professional courtesy that they're aligning
with one another. It's a common enemy type of alliance,
which is certainly plausible here Becky Lynch defending her in
a Continental Championship overall solid raw, a solid raw that
(42:57):
certainly has a lot going forward, one that's continues to
push towards Clash in Paris, which is again just what
twelve days away, twelve days I think twelve days away
from Clash in Paris and it's gonna be a I think,
a really good pl despite the fact that Naomi is
no longer competing, and we don't know if Brockleser is
(43:17):
going to be there. Probably not. John cenl though, will
be and he'll be taking on Logan Paul. But yes,
Brocklosner could certainly interfere there and once again screw with
John Cena. But the brock Loosener ap parents, doesn't that
feel like him five weeks ago? Now? It's crazy how
quickly that kind of thing goes. And also, like I said,
(43:38):
with the Hull Cogan, the passing of Hull Cogan a
number of weeks ago, doesn't that feel like a year ago? Now?
No one's talking about a Hulk Cogan anymore, the biggest
name in professional wrestling, the biggest name to ever come
out of the genre of professional wrestling. No one's even
talking about it anymore. So I just wanted to bring
that full circle and show you how quickly things come
(44:01):
in and out of our minds, despite how big the
event may be, despite how catastrophic a death of whatever
superstar in entertainment or in sports comes about, we move
on so quick because there's so much information flowing into
our brains all the time from this glowing box that
(44:21):
we all carry around in our pockets. I mean, we
have bad attention spans as it is as human beings
generally speaking. But you put a device in our pockets
that's made for distracting. It's sole purpose is to distract you,
and it can go anywhere you can go and have
a connection nearly anywhere you can go. And you're expediting
(44:45):
the problem. You are exponentially increasing the issue of people
not having no attention spans and the news cycles just
being so fast, and again, no matter how catastrophic the event,
things seemingly never last more than a week, sometimes only
days before we move on to the next thing. So well,
there's again no news with the whole Hogan front. I
(45:08):
just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention. It's like,
oh yeah, wow, Hull Cogan died right, Crazy how things
go and how quickly life moves early. But that'll do
it for this podcast. Here for this episode of the
ww podcast. Again, i'd encourage you to go to Patreon
and go to an ad free experience there Patreon dot com,
(45:29):
slash WWE podcast and also go to Apple Podcasts and
go add free there, click the subscribe buttoning be on
your way to getting rid of all those pain and
the ass ads that you've heard throughout this show and
all the other shows as well. This is our entire
library ad free. This is not just the show's moving forward,
it's everything you've heard up till this point. And we
(45:50):
post nearly every single day, if not every day, whether
it's a retro show or a rewind show, a current
events show that smacked down with raw, with the after
Dark show, with our flagship show, which is the weekend
review done on Sundays. Whatever. The show is ad free,
(46:12):
all to your ears, where you just sit back and listen,
and I hope you consider it, and if not, you
can always give us a five star rating and keep
those positive comments coming on Spotify. I'm really really loving
that kind of I'm saying that kind of half tongue
in cheek because it's pretty controversial over there, but it's fun.
It's fun, so all right, that'll do it for me.
(46:32):
I'll be back on Friday with your mail bag. If
you want to contribute to the mail bag, you can
do that mail bag at WWE podcast dot com. If
you are a Patron, your emails and voicemails get read upfront,
so keep that in mind. It's another one of the
benefits of going to Patreon, and that'll do it for
me again. Hit us subscribe button over there on YouTube
(46:54):
because I'm trying to I'm doing more video and the
more people that watch and you know, all the viewership
and everything, if the numbers go up, I'll be encouraged
to post more on there as well. So thank you everybody.
I'll be back in a couple of days. Until then,
take care.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
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 ad free head over to Patreon
dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll see you
(47:31):
next time.
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre, and you're listening to
the WWE podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Stop the show, the one that everybody wants me God
tell ste sixteen.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I just glip your ass is my eyn you
can acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, it's time for the Monday Night Raw review. Hope
you're all doing well here on this Tuesday in August nineteenth,
twenty twenty five. With Clash in Paris just around the
corner next weekend already, not this coming weekend, but the
following weekend. It will be Clash in Paris, but there
will not be Naomi walking in as Women's World Champion.
(00:58):
And that is because, as we now know, it has
been revealed that Naomi is pregnant. Now I had posted
a video if you had watched me, I actually put
it up on YouTube. Follow me on YouTube. By the way,
I'm posting some videos there more often than I used to.
Some kind of like five minutes or the last ten minutes,
(01:19):
just some news worthy items and things that I just
want to get off my chest. If you want to
follow me there, check out YouTube. Again. The WWE podcast
is obviously where you'd look. But Naomi went on Stephanie
McMahon's podcast, because who doesn't have a podcast these days,
And she announced with Jimmy Youso that they're pregnant and
(01:40):
they're expecting. So first of all, first and foremost congratulations
to that couple, happiness, wishing a healthy baby, all that
kind of thing, And I do genuinely mean that because
they're deserving of it. And I have to say, there's nothing,
nothing quite like being a parent. It may not be
(02:00):
like being Women's World Champion, but in a lot of ways,
I could say that being a parent is much more
rewarding than any kind of material possession you may have.
Sounds cliche and kind of, you know, soft and gooey,
but I mean, if you're a parent, you kind of
know that. But Naomi, for a professional wrestling perspective, from
(02:20):
a wrestling fans perspective, we are getting our knees cut
off at the pass here because selfishly, one hundred percent selfishly,
as fans, we don't get to see a full Naomi
run with this iteration of her as Women's World Champion,
which does suck. Again, from a totally selfish perspective, this
(02:41):
is a it's a blow to the women's division. I mean, also,
you have Bianca Bellair who's injured. You know that, there's
also that now we have Naomi go down, So this
is it is It is a blow to the women's
division again specifically because we had Bianca Bellair, or rather
we have Naomi who was on fire finally found herself
(03:04):
and she gets pregnant, which again sounds like, oh man,
she got pregnant. Yeah, I mean, but for us as
fans selfishly, we're looking at this very selfishly, it does
suck because now she gets taken off TV and she's
gonna be I don't know when she's due, it's probably
in seven She doesn't look that pregnant, so I'm guessing
it's seven months or six months that she's due, and
(03:28):
that would mean even after that, she's going to take
some time to be a mom. And even if she
decides to come back, you know, you're probably probably looking
at a year after that. So guys, it could be
eighteen months minimum before we see Naomi in a ring again.
Of course, you could have it earlier return if she
comes back at all. But Naomi's gonna go and be
(03:50):
a mom, and I'm happy for her, happy for Jimmy
and you know, really genuinely am because there's nothing quite
like it in this world. So yeah, but again, those
of you that don't have kids, who don't give a
damn or just are you know, we're all looking at
this through the what about me perspective, It does stuck, suck,
And I get that because I was on Naomi's side
(04:13):
as well. I've been praising her for months about this
gimmick that she's had and now she's tearful on raw,
showing the clip of her on Stephanie McMahon's podcast, The
crowd gave her a standing ovation and she goes and
is walking off into the wilderness as we will crown
a new Women's World champion, which is an interesting feed
(04:34):
in and of itself, an interesting discussion as to who
should be the next Women's World Champion. We can talk
about that too tonight and maybe as the Monday nights
roll by and we crown a new champion in the
coming weeks. Now, that's one big story. And I was
totally wrong again on YouTube. I was saying that it
can't be pregnancy. I know many people are saying it,
(04:56):
but it can't be because you can't, you know, w
W would have announced it, and I assumed that it
was a just a concussion something that they were being
precautious about. But it is pregnancy, and it makes sense
that she was able to come out and just kind
of say goodbye to fans and you know, announce her
pregnancy and WWE now gets to move on. So while
(05:21):
pregnancy was an option, I will admit I did not
think it was pregnancy based on what I had heard,
but now we know it is, and hey, it's a
great outcome, best of all outcomes really, because if it
was a long term injury from Naomi, that'd be even worse,
I think. Alrighty, so that's the Naomi news as we
all know, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Here.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We are going to go through by a net raw,
go through match by match, maybe even cover some other
things on the side. But I want to welcome you
to the show and offer you an opportunity to go
totally ad free. For all the ads you hear throughout
the show, you can get them com just deleted. You
can get them out of your life by going to
WWE podcast over on Patreon on that's patreon dot com
slash WWE podcast. If you just listen to the ads
(06:04):
and you just shake in your head. Well, there's a
good option for that, and also an option available to
you on Apple Podcast as well. Click the subscribe button.
Do you get an AD free trial? You can check
it out for free if you are just a AD
free listener. I know I do that to my favorite
podcast as well, and it's it's such a better listening experience,
and you're like, yeah, you see the small charge come out.
(06:26):
I do it for all the wrestling shows as well,
not just my own, not just my own which I
subscribe my own show, but I know I actually don't
subscribe AD free. That would be silly to pay myself.
But I know that AD free listening there's a big
value in that because you can just listen to your show.
You don't have to hit that skip ahead button to
go through the ads, and it's a streamlined listening experience
(06:47):
which I would encourage you to take advantage of. Now
let's go through mondaet Rayah, And I do want to
talk about the Bailey thing too, you know what, I'm
just gonna talk about it now. I'm gonna instead of
going in order right now, now, I do want to
talk about this Bailey bizarreness that has unfortunately unfolded here
(07:08):
because last week I was encouraged by what I saw
last week. It looked like things are moving in a
good direction. That Bailey was going a little bit darker,
but we weren't sure exactly where, and it was it
was heading in a direction that we haven't seen from
(07:30):
Bailey thus far. I was worried it was maybe going
to duplicate Nikki Cross or somebody else we've already seen,
and it didn't know. We got an answer this week,
and I don't know if they've unfortunately headed that way,
but it's a bizarre direction. This Bailey thing has taken
a weird turn where she's responding to camera effects, you
(07:56):
know what I mean. I understand that they're they've produced
in a way that it's supposed to look like we're
inside her head, but it was an The interview style
they were doing was just fine. It was like a
documentary style that you know, you got to hear from
Bailey in that seemed more real than just your typical
sit down interview that they do on raws or smackdowns.
(08:17):
It was a documentary type style of sit down which
added a nice different production feel to it and talking
about how she's never felt less and wanted more, probably
the biggest line from that promo last week, and you're like, okay, cool, well,
I'm on board. What does this mean? And it felt
grounded in something. She's disappointed, she's kind of lost, And
(08:37):
this week we got to see wwe unfortunately overproduced this
whole thing, and we saw it completely take a different turn,
where again we are supposed to be seeing inside of
Bailey's head, hearing the voices she's hearing. Suddenly, I guess
it's supposed to be all of her insecurities and the
(08:58):
devil on her shoulder talking to her about you're not
good enough and mocking her previous gimmicks about ding dong hello,
the role model gimmick, her being a tag team champion,
like all of these previous iterations of Bailey and the
failure she's had in the summer slam all of them,
(09:18):
and Bailey's trying to shut the voices out. How is
this exactly okay? Even if you believe this was a
successful version of Bailey that we're starting to see, Even
if you believe this was a success, it was a
It was an effective segment for Bailey and her character.
(09:38):
How exactly is this going to translate in the ring?
How exactly are you going to have her fighting with
the voices and trying to not you know, trying to
suppress her insecurities, and what does that look like? You
can't have You don't have the benefit of those those
effects in real life. You can't warp space and time.
(10:00):
You know, it's like having an Instagram filter in real
life that doesn't exist. You can't do it. You know,
it's got to be before you post it, before you
release the footage or the picture to the public. You
make changes, but you can't do that in real life.
How does this translate? How does this translate? I'm a
(10:21):
bit concerned. Yeah, I was overproduced. I've heard that word used,
and I think it's an accurate one. It was one
that just when it went too it went too much
the other way where instead of being grounded in reality,
we're now getting kind of a hocus pocus deal and
hopefully that can maybe correct course, because as as effective
(10:42):
and intriguing as last week was, this one went just like, Okay,
they're going to cartoon land, got it? It feel like
sometimes Vince McMahon is back I swear to God. I mean,
he's not, but it's like the spirit of the ghost
of Vince McMahon. He's not dead, but it feels like
he somehow is still manipulating, manipulating, you know, certain segments
(11:05):
of the creative on a regular, you know, regular basis.
On RAW, I don't know. So I did not like this,
despite the fact that I like to sit down interview format.
I'm not a fan of wherever that part of Bailey's headed.
If you're gonna have her just you know, react to
voices and things that she's suddenly hearing. But there I
(11:28):
want it's comment on that. But let's get started here.
As a Monday night, RAW came to us from where
were we here, Oh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of course, at the
Infinity Mobile Arena, and we had the Vision, Seth Rollins,
bron Breaker, Bronson, Ree Paul Hayman come out and Rollins
was dressed Uh just I mean, I I don't understand
(11:54):
what Seth Rollins is doing. A big fan of the Vision,
big fan of Seth Rollins. I like what Breaker and
Bronson have become in front of our eyes, specifically Braun
a Breaker. I could do without the outlandish outfits by Seth.
I was hoping we were past this now. I was
(12:15):
really hoping that after he morphed into the visionary or
rather the vision I should say that we would get
the outfits of Clownville, that they would be no more.
And that's not the case. I don't I don't know.
(12:35):
There's another complaint for all of you that say he
most hate wrestling. Yeah, well I can critique it when
I see this see fit and Seth Orllins' outfits. He
needs to find some kind of consistency. To me, it
doesn't add anything to his character. It's just distracting in
a way. That's it doesn't add to his character, it
doesn't add to the presentation. It's just kind of like
(12:56):
what stupid outfit he's going to wear this week? And
I felt that way he was a good guy or
bad guy, and now he's back to being a bad guy.
And I think it's it doesn't do anything for me.
I don't care how ridiculous it is where he thinks
these things up, where he finds the material, how outland
does he think he can go or be? It doesn't
You don't want your outfit being a distraction in an
(13:18):
otherwise in an otherwise entertainment presentation that should be about
your in ring ability and your promos and your personality
and your outfits should not be a distraction. And I
think it's it's become a net negative for the seth
Rollins character in an otherwise nearly flawless character for at
(13:39):
least for this version of it. So there, But I
also had some people before I get into this segment
even more with Hayman with over the top introductions for
all the men and an OTC chant breaking out and
the rest of it. There's been some people who have
commented that I have been critical of the product but
(14:02):
also being critical of the people who say that the
product has been boring and there's no direction, and I've
been contradicting myself. Well, for those that need enlightenment, Okay,
here's the revolutionary AHA moment for you. It is possible
(14:25):
to be critical about specific elements of a television show
while also still having no issue with the general direction
of that show. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
They can both exist in the same reality where you're
critical of a particular show and I'm critical of every show.
(14:47):
You guys, hear me? I point out things that you
just want me to shut up about. But it's just
my brain, it's how it works. But I can also
at the same time recognize that the product generally is
headed in a good direction. Again, microvision versus a macro vision,
that's the difference. That's how they can both coexist. There,
(15:10):
I hope, I hope I clarified that. Now, Paul Hayman
come as I said, and comes out and gives the
overtop over the top introductions for all three men, and
Haymond said the fans weren't chanting OTC. They were chanting
Paul E. And then a PAULI chant followed it, and
Hayman mentioned that Rollins has pinned Roman reigns twice at WrestleMania.
(15:32):
Seth held up the mike to speak, but Jay Uso
comes out and he stopped on the steps as he
does in the crowd, and spoke from there, and he
said he was tired of hearing the vision talk and
threaten his family. He also had a bunch of children
say the word yeat. I don't know you not a
fan of it, but I get why he did it.
(15:53):
Then Rollins tried to fire up Breaker by saying that
Jay thinks he can beat him and that his family
is more important than breakers family. Breaker got so fired
up that his allies had to stop him from leaving,
and Haymon questioned Jay, interrupting them. In Philadelphia. Haymond said
men settled their differences in a nearby bingo hall by
having matches with notice qualifications or countouts, and he talked
(16:16):
about Sam Man, Rob Van dam Knew Jack Saboo, Dudley Boys,
and also mentioned the late great Tommy Dreamer, and Hammond
said he knew that Dreamer wasn't dead yet, but he
said that Dreamer, that Dreamer should be UHH, got it.
(16:36):
Breaker acted surprised that Dreamer was still alive, and Jay
said that great minds think alike because the only rules
he needed were extreme rules. So, I you know, I
have to say, good promo by Himon and that just
almost comes at a default compliment every week. Fun moment
(16:59):
here talking, you know, telling a joke at Dreamers expense.
That was fun and bringing up extreme rules. I mean,
there is absolutely no distinction between a you know, a
no disqualification match and no holds barred match, a street fight,
a Philadelphia street fight, whatever you want to call it.
(17:21):
There's there is absolutely not differ between that and an
extreme rules match. None. But they're all just marketing. I mean,
it's just a different way to label a match when
in reality it's just the same thing as saying no disqualification.
It's just it's got a more fun label to it.
So it was it was cool here. I mean, I
haven't heard the extreme rules stipulation be used in a while,
(17:42):
and having him bring up and resurrect and extreme rules
type of match given the backstory with him in ECW,
so it was fun. So EO Sky was showing a
gorilla and Oscar and Kyrie showed up. Oscar apologized for
Sky last week, saying said to let them know if
she needed help. Sky said she knows they would always
(18:04):
have her back, but she needed to do it on
her own, just as Oscar has done in the past.
So Sky high five to Oscar and Kyrie, and then
she comes out and faces Raquel Rodriguez. The match went
eleven minutes with EO Sky beating Raquel. The finish was
EO going up for a suicide dive on Raquel, who
(18:27):
caught her and rolled through. Rodriguez sent Sky into the
ring post and then back in the ring, Rodriguez set
her up for a finish, but Eo avoided it and
hit her with the bullet train attack. Sky went up
top and hit the over the Moon salt for the victory. However,
after the match, Perez attacked Sky and then Rodriguez held
(18:50):
Sky while Perez superkicked her. And then Ria Ripley comes
out to a big ovation and cleared the heels from
the ring and Ripley using crazy big boots. I mean,
she had some excellent big boots in that match, or
rather the post match. I mean she I didn't know
her legs looked like they were a mile long last night.
(19:12):
And I don't mean that from a you know, a
sexual perspective or anything, just they looked really long. And
that's a compliment because she delivered some excellent looking boots,
particularly the last one that she delivered to Raquel, who
also sold it nicely and got knocked out of the ring.
And it's a nice Yeah, it's a nice segment here
because Rhea's still getting the desired reaction. The women's division
(19:36):
is a little bit thin with some injuries, key injuries
now and one pregnancy in the women's division. So Ria
Ripley continues to carry the women's division on her back.
She's not the only person, but she is the primary
holder of the women's division. And this tension now with
EO and Kyrie, it continues to the show, and we'll
(20:00):
talk about that in a little bit too. But Raquel
is getting some nice shine here as well, given the
fact that prior to this, Raquel Rodriguez was getting nothing,
I mean, she was having nothing happening, so much less
than eleven minute match where she has a hard fought
loss against EO Sky. But Ria Ripley coming to the
(20:20):
aid of EO Sky and doing the right thing is
a plus for Rhea, who continues to again have a fun,
nice little run here and continue to make EO look
like you know, she's vulnerable, can hold her own, but
certainly needs some help when her companions both Oscar and
(20:45):
Kyrie are either knocked down or aren't available. So yeah,
So we then have Jackie Redman interviewing l. A. Knight,
who started to speak about being tired of the vision
interfering and see him. Punk comes in and asked for
a second and Knight had Redmond stay. Punk said they
(21:09):
needed to be on the same page, and Knight said
he has two title matches or has had two title matches,
and Punk stuck his nose in both of them, and
he said their issues aren't personal, they're about business. Punk
talked about working together to avoid the Vision's numbers game,
and La Knight spoke about how he would end Clash
in Paris with the title belt in his hand. All right,
(21:32):
and then Corey hyped up jay Us versus bron Breaker
for the Extreme Rules match as the main event of
the show, as it should be. And then Xavier Woods
comes out with Kobe Kingston and Grayson Waller and Cole
set up a triple A Triple Many of video recap
not recrap, and then Graves at a graphic talked about
(21:53):
Triple Many was the most viewed in history with four
point three million viewers in the last twenty four hours,
which is true. I mean, when you have the biggest
wrestling company in the world take you know, and buy
your promotion, you would hope that it's the record number.
I mean, that's that should come without saying, you know,
but certainly a still a worthy accolade. And I did
(22:18):
see Omas and who is it Mini Man or something
or what I forget is that I don't watch it,
but I saw the Omas segment. I saw it. Miniature man,
I don't know, I'm close, I'm close, whatever the hell
his name is. So the segment with you know, a
one foot man versus a seven and a half foot
(22:40):
giant was a hell of a visual see. Yes, I
saw that. But that's about all I saw from triple Mania.
A little bit of Dominic I think bron Breaker was there.
I saw some quick things. I didn't really watch a
bunch of the highlights. But yeah, so all right, So backstage,
Sky thanked Rhea Ripley for helping her. Oscar and Kyrie
(23:01):
then show up. Osca did not look happy and took
issue with Sky letting Ripley help. After telling her and
saying that they couldn't help, Ripley and Osca bickered and
Sky stopped them and through just an embarrassing, just hissy
fit before leaving again acting like this is what I'm
(23:23):
talking about. I know that some people have said, well,
you know, men can have talking over each other in
yelling mattress, but men don't bicker like again some when
you hear women in wrestling, this is how they're presented often. Right,
they're once talking to the ones, you know, trying to
talk over, and it just becomes almost this high school
(23:45):
vibe either or middle school vibe of two girls in
a yelling match, right, And I don't like that presentation.
I have never liked it. And it continues here and
then you have you have Sky literally throw a tantrum
like a child. And I'm not blaming Eo Sky for this.
(24:07):
She was she was told to do this, clearly, and
it was just embarrassing. You guys are professionals making millions
of dollars a year and you are acting like children.
Now again, I know she was told to do this,
so I'm not getting on Eo. But that's the kind
(24:29):
of little stuff that brings down the women's division. A
more mature presentation I think is preferable, at least in
my taste, not this bickering, yelling over each other, cat
fight type of hissy fit garbage. The women if they're
you know, if they're strong, independent women, which we're all
(24:51):
supposed to believe that they are, and that's what the vision,
no pun intended, of the women's division should be, then
this doesn't exactly support that goal. Again, I know, super
small stuff, some stuff you know don't even care about
or notice. But it's the small stuff that's the easiest
(25:12):
to fix. And this is this to me, is just
it's garbage, not the segment itself, just those two particular things.
Now here's some positives. I know that I mentioned Osca
turning heel her face doesn't really matter because Osca has
been both, probably equally throughout her career. I mean, she's
(25:38):
turned so many times I can't keep track. But this
version of Osca, if she's going to be mad and
she looked pissed, that's a version of Oscar I'd like
to see, because even the heal version of Oscar would
be obnoxious and annoying and bombastic and cartoonish. And it
(25:58):
was kind of the same even at his babyface. But
if Auscin, it's going to be more of a just
kind of an angry character filled with rage. I want
to see what that looks like. She had some great
body language here to go with this segment, So all right.
Penta versus Xavier Woods was the next match, with Penta
(26:21):
beating Xavier in just under ten minutes, and the finish
was Penta jumping off the back of Woods and hit
Kingston and Woods and then let's see here, Penta came back,
hit the Destroyer and got the victory after Woods tried
(26:42):
to hook Penta with an inside cradle. So Penta wins
with the Destroyer. And that was good. I mean Penta, well,
it's good in the sense that if you want Penta
to rebuild a little momentum, it's good. But Xavier Woods,
who I continue to support, and I hope that he
gets a singles run and break out, break out of
(27:03):
this stagnant this stagnant kind of like I guess, somewhat
of a bad guy vibe that we're supposed to get
from Xavier. This kind of flat, that's the word I
was looking for. It's a flat version of his heel
character that him and Woods showed after they turned on
(27:25):
Big Eie. And that's you know, that's still kind of frustrating,
certainly frustrating, because Xavier is capable of more. I've said
that before, I'll continue to say it. And by the way,
we also did a carrying cross sign watch and there
was another fan who held a carrying cross sign of
we want Cross, which I'm great. I really enjoy that. Yeah,
(27:50):
so keep it up, I mean we want cross signs
should appear. It is the civic duty of every city
who has a hellbised event to hold a just one
person on the camera side, to have a we want
cross side. That's it, just one person, that's your homework.
(28:15):
So then we have footage air from Triple Mania of
Dom saying he would see Vin Kingo at World's Collide
and Raymisterio Mackdom as they cross paths and let's see here.
We then had World Tag Team champions Finn Baler and
(28:35):
j D McDonough with Dom take on Dragonly and mister
Iguana in a non titled match. This match went nine
minutes and fifty seconds, just under ten like the previous match,
with Finn Baaler and JD beating Dragonly and Mister Iguana
in nine minutes and fifty seconds. The finish always got
to go over the finish because, in case you didn't
(28:56):
see the show, Dragonly caught Balor with a super kick.
JD then distracted the referee while Dom grabbed Lee's foot
Ballor hit Lee from behind with a shotgun drop kick,
and then Balor followed up with a coupdi gras and
got the victory, but After the match, Dom cleared the
broadcast table and was trying to put Dragon Lee on
(29:17):
top of it. But Vin Kingo Vin Kingo, right, I
think that's just how you say it. I'm not gonna
say it's l he o heho, del ving Kingo. I
think embarrassing. I know she showed so he showed up
on the barricade and dropkick Dom off the broadcast table,
and then Vin Kingo avoided Balor and then took him
(29:39):
down with her karana, and Vin Kingo entered the ring,
hit McDonald with a dropkick, followed up with a double
knee on McDonough and then Dom hit Vin Kingo from
behind and Lee ear into the ring as he was
put down by Balor, and McDonough hell Vinkingo's legs while
Dom went up and hit a frog splash and they
all stood over king I, Vin king Go and celebrated
(30:02):
with their tattle belts. You noticed that the heat for Dom, though,
still is not nearly what it was, and I think
that it's because fans are starting to find Dom a
little endearing. It started to WrestleMania, WWE wasn't ready for
them to wasn't ready for us to start cheering Dom
(30:24):
and they kind of just decided, no, we're just gonna
keep him heal, and they have. But yeah, Dominic masterial
is he's not nearly anywhere near as hated as he was.
I mean, he's getting a little bit of heat because
he's attacking people from behind and these performers that you know,
ninety five percent of us couldn't pick out of a
lineup if they weren't in WWE as wrestling fans, and
(30:47):
you know, Dom, he's getting just your typical heel heat.
But it's not your go away my god, we hate
you so much heat that he had for almost two years.
All right, So let's see we had Jackie Redman asked
Becky Lynch why she attacked Natalia last week, and Becky
(31:09):
said that Natalia attacked her and said she was giving
Maxine to pre a pep talk after the match and
Natalia shoved her. So she defended herself and she would
prove tonight that Natalia doesn't belong in the ring with her.
What did she just completely copy and paste Drew McIntyre's
(31:30):
logic into this, because it's exactly what Drew said about
Cody Rhodes and how he said he didn't attack Cody,
he was just acting in self defense. It's exactly I
mean did. It's essentially a copy and paste logic here,
so that was kind of weird. But then again, the
Bailey video aired in some more detail. Here she looks
(31:52):
stressed and for some reason, again we could hear her
inner dialogue and her in her voice talked crap to
her and now she's nothing, and the voice promised to
steer her in the right direction if she listened, but
she plugged her ears and the voices stopped, and yeah,
so it's just ridiculous again that we can hear her thoughts.
(32:19):
It went from just reality based to cartoon in a week,
and it's a shame. Maybe they can correct course. It's
still early in whatever this version of Bailey's going to be,
but it was just certainly not not a not a
version that I'm on board with if they're going to
go with inner voices and all that, okay. Becky Lynch
(32:42):
then took on to Italia for the Women's Inner Continental Championship.
Both Maxine do Pre and a cur at Tsaur were
at ringside here, and Alicia Taylor was as always here
delivering the in ring introductions for the title match. The
match was kind of quick though, seven minutes and fifty seconds,
with Becky Lynch predictably beating Natalia In again seven minutes
(33:06):
and fifty seconds with the disarmour. After the match, Dupree
got to Lynch to break the hold because Lynch wasn't
breaking the disarmour, and that's when Lynch came back in
the ring and attacked Duprex and Nicki Bella comes out
and she worked over some punches, and Nicki hit Lynch
(33:27):
with the rack attack and stood over her. And then yeah,
that's kind of kind of it, and then Natalia, as
always takes a back seat. Nicki Bella got a decent pop,
a decent pop for what she did, and you know,
she certainly hit all of her spots that she needed
(33:47):
to hit. I still don't look at Nikki Bella as
a serious women's contender for anything. I mean, you guys
know how I feel about Nicki, But she, to her credit,
hit her spots this week. And how about that for
an ignorant male giving her a compliment for simply doing
her job, I know, unheard of. So yeah, I mean,
(34:12):
there's not much here to say other than you know
Natalia continues to lose every match. I'm gonna look at
Natalia's stats while I'm here. I'm so curious. Let's see
win loss record for Natalia. I'm so curious of what
this is? The Internet wrestling database. So here, here we go.
(34:34):
This is gonna be interesting. Okay, So Natalia and wins
and losses. I think this is only televised events. I
believe this is televised only. So she's had four hundred
(34:55):
and fifty five wins and this is career four hundred
and fifty five wins and five hundred and sixty eight losses. Yeah,
I mean that's yeah, that's bad. But I thought it
was gonna be way worse than that. Maybe I been wrong,
So yeah, I mean sometimes those stats are fun to
(35:17):
look at. And you know, you can look at wins
and losses broken down by double count out, you know,
a draw, double DQ, submission, pretty much any finish you
can think of, it's broken down and she's lost. If
you're curious about these kinds of stats. Natalia has lost
the majority of her matches by pinfall at seventy one percent.
(35:40):
She's lost the next closest to have submission by twenty
percent and then the rest are count out dq another
So yeah about that. But those are some stats. I
bet you didn't know. See what you learn? You learn
these completely useless facts here on the show. All right,
don't you feel smarter? Just say yes. So we then
(36:04):
have Jackie Redmond interviewing Seamus and then RUSTV shows up.
Seamus and Russov start to fight, but they're pulled apart.
Adam Pierce does what he always does, keeps his cool
and blows a gasket and they said they're not going
to do that tonight, but to meet one more time
in a good old fashioned Donniberg match at Clash in Paris,
(36:27):
which is fine, it's fine. I mean, these two, while
I thought their rivalry was over when Seamus won, these
two have a hell of a history and they work
great together and they're physical. This match is going to
be very physical, with lots of bruises on both men's
bodies coming out of that match at Clash in Paris.
So while there's not a huge vested interest in who
(36:48):
wins it, it's still going to be entertaining and that's
all we can really ask for from this match. So,
I mean, because what else is on the line. Somebody
explain to me what's on the line exactly besides just
entertainment value and pride? Right, So, alrighty, well, we then
(37:09):
have a broadcast team set up a clip of Stephanie
McMahon's podcast that would drop after raw and Stephanie said
it was a bonus edition with Jimmy Usso and Naomi
as I mentioned earlier, and opened the show with with
you know, the announcement of her pregnancy. So Jay Ustill
was warming up backstage when Sam Punk showed up and
(37:30):
said he wanted to help Jay make it to Paris.
Jay said he appreciated it, but doesn't want to owe
anyone any favors, and Jay and Punk shook hands before
Jay left, and Adam Pierce stood in the ring and
as we said, he introduced Naomi and you know, she
held up her belt, she got emotional, the fans chanted
(37:53):
her name, and she said this was hard and told
him to play the rest of the footage from Stephanie
McMahon podcast, and she said, yeah, y'all need to proceed
with caution because there's a baby on board and wow. Yeah,
in the ring, Pierce said, everyone in the building is
happy for her. And congratulated her, and she said she
(38:15):
bet that Pierce was happy for her, and said it's
not her first time relinquishing the title. She said she
gave it up the first time, but this time she
wasn't handing him anything. She said her homemones were jumping
and told him to get the hell out of her face.
And Naomi sang the goodbye song and did her laugh
and the fans joined in, and Naomi told Pierce that
(38:36):
she hoped he tripped in his church shoes. Yeah, that
was weird. Naomi said the women backstage should thank Big
Jim because they had no chance to take the title
off her. But thanks to Big Jim, he likes to
Netflix and chill if you know what I mean, and
you deserve it. Champ broke out and on the bright side,
(38:58):
I guess the bloodline continues, and she said for some reason,
this led to an oc che che. Yeah, so I
mean it's kind of yeah. I mean, it's no secret
that you know, Jimmy is very active. I'll leave it
at that with with Naomi, that's that was on I
think total divas at one point, and I mean she's
(39:19):
even publicly saying it here, kind of awkward, you know, basically, Okay,
we we like to. We like to, especially Big Jim
my husband, he likes to. Uh, you know, it's just
kind of weird, kind of weird. Let's see how old
is Naomi. I'm looking at her age here. Let's uh,
(39:42):
Naomi is thirty seven. Thirty seven? Wow, Okay, I didn't
think she was that old. Well, good for them, all right,
let's continue on here. Kind of weird, kind of kind
of weird here. But uh, she said that she you know,
she looked at the custom belt and said she would
(40:02):
lay it down a baby USO chance started and Naomi
said she would give the the hyphers a chance to
do what they wanted with the title and said that
she would be coming back to pick up where she
left off, and whoever has that title when I do,
I strongly advise you proceed with caution and left. Yeah.
So I'm again, I'm happy, right. I don't know what
(40:25):
else to say. I don't know what else to say
about it, So Pardi said enough. So we had Cole
talk about Stephanie Bacoorr And how she was supposed to
have a title match at Clash in Paris, and Cole
announced the start time for Monday's Raw on Netflix in Birmingham, England.
The broadcast team listed the following matches on next week's show,
which is Rio Rugby versus Rox San Perez and Penta
(40:47):
versus Kofi Kingston and Graves hyped up John Cena for
Friday in Dublin, Ireland. We then have Jays and Broun
Breaker in an extreme rules match, physical match, long match
twenty minutes long by today's standards, for sure. The finish
(41:08):
was Breaker setting up a table inside the ring. Jay
superkick Breaker, who ended up on the table. Jay went
up top and Reid shoved him off. The fans chanted
Roman Reins and then his entrance music played while Breaker
was at ringside, and then Breaker ran right into a
spear by Roman Reins, who then hit Reid with a
(41:29):
superman punching Rains rolled Breaker inside the ring. Jay supercreicked Breaker,
who landed on the table and then Jay hit the
USO splash. They put Breaker through the table and got
the three count. After Jay USO won, Rains helped Jay
out and his music played while Rains was chalking trash
(41:49):
at Bronson Reid and Reid said he would take Roman's
shoes again, but Hayman talked him out of going there
and read his own forehead with a chair while the
credits role the producer credits rolled. So that's good. I mean,
first of all, we could. You can't get a dequ
finished with an extreme rules match. The only way to
(42:12):
get a crappy finish is if there's some kind of
referee stoppage, which did not take place here, thank god.
And this was a very eventful raw again, not just
because of the announcement by Naomi and her once again
having to relinquish the women's world title, but also because
of Rowan reigns, an unexpected appearance by him, unraw. The
(42:36):
tension between l A. Knight and Ciampunk that is right
now just kind of a professional courtesy that they're aligning
with one another. It's a common enemy type of alliance,
which is certainly plausible here Becky Lynch defending her in
a Continental Championship overall solid raw, a solid raw that
(42:57):
certainly has a lot going forward, one that's continues to
push towards Clash in Paris, which is again just what
twelve days away, twelve days I think twelve days away
from Clash in Paris and it's gonna be a I think,
a really good pl despite the fact that Naomi is
no longer competing, and we don't know if Brockleser is
(43:17):
going to be there. Probably not. John cenl though, will
be and he'll be taking on Logan Paul. But yes,
Brocklosner could certainly interfere there and once again screw with
John Cena. But the brock Loosener ap parents, doesn't that
feel like him five weeks ago? Now? It's crazy how
quickly that kind of thing goes. And also, like I said,
(43:38):
with the Hull Cogan, the passing of Hull Cogan a
number of weeks ago, doesn't that feel like a year ago? Now?
No one's talking about a Hulk Cogan anymore, the biggest
name in professional wrestling, the biggest name to ever come
out of the genre of professional wrestling. No one's even
talking about it anymore. So I just wanted to bring
that full circle and show you how quickly things come
(44:01):
in and out of our minds, despite how big the
event may be, despite how catastrophic a death of whatever
superstar in entertainment or in sports comes about, we move
on so quick because there's so much information flowing into
our brains all the time from this glowing box that
(44:21):
we all carry around in our pockets. I mean, we
have bad attention spans as it is as human beings
generally speaking. But you put a device in our pockets
that's made for distracting. It's sole purpose is to distract you,
and it can go anywhere you can go and have
a connection nearly anywhere you can go. And you're expediting
(44:45):
the problem. You are exponentially increasing the issue of people
not having no attention spans and the news cycles just
being so fast, and again, no matter how catastrophic the event,
things seemingly never last more than a week, sometimes only
days before we move on to the next thing. So well,
there's again no news with the whole Hogan front. I
(45:08):
just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention. It's like,
oh yeah, wow, Hull Cogan died right, Crazy how things
go and how quickly life moves early. But that'll do
it for this podcast. Here for this episode of the
ww podcast. Again, i'd encourage you to go to Patreon
and go to an ad free experience there Patreon dot com,
(45:29):
slash WWE podcast and also go to Apple Podcasts and
go add free there, click the subscribe buttoning be on
your way to getting rid of all those pain and
the ass ads that you've heard throughout this show and
all the other shows as well. This is our entire
library ad free. This is not just the show's moving forward,
it's everything you've heard up till this point. And we
(45:50):
post nearly every single day, if not every day, whether
it's a retro show or a rewind show, a current
events show that smacked down with raw, with the after
Dark show, with our flagship show, which is the weekend
review done on Sundays. Whatever. The show is ad free,
(46:12):
all to your ears, where you just sit back and listen,
and I hope you consider it, and if not, you
can always give us a five star rating and keep
those positive comments coming on Spotify. I'm really really loving
that kind of I'm saying that kind of half tongue
in cheek because it's pretty controversial over there, but it's fun.
It's fun, so all right, that'll do it for me.
(46:32):
I'll be back on Friday with your mail bag. If
you want to contribute to the mail bag, you can
do that mail bag at WWE podcast dot com. If
you are a Patron, your emails and voicemails get read upfront,
so keep that in mind. It's another one of the
benefits of going to Patreon, and that'll do it for
me again. Hit us subscribe button over there on YouTube
(46:54):
because I'm trying to I'm doing more video and the
more people that watch and you know, all the viewership
and everything, if the numbers go up, I'll be encouraged
to post more on there as well. So thank you everybody.
I'll be back in a couple of days. Until then,
take care.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
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 ad free head over to Patreon
dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll see you
(47:31):
next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com