Let's talk this week in WWE, that is highlighted by a women's title match that saw an embarrassing botch, Randy Orton coming to the aid of Cody Rhodes, Bayley vs Perez, Stephanie Vaquer gives her first promo since becoming Women's World Champion 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.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The show, the one that everybody wants me god St
three sixteen.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So we Your ass is my yn you can acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
All right, everybody, Welcome to the show. It is Sunday,
the twenty eight day of September twenty twenty five. And Yes,
we're gonna talk wrestling. This is what the show is about.
We're gonna talk this week in w W. Yes, we're
gonna talk about that botch, that horrible botch in a
long line of recent botches in the women's division, that's
not good. If you remember the Becky Lynch one just
(00:55):
a month or so ago, uh, that was just horrific.
This one was no better on SmackDown. And we'll get
into if you care about such things, we'll get into
who's to blame, the different scenarios of what could have happened.
We'll talk about Seth Rollins and the Vision and Cody
Rhodes and Paul Hayman and Randy Orton and all the
rest as we build towards Crown Jewel. In just a
(01:17):
couple of weeks, Crown Jewels only a couple weeks away,
we will get to all of that. I'd like to
invite you first to join us at the Patreon side
of things. If you want to go ad free and
get yourself an ad free stream of this show at
patreon dot com slash ww podcast. A dollar a month
is all you need to get started to get that
ad free experience. Now, before we get there, though, quick
(01:40):
quick mention. Okay, I have to mention this because baseball
season is officially concluded. And if you don't like baseball,
if you're just like, oh my gosh, shut up, I
want to hear wrestling, then just give forward ahead a
couple of minutes. But for those that care, you know,
and you're into baseball, well, the MLB season, regular season,
it's come to a close. And if you care about
the New York's sports teams, well, both of them came
(02:02):
down to tie breakers and neither team won the tiebreaker. However,
the difference is for the New York Mets, who have
just basically been watching a car crash in slow motion.
They no longer qualify for the postseason, which is really incredible.
They lost the tiebreakers to the Reds. They actually lost
their game. If they had just won their game today,
(02:22):
they would have been able to make it the playoffs.
They didn't. So I apologize on behalf of I don't
really apologize, but I do feel sorry for the Met fans.
I do as a Yankee fan. I never understood the
hate for the Mets. Never did. I don't have any
ill will, even though I'm told I'm supposed to as
a Yankee fan. I'm told I'm supposed to hate met fans,
I really just don't. So I do truly feel for
(02:44):
you guys who have just watched a team with one
of the highest parallel records ever collapse in grand fashion,
in a very slow motion car crash. Unlike oh seven
or eight, where it kind of happened really quickly. It
was like seventeen up or games up with seventeen to
go when they lost the division and lost the playoff spot.
This was one that just kind of happened since the
(03:06):
end of June, just kind of slowly, you know, trickling
off into oblivion. And you guys lost by one game.
All you had to do is win today and you didn't.
And for the Yankees, hey we've got the Red Sox
on Tuesday night. There's no guarantee there. I am a
little bit concerned about that because here's the thing with
the Yankee fans, who are all just they're all gloating
(03:27):
right now about they've won eleven of thirteen, they've won,
you know, thirty of the last forty five, whatever the
case is. You got to remember, we beat up on
bad teams. We do not do well against good teams.
The reason we have the record we do and we
nearly won the division. Had we had the tiebreaker against
the Blue Jays, we would have won the division. The
reason that we don't or we do have a good
(03:49):
record and one of the best records in baseball, is
simply because our back end of our schedule we beat
up on bad teams very very well. We are very
skilled at beating up on bad teams. But when it
comes to any good team, any team above five hundred,
we do not do well. So with that said, I
do have a bit of concern on the wild card
(04:09):
game that is gonna the series. It's gonna be a
best of three, it's all you gotta win two games,
and it's all gonna be at Yankee Stadium, which is
a plus, and I'm sure we'll have freed going and
I don't have any guarantee that we're going to win this.
I could see us getting swept. I could see us sweeping.
I could see this coming down to, yeah, Red Sox
and three Yankees and three. I mean, it's a very,
very very quick series. It's about as quick as the
series can be. And I really don't have an inkling.
(04:32):
I mean, if I was to guess, I would say
Red Sox win in three. Yankees will lose Game one,
win Game two, lose Game three. That's kind of been
their mo throughout the entire regular season, is they they
lose two out of three to good teams. So in
some form of fashion, either we'll get swept two games,
or will at least bring it to three games and
get swept in or lose in three. That's my guess.
(04:55):
But I mean, who the hell knows all of the
possible scenarios around the table it comes to such a
short series in Yankee Stadium. Yankees are unpredictable, but we
do not do well against good teams. And the Red
Sox are I think a good team, they're not outstanding.
And for the met fans, well, I guess we'll see
you in twenty twenty six. Yeah, I do feel for you.
That's brutal. It's got to be horrible to be a
(05:16):
Mets fan. They just I mean, I don't know how
you do it. I really don't. But all right, that's
enough baseball. So hopefully for those of you that skipped
ahead and said, oh my god, just get to wrestling, well,
here's your wrestling. Okay, let's get to the botch that
seems to be the hot topic. But grudgingly, I'm sure
for Tiffany, Jade and Naya well, I'm sure just I mean,
(05:36):
nobody wants to talk about it there obviously in WWE
cut it out of their highlights on their YouTube channel. Clearly,
I mean I would too, So I mean, I don't
really don't want to spend too much time on this.
Botches happen, Okay, I'm understanding not an easy business, dangerous business.
There's a lot more to it than people really understand.
(05:58):
And I get that this botch was exceedingly bad because
it was so obvious. Sometimes botches happen and it just
actually goes under the radar. There's I bet you there's
botches that even the most ardent wrestling fan just it
just goes unnoticed because as a skilled performer, you know
how to kind of work around it to make it
(06:19):
look like that was supposed to happen, or it makes
it look like that it didn't happen at all, and
you can pull some you know, magicianry, you know, some
kind of sorcery. And this one, though, is it's something
you just can't save. And so this championship match, which
otherwise I thought went fairly smooth. You know, you had
Naya pin I'm sorry, you had Jade try to pin Naya,
(06:43):
and then you had Tiffany Stratton drop kicking Jade off
of Nya to try to get the victory. And that's
where this happens. And then you see the referee go
one two and Nya doesn't kick out, and the referee makes,
you know, one two, and then does the typical you know,
near fall, Except the problem is that her shoulders were
all on the bat. Now, what should the referee have done?
(07:04):
Probably just counted the three, But I think there's a
couple of scenarios that could have happened here. One, Nya
was supposed to kick out and she didn't. H Two,
Jade was supposed to break up the pinfall and didn't,
which I actually think is less likely. And maybe there's
an alternative that I don't know, but that's kind of
the only two options I think. And instead, you know,
(07:26):
we had Tiffany just drag Nia over hit the prettiest
moon Salt and one two three, and I'm sure Nia
is thinking to herself like, well, what you know, what
the hell? This should have been a three count? Why
is the referee going for two? And Nya is right
that it was going to be Tiffany who got the victory.
(07:48):
But I think either the prettiest Moonsalt wasn't supposed to
end it, or it was supposed to be a drop
kick pushing Jade off, and then that was actually supposed
to be a one two three. So is it on
Nya or is it on the referee? Because I don't
know what the original finish was supposed to be. I
know we're all trying to pile on Nya. We are
(08:09):
all trying to pile on her, and is the are
the odds are that it's probably Nia's fault? Probably? Probably,
but the referee also is at fault. Even if Naya
is at falt, her shoulders on the mat, she is
supposed to lose anyway, and it's supposed to be one
two three, So either the referee thought it was supposed
to be the prettiest moonsalt that ended it, or she
(08:30):
screwed up and it was actually supposed to be that spot.
Either way, Tiffany was winning. It's not as if she
was counting the wrong person down. The result would have
still been the same. But just for the integrity of
the match, you gotta count the three. You gotta count
the three. So I mean, I actually I do kind
of put the blame somewhat significantly on the referee too.
(08:51):
I mean, you can't do that. I know she's not
trying to screw up the spot, but if she had. Here,
here's the thing. If you're the referee and you count
the three and the talent is not kicking out, that's
on the talent. Then it's squarely on the talent. Even
if you think that the spot is supposed to be
Tiffany hitting the moon salt. The idea is, though that
(09:13):
Tiffany still winning, she was still counting Tiffany down or
on Naya, so Jade wasn't involved at all, But the
referee should have still counted the three. Again, shouldn't Iya
have kicked out? Maybe if that was the spot. We
don't know what the finish was supposed to be. We
don't know if it was that or the moon salt
and then that, you know, it looked like Tiffany improvised,
(09:37):
all right. So if Tiffany improvised and just drag Nya
over and hit the prettiest moon salt one two three,
then then it's you know, then sure like that it
might have been on Tiffany to hit that spot. But again,
the referee, I think is the one to put a
lot of the blame on here, and Naya jack certainly too.
(09:57):
I mean, Nia Jackson. Was she supposed to kick out?
I don't know. I don't know. But it looked bad.
No matter how you slice it, it looked bad. The
people were booing as they should. It was bad. Was
it as bad as Becky Lynch selling a kick that
was three feet from her face or when she was
(10:19):
getting her head slammed into the announced table where it
was not even anywhere close It was like comically comically
far away. No, I mean, in some respects. No, those
were just some of the worst botches I've ever seen.
This was bad and just kind of added to the
pile lately of the unfortunate to just egregious botches by
(10:41):
the women's division over the last month. And well, you know,
it's not gonna hurt the women's division as as a whole,
but it just it adds if you're looking for an
argument for women to get less time or to stay
where they are. You know, if you feel that way,
and there are people that feel that way, I'm sure
whether people think it doesn't people think that those kinds
(11:03):
of people exist there don't. The idea though, is that, yes,
this is evidence for those people to use as a
weapon against the argument to push women forward, to see
you see how sloppy the women are. Do I feel
that way? No, I mean, it is a pattern now
of the women having egregiously bad botches, But I think,
(11:23):
you know, I still believe that the women certainly have
come a long way and all the rest of it,
and I'm all for it. But anyway that I wanted
to bring that up first because that's at the forefront
of everybody's mind this week. It'll go quickly because we
are all the human beings in this three dimensional world.
In twenty twenty five, which means our attention spans are
four and a half seconds. So luckily for Tiffany and
(11:44):
Naya and the referee which can't remember her name, but
they will all be absolved of this because time and
our attention spans today are nothing. So alrighty, let's get
to it, though. We'll talk a little bit more about SmackDown.
If you want the full smack Down review, as I
say every single week, you can listen to Amanda's review.
Did a great job this week talking about SmackDown and
(12:06):
gave her very candid thoughts as she does. And let's
get to it. So Paul Hayman was in the ring
and he was booed by fans, and he said that
there was so much to talk about, but he only
had They only had two hours, he said. Everybody who
watched WWE Unreal knows that the people at a Gorilla
were panicking over the possibility of him speaking for two hours.
(12:28):
But he said he wouldn't do that all right. First
of all, Hayman, listen, I love you man. Is there
any semblance of emotional attachment anymore? Does does w W
even care? I mean, they're talking about the show that
goes behind the curtain of the show on the show,
this is can we not? Can we not do that?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
This is?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It is such a you know what it's it's so
disrespectful to the business again, and I sound like I'm
an old timer who's been in the ring. Of course
I had never stepped foot in the ring, but that
doesn't mean I can't have respect for the business and
understand what the mystery of the business used to mean
for the business. Like as a fan for thirty years,
(13:13):
I think I can speak pretty clearly on that and
have an opinion that has a little bit of weight. Anyway,
this is I don't know this TKO version of WWE is.
It's very emblematic of how Paul Hayman came out here,
and I would imagine he with all the stroke he
has probably agreed to this and wasn't told no, you're
(13:34):
going to say this. He might have come up with
it himself. I don't see the point in it. I
know it's a small thing, but when you continue to
just remind people during the show that what you're watching
as a show and it's not real, you just see
that unreal everything I'm about to say it's all stage. Guys.
What the hell is going on this again? This TKO
(13:55):
version of we throws it has one thousand percent focused
on just maximizing the amount of money they can make,
and they're unapologizic, unapologetic about it, thrown away any semblance
of respect for the business into the toilet, and at
(14:17):
times it's been embarrassing, and they've basically told the fans
that you know, you don't like it. Then, you know,
even Triple H I think was a spokesperson. You know,
the executive is probably speaking through Triple H prior to
WrestleMania this year of him saying, hey, you know, just
basically shut up and enjoy the show, and it's just
you know, oh, okay, I guess we'll pull our money.
Then we're not allowed to speak. I didn't know I
(14:39):
had to purchase a ticket to have an opinion on something. Oh,
I don't know. This corporate version of TKO it certainly
has had its net negative effects. Yeah, versus having the
McMahon family owning it. But regardless of what you think
of Vince McMahon, just from purely macro view, I don't
(15:02):
care who it was owning it previously. Just the previous
administration and how the company feels and the things that
they did versus what TKO has done to the company.
And there have been some positives, but we're starting to
see the longer term results of a company that doesn't
understand or no wrestling owning a wrestling company. We're seeing
(15:25):
what their priorities are. And it's not about protecting any
kind of kfabe. It's in fact pulling back the curtain
even during the show. It's about bringing in celebrities and
making sure that you know, they maximize every square inch
of their canvas, of their tables, eventually, of the tights
(15:46):
and the garments of the the the wrestlers, making sure
that the sponsors can purchase that telling the audience, Mark
Shapiro telling the crowd or the in an interview, Hey,
we're not pricing for families. In fact, the prices are
gonna go even higher. I mean, this is it's in
(16:06):
insane to think about where we used to be and
where we've come here, and we're all just we're all
just accepting it. I don't know how people afford to
go to events. I don't know, And God bless you
if you can or you're just willing to to, you know,
dip into some savings or dip into your your checking
account or whatever, or you're just or you're fortunate enough,
(16:28):
or money's not an issue, which is you know, not
the case for most of us, then God bless you.
I mean, seriously, you do whatever you want with you
with your money. But the only way this is ever
gonna change, as I'll continue to hammer home, is if
we as on a larger scale, tell the w W
E no, screw this and screw you. You know, we'll watch.
(16:53):
And you know that that's harder to do than not
attending an event if it comes to your city, because
we're gonna watch, We're gonna watch on you, We'll watch
on you know, peacocker. If you've purchased the ESPN plus whatever,
then I understand it. I'm not going to stop watching
wrestling either. But the best way you can deflate these
ticket prices is to not buy them. Stop selling out
(17:15):
the arenas, stop allowing them to gouge you for the
money that they're charging. And I don't blame them actually
in one sense for increasing the ticket prices, because I'm
sure they're trying to say how high can we go
before the you know, where's that threshold where we start
to see a decrease in ticket sales, but also we're
maximizing how much we can charge where the consumers willing
(17:38):
to pay. They're trying to find that high water mark.
That's what they're doing right now, and we're all somehow
just complacent with it, and we shouldn't be. We shouldn't be.
But it's a voluntary exchange. That's the thing too. It's
a capitalist market. Love it or don't, it's not the
conversation here. We aren't capitalist market, which means they can
(18:01):
charge what they want up until the point that the
consumer says, no, I'm not doing that anymore. And to
much of the families who want to go but are
priced out of it, dismay, the high watermark hasn't been
found yet. I mean, just look at your local ticket
prices for wrestling, even if it's an untelevised show. They
(18:23):
have gone up exponentially, and it does stuck for the
rest of us that have families that want to bring
families and you're like, ough, is this worth taking this hit?
And you have to think about it. But they're trying
to maximize their money and the best way we can
bring it down is to give them the finger not
go to these live events. Stop going if you want
(18:46):
to see these ticket prices decrease, and we need to
do that at scale. That's what needs to happen. These
events need to stop selling out their plees, need to
stop selling out their Saturday in main events, need to
stop selling out their wrestle pollus that that wasn't even
worth half of the price of the admission of the
ticket needs to stop selling out. Embarrass them. They need
(19:10):
to be embarrassed on a national scale for them to
respond to the ticket prices. So there, there's as much
as I love we, they are still a company trying
to make as much money from your pocket and mine
as they can. And until we say nah, yeah, I
(19:30):
know you're coming to town. I know, yeah, that's cool,
but no, I think I'll set it home. Until that
happens at scale, guys, the ticket prices are going to
keep going up because people are still willing to pay.
And I think a lot of that has to do
with maybe FOMO, or a lot of it has to
do with the way you can pay for tickets now,
(19:52):
which is financing them through a firm or another third party,
a third party finance institution. You can just finance. You
can find this pretty much anything these days, which makes
it more tempting because you're like, oh, well, it's only
sixty bucks a month for the next three month, six months, whatever.
That is tempting. I understand it. I fall into that
(20:13):
trap sometimes too. Amazon is killing me with that because
I've got a firm and it's like, oh, well, I
need to do golf club set. It's only like two
hundred bucks for the next five months. You know, I
get it. I understand. So the financing options that are
available to the tickets or your own card or PayPal,
how are you paying? It makes it seem like it's
(20:34):
not as bad. But all right, there's my rent, there's
my soapbox for how we fight back. Okay, so let's
continue here. My goodness, we got a Bookert on commentary,
but at least Michael Cole was there to balance him out. Bookert,
he's just I've said that before. He's from my taste.
(20:57):
He's tough on commentary. But Hayman mocked Cody Rhoades by
asking the fans what they want to talk about, and
an OTC Champ broke out. Haymon said he would love
to talk about Roman reigns, but it's disrespectful to speak
of the injured. That's funny, and Hayman asked if they
should talk about bron Breaker, adding that Breaker will headline
(21:17):
WrestleMania for five to ten years, and he asked if
they should talk about the conspiracy theories and rumors regarding
brock Lesner, and Haymon was interrupted by music here, they
need to kind of back off this Breaker headlining WrestleMania
for five to ten years, saying, I mean, has there
ever been any star ever that has been a rookie
coming up? You know, it was kind of hot streak,
(21:38):
but that has been anointed by the company overtly by
saying he's going to headline WrestleMania for the next five
to ten years. So you're telling me he's the next
Roman reigns. Really, I mean, I like Bron Breaker. I
think he's got a hell of a future. But we're
(21:59):
talking about the elite section of the elite category of
people that do that. We're talking about a goal that
point zero zero one percent or less of wrestlers that
have ever or will ever exist will achieve. That's a
(22:20):
hell of a bar, a hell of an expectation, almost
an unfairly high expectation to label a guy with and
and task him with. If I was Breaker, I'd be like, hey, thanks, yo, guys, listen, yeah,
I appreciate that. I mean, I'll never say this out loud,
but you know I appreciate that. But you know, come on,
(22:43):
let's live in I like to live in the realm
called reality and being a realist here. It ain't gonna happen.
It's just not. Will bron Breaker be involved in a
main event? Yes, and if he does do the next
five to ten years to bring this up is because
it's been said over and over and over and over
and over.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
All.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Right, moving on, So Cody Rhodes comes out and he
got a big ovation, and he said he made a
mistake when he was referring to Hayman as a goon.
Cody said, Hayman is one of the smartest man he knows.
And Cody said Hayman loves to stir it up, and
he has the entire locker room stirred up. Cody asked
if Hayman to tell him about Brock, and Cody had
(23:26):
the production crew put a shot of Hayman introducing Lesner.
At Russell Palouza on the big screen, and Cody asked
if that looked like the face of someone taking part
in a one night thing. Cody asked if he was
talking to an oracle, a wise man, or an advocate,
and he said, you're talking to the goat. And Hayman said,
Cody and everyone else knows that everyone is in danger
(23:50):
when Lesner is present, and Cody turned and saw bron
Breaker and Bronson Rita at ringside, and Haymon told Cody
that Lesner wasn't at the show show and he said,
what makes you think you're not in danger right now?
And that's when Cody and Reid come up, and Cody
said he keeps hearing that Breaker is a WrestleMania main
event waiting to happen. And he said he'd bet that
(24:13):
Hayman tells Reid the same thing. And Cody said he
would have killed to be a Hayman guy when he
was Breaker's age, and Cody said he grew up the
son of a booker. He grew up around people like Hayman,
and Cody said he studied vern Ganya, Bill Watson, Eric
Bischoff and he saw it all. He said, you guys
(24:34):
could always tell what they were doing, what they were
doing it for, and why they were doing it. And
Cody said, no one has figured out Hayman, who smiled
and was standing on the apron, and that's when essentially
he's you know, he started to throw punches and they
ended up getting the best of Cody. Randy Orton comes
(24:55):
out to a big ovation, big ovation and he ends
up rkoing Reid and standing side by side with Cody Rhodes.
So fun now, fun little uh segment here with Cody
and Randy Orton, and I think it was. Yeah, it
(25:16):
was a really good start, great start to the show. Actually,
couldn't ask for a better kind of put together opening
segment that would lead to something bigger. So no issues here.
Nice to see Randy Orton involved and uh yeah, Okay,
the Street Profits take on Mizz and Carmela Hayes for
a shot at the WWE tag team titles. And this
(25:39):
match ends with Carmelo Hayes and Angela Dawkins beating the
Mizz and uh Once's Ford and angel Dawkins beating the
Biz and Carlo Hayes. So they're gonna get a shot
at the tag team titles and it ended with Dawkins
hitting a spinebuster on the Miz. Ford followed up with
a top rope splash and cover the Mizz out the
(26:00):
three count now proud of that though, we had the
typical Miz tagging in as Hayes was going to go
for his finish and he grabbed his hand and the
mis asked what he was doing. And even at the
end of the match, when Hayes could have saved the Miz,
he didn't. He opted to just watch. He was a
spectator when he could have been a participant. And I
(26:21):
think that kind of tells us where we're at with
the Miz and Carmelo Hayes, which is at the very end.
We're at the end. We're at the finale of this
tag team. It probably will officially implode in the next
couple of weeks. How could it not. So we all
know where this is going to end, and it's a
Miss is a heel, Carmelo is a babyface, and that's
(26:42):
pretty much it. I think I don't know how this
ends any other way really, all right, Well, so the
Street Profits get a tag team title match again. They
don't excite me. They have been frozen in time. For
the last several years, not even weeks, months, years, this
team has been frozen and I will continue continue to
(27:05):
hammer it home until they do something significant with this team,
which means break them up. That's how you make this significant.
I understand that at any given moment, at any given time,
just at a just kind of a base equilibrium, that
WW is always thin on tag teams. I don't care.
This team is long overdue. Year's overdue to break up
(27:30):
and bring Angela Dawkins into the forefront. Hey, l I
mean sorry montes Ford, and hey, if Angela Dawkins somehow
surprises us and all the better. I hope he does.
But montes Ford isn't getting any younger, and there's something
there that we need to find out what it is
beyond him in a tag team. So Jade Cargo was
(27:50):
interviewed backstage and Jade said that, oh, she's sick of
Tiffany and Naya, so it'll feel so good when she
becomes It's champion later in the show. And that's when
Stephanie mccuorrer or Vicare comes out and in the picture
and said that well, Jade told Stephanie that a storm
(28:11):
would be coming her way at Crown Jewel, So enlightening,
isn't it. Jade is just she's a prophet. She's just
so eloquent, well spoken, we understand who and what she
is through and through. Jade is just a very well rounded, deep,
multi layered character, is she not. I mean, we know
(28:35):
so much about her, we're so connected to her emotionally
because we feel her, we can relate to her. Now,
that's what WW want us to say, and I'm sure
Jade thinks we should say at this point, I will
hammer this home too. When are they going to let
her sink or swim? Or they know she's going to
(28:55):
sink and they won't let it happen, So they just
give her two sentences and a tagline to say. I
mean she's if they ever put her in a title
position again, I mean, she's just going to keep getting
rejected the fans unless she's a heel, which that's another
conversation to be had. But if she's in the currently
(29:18):
constituted character of a babyface, the fans are going to
continue to push back. They're not going to be I
don't believe very interested in seeing Jade Cargill as champion
despite the fact that she's been here for a couple
of years. Okay, I don't want to go on a
Jade tirade because I want to see her succeed, but
they just they aren't. Either Jade's not progressing and putting
(29:40):
in the work or the WWE just is saying, hey,
she's putting in the work, but we still don't trust her, right,
It's one of the two. Moving on, we have United
States Champion Women's United States Champion Julia and Keana James
take on Meechen and b Fab and as expected, the
crowd was kind of quiet early on on this Late
in the match, Meechen hit James eat defeat and James
(30:02):
stumbled her into the corner where Julia tagged in. Juliet
hit Meeting with the knee strike and then finished her
with a Northern Lights bomb. And it was a ten
minute match, which is actually a decently timed match given
the competitors and where they've been over the last several months.
So Women's Champion Juliet and Keana James win, and then
(30:23):
Cole spoke about how he felt bad from eaching because
of the way James fell into her corner after being
hit with eat defeat. So yeah, which again, Hey, I
don't know what this is going to lead to. I
don't under I don't know if this is gonna this
is actually being positioned for some kind of women's four
way match at at Crown Jewel, perhaps in Perth, that
(30:45):
I mean, that could be what this is for. I
highly doubt this is going to have any kind of
reverberations for the Women's Tag Team Championship. But there, all right,
So let's see here we have Charlotte fell On, Alexa
Bliss confronted in their dressing room by Zaria and soul Ruka,
(31:06):
and Zaria said it was time for her and Rucker
to get a shot at the titles. Flair said teams
were waiting in line and they just hadn't earned it.
Zaria was said that was funny coming from Flair, and
Ruger was apologetic. Flair told Bliss she was proud of her,
after Bliss told him to prove themselves and get in line. Okay,
this is fine. Much more to say about that. Okay.
(31:30):
We had Jermactyre stand in the ring with a boot
on his foot and he spoke about his history and
he said it was the same arena he should have
entered as WWE champion. McIntyre said he's not champion because
of Cody Rhodes, and he said he could see in
Cody's eyes that he had him beaten. And he complained
(31:51):
about how the referee took six seconds to count pinfall,
and he asked if the referees work for WWE or
for Cody, and he gave the referee because he has
a family to feed, but he blames Cody Rhodes. And
Nick All just comes out and said he saw some
things from McIntyre's perspective, but he told him not to
make excuses because he's better than that, and he said
(32:13):
he saw mcatyre kick the broadcast table at Russell Palooza
and McIntyre didn't get the walking boot from w medical.
All this said the referee's decision was final and he
was done, and he made his exit, and McIntyre continued
to complain. Jacob Fattuu comes out tell him to shut
his ass up, and he called him a peg leg.
They were grabbing the mic back and forth from one another,
(32:36):
and Fatu said McIntyre must have forgotten that he's all
gas and no breaks and that's when McIntyre ends up,
it was, oh, it's Glasgow Kiss. He hit someone of
the Glasgow Kiss and Fatu kind of sold it and
then turned and superkick McIntyre, took the boot that was
laying there, or took the boot off of McIntyre and
(32:58):
then hit him in the head with the boot. Okay,
I mean this was I think fine a good moment
for Jacob Fatu. The analysis I'm reading here that says
that they lost the crowd somehow, I don't think they
really lost them. They were just waiting for something to happen.
There's kind of a lot of things happening here, but
(33:21):
Jacobatu and Drew is not a bad place to go
if they want to go there. I think I still
believe and will continue to believe that Drew should be
involved in the title picture and win the Damn Belt.
But they have a PLI to bill to in two weeks,
So Drew versus Jacoba two is fine, but I think
Drew should win again. This is an unannounced match, but
(33:42):
Drew should win that match that's unannounced and put himself
back in the Damn title picture. I know Jacob Fatu
is kind of the hot new hand he's younger. I
get that he's a fresh face, but still Drew is
by far the more polished performer, the more well rounded performer.
The one that deserves the belt is Drew and I
(34:06):
just it's criminal how he hasn't been able to w W.
He hasn't been able to find time for him to
have a long run with it. So we had Tiffany
Stratton and looking in the mirror backstage and let's just
move on here. The next match, Sammy Zain versus Javon
(34:26):
Evans for the US Championship. What a great match this is,
I mean, just really good, fun open challenge here with
Sammy z Ain beating Javon Evans in ten minutes and
twenty seconds. Oh man, I mean the finish was was awesome.
We had Evans catch Zaye on the top rope with
the Hurricane rona. Evans covered Zane for a near fall
and Zayne came back with an exploder suplex and followed
(34:49):
up with a halluva kicked attempt, but Evans cut him
off with a flying knee. Went for a top rope
corkscrewed dive, but Zane moved and Evans avoided a halluva
kicked and hit the double rope jump into an og cutter,
which looked great. I mean, the boy, it's it's hard
to get believable near falls nowadays, even at plees or
big events. If it can happen on a regular old
(35:13):
plane SmackDown, you've done something. And that was a great
just a great near fall there, and Evans performed then
a he jumped over the rope and rolled through and
he you know, he eventually gets hit with the Halluva
kick and then the Blue thunder That was interesting that
Zayne reversed them. I have no problem with that whatsoever.
Don't consider that a complaint. Consider that a compliment, that
(35:35):
Zaine hitting the Halluva kick and then the Blue thunderbomb,
which is typically used as some kind of like a
transition or signature move that never ends a match. That
was great, just just fun, hell of a fun match.
Evans is what twenty one years old? Man? Oh man,
this guy has got the world in front of him,
all right. Continuing on, Damian Priest approached Kate Wilson. That
(35:58):
thing that happened backstage, so that that's you know, we'll
continue here. We did have Black stand behind Priest and
asked if he was looking for him. Priest wound up
or wound a punch while turning around, but Black caught
him with a kick, and Black sat down next to Priest,
who has fallen down, and Black said it looked like
(36:19):
they were getting somewhere now, and he mentioned something about
how only one of them was standing, and he wished
Priest a happy birthday. All right, So Tiffany versus Jade
versus and I has already talked about, I mean again
fourteen minutes beyond the terrible botch, I mean, it's just
just just horrific, which is just what it is. The
(36:42):
other other than that, I mean, it was the right finish. Okay,
it's the right call to have Tiffany Stratton win this
to face Stephanie of a care at Crown Jewel. I
made this point on my raw review as well, and
stand by it. Or it was a Friday my mail bag,
whatever it was. Still it's the right call. You have
(37:03):
young champion versus young champion kind of the faces one
of the future faces of the company, potentially both women.
It's a kind of a signal that they're going youth,
They're looking to their younger stars and that's exactly how
you build the company. That's exactly how you build that
(37:24):
X generation and that's a great idea. It's also going
to produce also the best match. I mean, let's be honest,
it's going to produce the best, just quality wrestling match.
If that's what you're looking for. It's just going to
Jade certainly wouldn't have done it. Naya, for all of
her improvements, is just not capable of that kind of
match that people are looking for. So I think it
was a great move, and Stephanie versus Tiffany is going
(37:46):
to be a great crown Jewel match. It just can't
not be. So I'm looking forward to that one, despite
the fact there's absolutely nothing on the line that it
completely invented championship. So all right, let's touch quickly on
Monday Night Raw. Let's go to that. I'll just breeze
through it. If you already forgot what happened, as you
(38:09):
likely listen to this before Monday Night Raw tomorrow night
on the twenty ninth of September, but this is what
happened last week to catch you up. We had Cody
Rhodes come out and Seth Rollins came out quickly with
Braun and Bron and Bron and Paul Hayman, and they
(38:30):
had a bit of an interaction and Cody said Rollins
changed his life by agreeing to face an opponent he
didn't know wrestle Mania, and Rollins took issue with Cody
claiming he's the quarterback if you forgot about that part
and leading WW into the future, and Rollins said, it's
not a two man show on the Alpha, and yeah,
(38:54):
I mean that's kind of kind of it. The first
was Penta Eric and Ivar taking on Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods,
and Graysa Waller in a no DQ match that ented
with Penta Eric and Ivar beating them in ten minutes exactly.
We had the next match of Let's See Boy a
(39:16):
lot of backstage stuff on Monday, Bailey versus Roxanne Perez,
with Bailey beating Roxanne in ten minutes and forty seconds,
and after the match, Bailey rolled Perez to the floor
and Valkyria came in the ring if you remember this
and applauded Bailey and hugged her, but Bailey shoved her
off because Bailey's going through some kind of identity crisis
and then we had Russev versus j D McDonough. This match,
(39:43):
what was the finish? I can't remember this. Oh, Russev
beats JD. Look at the timestep ten and a half
minutes where Russev beats him and Dom does not help.
He could have but he didn't. So it's building to
Russev and Dom for the Intercontinental title, likely at the
(40:03):
PL but could also be easily a mon A Night
raw match. Jayoso took on La Night here with Jay
Uso beating La Knight in nine minutes and fifteen seconds
and the finish. After the match, Jay exited the ring,
headed to the stage and Jimmy Uso comes out. Jimmy
does not get help from Jay and.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
That was that.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So Jay continues to potentially be on a heel turn.
Potentially not for sure, but we'll see. We then had
let's see, oh my gosh, lots of backstage stuff Maxine Dupre.
I'll just skip over that. Ria Ripley versus Osca. This
match went seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds with Ria beating
(40:48):
Osca after she rolled her up to get the three count.
But after the match, that's when we had a turn,
an official turn that we all saw coming, but it
officially happened with Oscar spraying missed in Ripley's eyes, and
we had you know, Kyrie beat down Rhea and then
EO Sky tries to come out and reason with Osca
(41:11):
and Osca turns on EO and then gives the orders
to her lapdog of Kyrie to attack Eo and that
was it. So yeah, the women main evented raw and
SmackDown this week for the for the company. And again
I don't think that's by accident, that's by design. I
think that's absolutely by design for the for w W
(41:33):
E N T k O. So solid week in the company. Yes,
the botch, the batch of the botch, but I think
that there's more to the week than that if we
take it as a whole, I mean, I can see
a little bit more of the picture and you can
as well of where they're headed for Crown Jewel and beyond.
As we really start to dive into the deep fall here,
(41:54):
we can start to even look at Survivors series and
dare I say Royal Rumble and potential winners there. That's
a fun conversation to be had, and we're not too
far away from having that conversation, believe it or not,
So that will do it. Everybody. I appreciate your patience
with me or you're consistent listening. I know that this
podcast is going on for I got eleven years now,
(42:16):
which is kind of crazy, and I'm trying to expand
it the best way i can. But my personal time,
like yours, is limited. So all right, everybody, thank you.
I'll be back on Tuesday for the Monday Night raw review,
and I hope you'd joined me then. If not, and
you're just look, oh my god, the ads, you hear
them every nine to ten minutes, well, go to the
Patreon side of things Patreon dot com, slash ww podcast
(42:39):
and join us ad free for one dollar a month.
Of course, you can go higher than that for more perks,
but that is the one to do. And one final
thing if you've gone this long, well, we have a
couple openings if you are interested in doing NXT or
WWE after Dark, which can be about anything and it's
an adult version of the show. So if you're interested
(43:00):
in after Dark or NXT, the floor is yours. Send
me an email at mailbag at w W podcast dot
com and tell me interested and send me like a
five minute sample of the audio. Five minutes, it's all
I ask, just so I can hear what you sound like.
Give me, you know, kind of like your version of
(43:20):
what the show would sound like in a very very
quick snip and let me know mailbag at w podcast
dot com. Thanks everybody, we'll talk next time.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to
subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss
a show, or head to wwepodcast dot com and for
all of these shows add free head over to Patreon
dot com slash WWE podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Until then, we'll see you next time.
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to
the WWE podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The show, the one that everybody wants me god St
three sixteen.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So we Your ass is my yn you can acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
All right, everybody, Welcome to the show. It is Sunday,
the twenty eight day of September twenty twenty five. And Yes,
we're gonna talk wrestling. This is what the show is about.
We're gonna talk this week in w W. Yes, we're
gonna talk about that botch, that horrible botch in a
long line of recent botches in the women's division, that's
not good. If you remember the Becky Lynch one just
(00:55):
a month or so ago, uh, that was just horrific.
This one was no better on SmackDown. And we'll get
into if you care about such things, we'll get into
who's to blame, the different scenarios of what could have happened.
We'll talk about Seth Rollins and the Vision and Cody
Rhodes and Paul Hayman and Randy Orton and all the
rest as we build towards Crown Jewel. In just a
(01:17):
couple of weeks, Crown Jewels only a couple weeks away,
we will get to all of that. I'd like to
invite you first to join us at the Patreon side
of things. If you want to go ad free and
get yourself an ad free stream of this show at
patreon dot com slash ww podcast. A dollar a month
is all you need to get started to get that
ad free experience. Now, before we get there, though, quick
(01:40):
quick mention. Okay, I have to mention this because baseball
season is officially concluded. And if you don't like baseball,
if you're just like, oh my gosh, shut up, I
want to hear wrestling, then just give forward ahead a
couple of minutes. But for those that care, you know,
and you're into baseball, well, the MLB season, regular season,
it's come to a close. And if you care about
the New York's sports teams, well, both of them came
(02:02):
down to tie breakers and neither team won the tiebreaker. However,
the difference is for the New York Mets, who have
just basically been watching a car crash in slow motion.
They no longer qualify for the postseason, which is really incredible.
They lost the tiebreakers to the Reds. They actually lost
their game. If they had just won their game today,
(02:22):
they would have been able to make it the playoffs.
They didn't. So I apologize on behalf of I don't
really apologize, but I do feel sorry for the Met fans.
I do as a Yankee fan. I never understood the
hate for the Mets. Never did. I don't have any
ill will, even though I'm told I'm supposed to as
a Yankee fan. I'm told I'm supposed to hate met fans,
I really just don't. So I do truly feel for
(02:44):
you guys who have just watched a team with one
of the highest parallel records ever collapse in grand fashion,
in a very slow motion car crash. Unlike oh seven
or eight, where it kind of happened really quickly. It
was like seventeen up or games up with seventeen to
go when they lost the division and lost the playoff spot.
This was one that just kind of happened since the
(03:06):
end of June, just kind of slowly, you know, trickling
off into oblivion. And you guys lost by one game.
All you had to do is win today and you didn't.
And for the Yankees, hey we've got the Red Sox
on Tuesday night. There's no guarantee there. I am a
little bit concerned about that because here's the thing with
the Yankee fans, who are all just they're all gloating
(03:27):
right now about they've won eleven of thirteen, they've won,
you know, thirty of the last forty five, whatever the
case is. You got to remember, we beat up on
bad teams. We do not do well against good teams.
The reason we have the record we do and we
nearly won the division. Had we had the tiebreaker against
the Blue Jays, we would have won the division. The
reason that we don't or we do have a good
(03:49):
record and one of the best records in baseball, is
simply because our back end of our schedule we beat
up on bad teams very very well. We are very
skilled at beating up on bad teams. But when it
comes to any good team, any team above five hundred,
we do not do well. So with that said, I
do have a bit of concern on the wild card
(04:09):
game that is gonna the series. It's gonna be a
best of three, it's all you gotta win two games,
and it's all gonna be at Yankee Stadium, which is
a plus, and I'm sure we'll have freed going and
I don't have any guarantee that we're going to win this.
I could see us getting swept. I could see us sweeping.
I could see this coming down to, yeah, Red Sox
and three Yankees and three. I mean, it's a very,
very very quick series. It's about as quick as the
series can be. And I really don't have an inkling.
(04:32):
I mean, if I was to guess, I would say
Red Sox win in three. Yankees will lose Game one,
win Game two, lose Game three. That's kind of been
their mo throughout the entire regular season, is they they
lose two out of three to good teams. So in
some form of fashion, either we'll get swept two games,
or will at least bring it to three games and
get swept in or lose in three. That's my guess.
(04:55):
But I mean, who the hell knows all of the
possible scenarios around the table it comes to such a
short series in Yankee Stadium. Yankees are unpredictable, but we
do not do well against good teams. And the Red
Sox are I think a good team, they're not outstanding.
And for the met fans, well, I guess we'll see
you in twenty twenty six. Yeah, I do feel for you.
That's brutal. It's got to be horrible to be a
(05:16):
Mets fan. They just I mean, I don't know how
you do it. I really don't. But all right, that's
enough baseball. So hopefully for those of you that skipped
ahead and said, oh my god, just get to wrestling, well,
here's your wrestling. Okay, let's get to the botch that
seems to be the hot topic. But grudgingly, I'm sure
for Tiffany, Jade and Naya well, I'm sure just I mean,
(05:36):
nobody wants to talk about it there obviously in WWE
cut it out of their highlights on their YouTube channel. Clearly,
I mean I would too, So I mean, I don't
really don't want to spend too much time on this.
Botches happen, Okay, I'm understanding not an easy business, dangerous business.
There's a lot more to it than people really understand.
(05:58):
And I get that this botch was exceedingly bad because
it was so obvious. Sometimes botches happen and it just
actually goes under the radar. There's I bet you there's
botches that even the most ardent wrestling fan just it
just goes unnoticed because as a skilled performer, you know
how to kind of work around it to make it
(06:19):
look like that was supposed to happen, or it makes
it look like that it didn't happen at all, and
you can pull some you know, magicianry, you know, some
kind of sorcery. And this one, though, is it's something
you just can't save. And so this championship match, which
otherwise I thought went fairly smooth. You know, you had
Naya pin I'm sorry, you had Jade try to pin Naya,
(06:43):
and then you had Tiffany Stratton drop kicking Jade off
of Nya to try to get the victory. And that's
where this happens. And then you see the referee go
one two and Nya doesn't kick out, and the referee makes,
you know, one two, and then does the typical you know,
near fall, Except the problem is that her shoulders were
all on the bat. Now, what should the referee have done?
(07:04):
Probably just counted the three, But I think there's a
couple of scenarios that could have happened here. One, Nya
was supposed to kick out and she didn't. H Two,
Jade was supposed to break up the pinfall and didn't,
which I actually think is less likely. And maybe there's
an alternative that I don't know, but that's kind of
the only two options I think. And instead, you know,
(07:26):
we had Tiffany just drag Nia over hit the prettiest
moon Salt and one two three, and I'm sure Nia
is thinking to herself like, well, what you know, what
the hell? This should have been a three count? Why
is the referee going for two? And Nya is right
that it was going to be Tiffany who got the victory.
(07:48):
But I think either the prettiest Moonsalt wasn't supposed to
end it, or it was supposed to be a drop
kick pushing Jade off, and then that was actually supposed
to be a one two three. So is it on
Nya or is it on the referee? Because I don't
know what the original finish was supposed to be. I
know we're all trying to pile on Nya. We are
(08:09):
all trying to pile on her, and is the are
the odds are that it's probably Nia's fault? Probably? Probably,
but the referee also is at fault. Even if Naya
is at falt, her shoulders on the mat, she is
supposed to lose anyway, and it's supposed to be one
two three, So either the referee thought it was supposed
to be the prettiest moonsalt that ended it, or she
(08:30):
screwed up and it was actually supposed to be that spot.
Either way, Tiffany was winning. It's not as if she
was counting the wrong person down. The result would have
still been the same. But just for the integrity of
the match, you gotta count the three. You gotta count
the three. So I mean, I actually I do kind
of put the blame somewhat significantly on the referee too.
(08:51):
I mean, you can't do that. I know she's not
trying to screw up the spot, but if she had. Here,
here's the thing. If you're the referee and you count
the three and the talent is not kicking out, that's
on the talent. Then it's squarely on the talent. Even
if you think that the spot is supposed to be
Tiffany hitting the moon salt. The idea is, though that
(09:13):
Tiffany still winning, she was still counting Tiffany down or
on Naya, so Jade wasn't involved at all, But the
referee should have still counted the three. Again, shouldn't Iya
have kicked out? Maybe if that was the spot. We
don't know what the finish was supposed to be. We
don't know if it was that or the moon salt
and then that, you know, it looked like Tiffany improvised,
(09:37):
all right. So if Tiffany improvised and just drag Nya
over and hit the prettiest moon salt one two three,
then then it's you know, then sure like that it
might have been on Tiffany to hit that spot. But again,
the referee, I think is the one to put a
lot of the blame on here, and Naya jack certainly too.
(09:57):
I mean, Nia Jackson. Was she supposed to kick out?
I don't know. I don't know. But it looked bad.
No matter how you slice it, it looked bad. The
people were booing as they should. It was bad. Was
it as bad as Becky Lynch selling a kick that
was three feet from her face or when she was
(10:19):
getting her head slammed into the announced table where it
was not even anywhere close It was like comically comically
far away. No, I mean, in some respects. No, those
were just some of the worst botches I've ever seen.
This was bad and just kind of added to the
pile lately of the unfortunate to just egregious botches by
(10:41):
the women's division over the last month. And well, you know,
it's not gonna hurt the women's division as as a whole,
but it just it adds if you're looking for an
argument for women to get less time or to stay
where they are. You know, if you feel that way,
and there are people that feel that way, I'm sure
whether people think it doesn't people think that those kinds
(11:03):
of people exist there don't. The idea though, is that, yes,
this is evidence for those people to use as a
weapon against the argument to push women forward, to see
you see how sloppy the women are. Do I feel
that way? No, I mean, it is a pattern now
of the women having egregiously bad botches, But I think,
(11:23):
you know, I still believe that the women certainly have
come a long way and all the rest of it,
and I'm all for it. But anyway that I wanted
to bring that up first because that's at the forefront
of everybody's mind this week. It'll go quickly because we
are all the human beings in this three dimensional world.
In twenty twenty five, which means our attention spans are
four and a half seconds. So luckily for Tiffany and
(11:44):
Naya and the referee which can't remember her name, but
they will all be absolved of this because time and
our attention spans today are nothing. So alrighty, let's get
to it, though. We'll talk a little bit more about SmackDown.
If you want the full smack Down review, as I
say every single week, you can listen to Amanda's review.
Did a great job this week talking about SmackDown and
(12:06):
gave her very candid thoughts as she does. And let's
get to it. So Paul Hayman was in the ring
and he was booed by fans, and he said that
there was so much to talk about, but he only
had They only had two hours, he said. Everybody who
watched WWE Unreal knows that the people at a Gorilla
were panicking over the possibility of him speaking for two hours.
(12:28):
But he said he wouldn't do that all right. First
of all, Hayman, listen, I love you man. Is there
any semblance of emotional attachment anymore? Does does w W
even care? I mean, they're talking about the show that
goes behind the curtain of the show on the show,
this is can we not? Can we not do that?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
This is?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It is such a you know what it's it's so
disrespectful to the business again, and I sound like I'm
an old timer who's been in the ring. Of course
I had never stepped foot in the ring, but that
doesn't mean I can't have respect for the business and
understand what the mystery of the business used to mean
for the business. Like as a fan for thirty years,
(13:13):
I think I can speak pretty clearly on that and
have an opinion that has a little bit of weight. Anyway,
this is I don't know this TKO version of WWE is.
It's very emblematic of how Paul Hayman came out here,
and I would imagine he with all the stroke he
has probably agreed to this and wasn't told no, you're
(13:34):
going to say this. He might have come up with
it himself. I don't see the point in it. I
know it's a small thing, but when you continue to
just remind people during the show that what you're watching
as a show and it's not real, you just see
that unreal everything I'm about to say it's all stage. Guys.
What the hell is going on this again? This TKO
(13:55):
version of we throws it has one thousand percent focused
on just maximizing the amount of money they can make,
and they're unapologizic, unapologetic about it, thrown away any semblance
of respect for the business into the toilet, and at
(14:17):
times it's been embarrassing, and they've basically told the fans
that you know, you don't like it. Then, you know,
even Triple H I think was a spokesperson. You know,
the executive is probably speaking through Triple H prior to
WrestleMania this year of him saying, hey, you know, just
basically shut up and enjoy the show, and it's just
you know, oh, okay, I guess we'll pull our money.
Then we're not allowed to speak. I didn't know I
(14:39):
had to purchase a ticket to have an opinion on something. Oh,
I don't know. This corporate version of TKO it certainly
has had its net negative effects. Yeah, versus having the
McMahon family owning it. But regardless of what you think
of Vince McMahon, just from purely macro view, I don't
(15:02):
care who it was owning it previously. Just the previous
administration and how the company feels and the things that
they did versus what TKO has done to the company.
And there have been some positives, but we're starting to
see the longer term results of a company that doesn't
understand or no wrestling owning a wrestling company. We're seeing
(15:25):
what their priorities are. And it's not about protecting any
kind of kfabe. It's in fact pulling back the curtain
even during the show. It's about bringing in celebrities and
making sure that you know, they maximize every square inch
of their canvas, of their tables, eventually, of the tights
(15:46):
and the garments of the the the wrestlers, making sure
that the sponsors can purchase that telling the audience, Mark
Shapiro telling the crowd or the in an interview, Hey,
we're not pricing for families. In fact, the prices are
gonna go even higher. I mean, this is it's in
(16:06):
insane to think about where we used to be and
where we've come here, and we're all just we're all
just accepting it. I don't know how people afford to
go to events. I don't know, And God bless you
if you can or you're just willing to to, you know,
dip into some savings or dip into your your checking
account or whatever, or you're just or you're fortunate enough,
(16:28):
or money's not an issue, which is you know, not
the case for most of us, then God bless you.
I mean, seriously, you do whatever you want with you
with your money. But the only way this is ever
gonna change, as I'll continue to hammer home, is if
we as on a larger scale, tell the w W
E no, screw this and screw you. You know, we'll watch.
(16:53):
And you know that that's harder to do than not
attending an event if it comes to your city, because
we're gonna watch, We're gonna watch on you, We'll watch
on you know, peacocker. If you've purchased the ESPN plus whatever,
then I understand it. I'm not going to stop watching
wrestling either. But the best way you can deflate these
ticket prices is to not buy them. Stop selling out
(17:15):
the arenas, stop allowing them to gouge you for the
money that they're charging. And I don't blame them actually
in one sense for increasing the ticket prices, because I'm
sure they're trying to say how high can we go
before the you know, where's that threshold where we start
to see a decrease in ticket sales, but also we're
maximizing how much we can charge where the consumers willing
(17:38):
to pay. They're trying to find that high water mark.
That's what they're doing right now, and we're all somehow
just complacent with it, and we shouldn't be. We shouldn't be.
But it's a voluntary exchange. That's the thing too. It's
a capitalist market. Love it or don't, it's not the
conversation here. We aren't capitalist market, which means they can
(18:01):
charge what they want up until the point that the
consumer says, no, I'm not doing that anymore. And to
much of the families who want to go but are
priced out of it, dismay, the high watermark hasn't been
found yet. I mean, just look at your local ticket
prices for wrestling, even if it's an untelevised show. They
(18:23):
have gone up exponentially, and it does stuck for the
rest of us that have families that want to bring
families and you're like, ough, is this worth taking this hit?
And you have to think about it. But they're trying
to maximize their money and the best way we can
bring it down is to give them the finger not
go to these live events. Stop going if you want
(18:46):
to see these ticket prices decrease, and we need to
do that at scale. That's what needs to happen. These
events need to stop selling out their plees, need to
stop selling out their Saturday in main events, need to
stop selling out their wrestle pollus that that wasn't even
worth half of the price of the admission of the
ticket needs to stop selling out. Embarrass them. They need
(19:10):
to be embarrassed on a national scale for them to
respond to the ticket prices. So there, there's as much
as I love we, they are still a company trying
to make as much money from your pocket and mine
as they can. And until we say nah, yeah, I
(19:30):
know you're coming to town. I know, yeah, that's cool,
but no, I think I'll set it home. Until that
happens at scale, guys, the ticket prices are going to
keep going up because people are still willing to pay.
And I think a lot of that has to do
with maybe FOMO, or a lot of it has to
do with the way you can pay for tickets now,
(19:52):
which is financing them through a firm or another third party,
a third party finance institution. You can just finance. You
can find this pretty much anything these days, which makes
it more tempting because you're like, oh, well, it's only
sixty bucks a month for the next three month, six months, whatever.
That is tempting. I understand it. I fall into that
(20:13):
trap sometimes too. Amazon is killing me with that because
I've got a firm and it's like, oh, well, I
need to do golf club set. It's only like two
hundred bucks for the next five months. You know, I
get it. I understand. So the financing options that are
available to the tickets or your own card or PayPal,
how are you paying? It makes it seem like it's
(20:34):
not as bad. But all right, there's my rent, there's
my soapbox for how we fight back. Okay, so let's
continue here. My goodness, we got a Bookert on commentary,
but at least Michael Cole was there to balance him out. Bookert,
he's just I've said that before. He's from my taste.
(20:57):
He's tough on commentary. But Hayman mocked Cody Rhoades by
asking the fans what they want to talk about, and
an OTC Champ broke out. Haymon said he would love
to talk about Roman reigns, but it's disrespectful to speak
of the injured. That's funny, and Hayman asked if they
should talk about bron Breaker, adding that Breaker will headline
(21:17):
WrestleMania for five to ten years, and he asked if
they should talk about the conspiracy theories and rumors regarding
brock Lesner, and Haymon was interrupted by music here, they
need to kind of back off this Breaker headlining WrestleMania
for five to ten years, saying, I mean, has there
ever been any star ever that has been a rookie
coming up? You know, it was kind of hot streak,
(21:38):
but that has been anointed by the company overtly by
saying he's going to headline WrestleMania for the next five
to ten years. So you're telling me he's the next
Roman reigns. Really, I mean, I like Bron Breaker. I
think he's got a hell of a future. But we're
(21:59):
talking about the elite section of the elite category of
people that do that. We're talking about a goal that
point zero zero one percent or less of wrestlers that
have ever or will ever exist will achieve. That's a
(22:20):
hell of a bar, a hell of an expectation, almost
an unfairly high expectation to label a guy with and
and task him with. If I was Breaker, I'd be like, hey, thanks, yo, guys, listen, yeah,
I appreciate that. I mean, I'll never say this out loud,
but you know I appreciate that. But you know, come on,
(22:43):
let's live in I like to live in the realm
called reality and being a realist here. It ain't gonna happen.
It's just not. Will bron Breaker be involved in a
main event? Yes, and if he does do the next
five to ten years to bring this up is because
it's been said over and over and over and over
and over.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
All.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Right, moving on, So Cody Rhodes comes out and he
got a big ovation, and he said he made a
mistake when he was referring to Hayman as a goon.
Cody said, Hayman is one of the smartest man he knows.
And Cody said Hayman loves to stir it up, and
he has the entire locker room stirred up. Cody asked
if Hayman to tell him about Brock, and Cody had
(23:26):
the production crew put a shot of Hayman introducing Lesner.
At Russell Palouza on the big screen, and Cody asked
if that looked like the face of someone taking part
in a one night thing. Cody asked if he was
talking to an oracle, a wise man, or an advocate,
and he said, you're talking to the goat. And Hayman said,
Cody and everyone else knows that everyone is in danger
(23:50):
when Lesner is present, and Cody turned and saw bron
Breaker and Bronson Rita at ringside, and Haymon told Cody
that Lesner wasn't at the show show and he said,
what makes you think you're not in danger right now?
And that's when Cody and Reid come up, and Cody
said he keeps hearing that Breaker is a WrestleMania main
event waiting to happen. And he said he'd bet that
(24:13):
Hayman tells Reid the same thing. And Cody said he
would have killed to be a Hayman guy when he
was Breaker's age, and Cody said he grew up the
son of a booker. He grew up around people like Hayman,
and Cody said he studied vern Ganya, Bill Watson, Eric
Bischoff and he saw it all. He said, you guys
(24:34):
could always tell what they were doing, what they were
doing it for, and why they were doing it. And
Cody said, no one has figured out Hayman, who smiled
and was standing on the apron, and that's when essentially
he's you know, he started to throw punches and they
ended up getting the best of Cody. Randy Orton comes
(24:55):
out to a big ovation, big ovation and he ends
up rkoing Reid and standing side by side with Cody Rhodes.
So fun now, fun little uh segment here with Cody
and Randy Orton, and I think it was. Yeah, it
(25:16):
was a really good start, great start to the show. Actually,
couldn't ask for a better kind of put together opening
segment that would lead to something bigger. So no issues here.
Nice to see Randy Orton involved and uh yeah, Okay,
the Street Profits take on Mizz and Carmela Hayes for
a shot at the WWE tag team titles. And this
(25:39):
match ends with Carmelo Hayes and Angela Dawkins beating the
Mizz and uh Once's Ford and angel Dawkins beating the
Biz and Carlo Hayes. So they're gonna get a shot
at the tag team titles and it ended with Dawkins
hitting a spinebuster on the Miz. Ford followed up with
a top rope splash and cover the Mizz out the
(26:00):
three count now proud of that though, we had the
typical Miz tagging in as Hayes was going to go
for his finish and he grabbed his hand and the
mis asked what he was doing. And even at the
end of the match, when Hayes could have saved the Miz,
he didn't. He opted to just watch. He was a
spectator when he could have been a participant. And I
(26:21):
think that kind of tells us where we're at with
the Miz and Carmelo Hayes, which is at the very end.
We're at the end. We're at the finale of this
tag team. It probably will officially implode in the next
couple of weeks. How could it not. So we all
know where this is going to end, and it's a
Miss is a heel, Carmelo is a babyface, and that's
(26:42):
pretty much it. I think I don't know how this
ends any other way really, all right, Well, so the
Street Profits get a tag team title match again. They
don't excite me. They have been frozen in time. For
the last several years, not even weeks, months, years, this
team has been frozen and I will continue continue to
(27:05):
hammer it home until they do something significant with this team,
which means break them up. That's how you make this significant.
I understand that at any given moment, at any given time,
just at a just kind of a base equilibrium, that
WW is always thin on tag teams. I don't care.
This team is long overdue. Year's overdue to break up
(27:30):
and bring Angela Dawkins into the forefront. Hey, l I
mean sorry montes Ford, and hey, if Angela Dawkins somehow
surprises us and all the better. I hope he does.
But montes Ford isn't getting any younger, and there's something
there that we need to find out what it is
beyond him in a tag team. So Jade Cargo was
(27:50):
interviewed backstage and Jade said that, oh, she's sick of
Tiffany and Naya, so it'll feel so good when she
becomes It's champion later in the show. And that's when
Stephanie mccuorrer or Vicare comes out and in the picture
and said that well, Jade told Stephanie that a storm
(28:11):
would be coming her way at Crown Jewel, So enlightening,
isn't it. Jade is just she's a prophet. She's just
so eloquent, well spoken, we understand who and what she
is through and through. Jade is just a very well rounded, deep,
multi layered character, is she not. I mean, we know
(28:35):
so much about her, we're so connected to her emotionally
because we feel her, we can relate to her. Now,
that's what WW want us to say, and I'm sure
Jade thinks we should say at this point, I will
hammer this home too. When are they going to let
her sink or swim? Or they know she's going to
(28:55):
sink and they won't let it happen, So they just
give her two sentences and a tagline to say. I
mean she's if they ever put her in a title
position again, I mean, she's just going to keep getting
rejected the fans unless she's a heel, which that's another
conversation to be had. But if she's in the currently
(29:18):
constituted character of a babyface, the fans are going to
continue to push back. They're not going to be I
don't believe very interested in seeing Jade Cargill as champion
despite the fact that she's been here for a couple
of years. Okay, I don't want to go on a
Jade tirade because I want to see her succeed, but
they just they aren't. Either Jade's not progressing and putting
(29:40):
in the work or the WWE just is saying, hey,
she's putting in the work, but we still don't trust her, right,
It's one of the two. Moving on, we have United
States Champion Women's United States Champion Julia and Keana James
take on Meechen and b Fab and as expected, the
crowd was kind of quiet early on on this Late
in the match, Meechen hit James eat defeat and James
(30:02):
stumbled her into the corner where Julia tagged in. Juliet
hit Meeting with the knee strike and then finished her
with a Northern Lights bomb. And it was a ten
minute match, which is actually a decently timed match given
the competitors and where they've been over the last several months.
So Women's Champion Juliet and Keana James win, and then
(30:23):
Cole spoke about how he felt bad from eaching because
of the way James fell into her corner after being
hit with eat defeat. So yeah, which again, Hey, I
don't know what this is going to lead to. I
don't under I don't know if this is gonna this
is actually being positioned for some kind of women's four
way match at at Crown Jewel, perhaps in Perth, that
(30:45):
I mean, that could be what this is for. I
highly doubt this is going to have any kind of
reverberations for the Women's Tag Team Championship. But there, all right,
So let's see here we have Charlotte fell On, Alexa
Bliss confronted in their dressing room by Zaria and soul Ruka,
(31:06):
and Zaria said it was time for her and Rucker
to get a shot at the titles. Flair said teams
were waiting in line and they just hadn't earned it.
Zaria was said that was funny coming from Flair, and
Ruger was apologetic. Flair told Bliss she was proud of her,
after Bliss told him to prove themselves and get in line. Okay,
this is fine. Much more to say about that. Okay.
(31:30):
We had Jermactyre stand in the ring with a boot
on his foot and he spoke about his history and
he said it was the same arena he should have
entered as WWE champion. McIntyre said he's not champion because
of Cody Rhodes, and he said he could see in
Cody's eyes that he had him beaten. And he complained
(31:51):
about how the referee took six seconds to count pinfall,
and he asked if the referees work for WWE or
for Cody, and he gave the referee because he has
a family to feed, but he blames Cody Rhodes. And
Nick All just comes out and said he saw some
things from McIntyre's perspective, but he told him not to
make excuses because he's better than that, and he said
(32:13):
he saw mcatyre kick the broadcast table at Russell Palooza
and McIntyre didn't get the walking boot from w medical.
All this said the referee's decision was final and he
was done, and he made his exit, and McIntyre continued
to complain. Jacob Fattuu comes out tell him to shut
his ass up, and he called him a peg leg.
They were grabbing the mic back and forth from one another,
(32:36):
and Fatu said McIntyre must have forgotten that he's all
gas and no breaks and that's when McIntyre ends up,
it was, oh, it's Glasgow Kiss. He hit someone of
the Glasgow Kiss and Fatu kind of sold it and
then turned and superkick McIntyre, took the boot that was
laying there, or took the boot off of McIntyre and
(32:58):
then hit him in the head with the boot. Okay,
I mean this was I think fine a good moment
for Jacob Fatu. The analysis I'm reading here that says
that they lost the crowd somehow, I don't think they
really lost them. They were just waiting for something to happen.
There's kind of a lot of things happening here, but
(33:21):
Jacobatu and Drew is not a bad place to go
if they want to go there. I think I still
believe and will continue to believe that Drew should be
involved in the title picture and win the Damn Belt.
But they have a PLI to bill to in two weeks,
So Drew versus Jacoba two is fine, but I think
Drew should win again. This is an unannounced match, but
(33:42):
Drew should win that match that's unannounced and put himself
back in the Damn title picture. I know Jacob Fatu
is kind of the hot new hand he's younger. I
get that he's a fresh face, but still Drew is
by far the more polished performer, the more well rounded performer.
The one that deserves the belt is Drew and I
(34:06):
just it's criminal how he hasn't been able to w W.
He hasn't been able to find time for him to
have a long run with it. So we had Tiffany
Stratton and looking in the mirror backstage and let's just
move on here. The next match, Sammy Zain versus Javon
(34:26):
Evans for the US Championship. What a great match this is,
I mean, just really good, fun open challenge here with
Sammy z Ain beating Javon Evans in ten minutes and
twenty seconds. Oh man, I mean the finish was was awesome.
We had Evans catch Zaye on the top rope with
the Hurricane rona. Evans covered Zane for a near fall
and Zayne came back with an exploder suplex and followed
(34:49):
up with a halluva kicked attempt, but Evans cut him
off with a flying knee. Went for a top rope
corkscrewed dive, but Zane moved and Evans avoided a halluva
kicked and hit the double rope jump into an og cutter,
which looked great. I mean, the boy, it's it's hard
to get believable near falls nowadays, even at plees or
big events. If it can happen on a regular old
(35:13):
plane SmackDown, you've done something. And that was a great
just a great near fall there, and Evans performed then
a he jumped over the rope and rolled through and
he you know, he eventually gets hit with the Halluva
kick and then the Blue thunder That was interesting that
Zayne reversed them. I have no problem with that whatsoever.
Don't consider that a complaint. Consider that a compliment, that
(35:35):
Zaine hitting the Halluva kick and then the Blue thunderbomb,
which is typically used as some kind of like a
transition or signature move that never ends a match. That
was great, just just fun, hell of a fun match.
Evans is what twenty one years old? Man? Oh man,
this guy has got the world in front of him,
all right. Continuing on, Damian Priest approached Kate Wilson. That
(35:58):
thing that happened backstage, so that that's you know, we'll
continue here. We did have Black stand behind Priest and
asked if he was looking for him. Priest wound up
or wound a punch while turning around, but Black caught
him with a kick, and Black sat down next to Priest,
who has fallen down, and Black said it looked like
(36:19):
they were getting somewhere now, and he mentioned something about
how only one of them was standing, and he wished
Priest a happy birthday. All right, So Tiffany versus Jade
versus and I has already talked about, I mean again
fourteen minutes beyond the terrible botch, I mean, it's just
just just horrific, which is just what it is. The
(36:42):
other other than that, I mean, it was the right finish. Okay,
it's the right call to have Tiffany Stratton win this
to face Stephanie of a care at Crown Jewel. I
made this point on my raw review as well, and
stand by it. Or it was a Friday my mail bag,
whatever it was. Still it's the right call. You have
(37:03):
young champion versus young champion kind of the faces one
of the future faces of the company, potentially both women.
It's a kind of a signal that they're going youth,
They're looking to their younger stars and that's exactly how
you build the company. That's exactly how you build that
(37:24):
X generation and that's a great idea. It's also going
to produce also the best match. I mean, let's be honest,
it's going to produce the best, just quality wrestling match.
If that's what you're looking for. It's just going to
Jade certainly wouldn't have done it. Naya, for all of
her improvements, is just not capable of that kind of
match that people are looking for. So I think it
was a great move, and Stephanie versus Tiffany is going
(37:46):
to be a great crown Jewel match. It just can't
not be. So I'm looking forward to that one, despite
the fact there's absolutely nothing on the line that it
completely invented championship. So all right, let's touch quickly on
Monday Night Raw. Let's go to that. I'll just breeze
through it. If you already forgot what happened, as you
(38:09):
likely listen to this before Monday Night Raw tomorrow night
on the twenty ninth of September, but this is what
happened last week to catch you up. We had Cody
Rhodes come out and Seth Rollins came out quickly with
Braun and Bron and Bron and Paul Hayman, and they
(38:30):
had a bit of an interaction and Cody said Rollins
changed his life by agreeing to face an opponent he
didn't know wrestle Mania, and Rollins took issue with Cody
claiming he's the quarterback if you forgot about that part
and leading WW into the future, and Rollins said, it's
not a two man show on the Alpha, and yeah,
(38:54):
I mean that's kind of kind of it. The first
was Penta Eric and Ivar taking on Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods,
and Graysa Waller in a no DQ match that ented
with Penta Eric and Ivar beating them in ten minutes exactly.
We had the next match of Let's See Boy a
(39:16):
lot of backstage stuff on Monday, Bailey versus Roxanne Perez,
with Bailey beating Roxanne in ten minutes and forty seconds,
and after the match, Bailey rolled Perez to the floor
and Valkyria came in the ring if you remember this
and applauded Bailey and hugged her, but Bailey shoved her
off because Bailey's going through some kind of identity crisis
and then we had Russev versus j D McDonough. This match,
(39:43):
what was the finish? I can't remember this. Oh, Russev
beats JD. Look at the timestep ten and a half
minutes where Russev beats him and Dom does not help.
He could have but he didn't. So it's building to
Russev and Dom for the Intercontinental title, likely at the
(40:03):
PL but could also be easily a mon A Night
raw match. Jayoso took on La Night here with Jay
Uso beating La Knight in nine minutes and fifteen seconds
and the finish. After the match, Jay exited the ring,
headed to the stage and Jimmy Uso comes out. Jimmy
does not get help from Jay and.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
That was that.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So Jay continues to potentially be on a heel turn.
Potentially not for sure, but we'll see. We then had
let's see, oh my gosh, lots of backstage stuff Maxine Dupre.
I'll just skip over that. Ria Ripley versus Osca. This
match went seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds with Ria beating
(40:48):
Osca after she rolled her up to get the three count.
But after the match, that's when we had a turn,
an official turn that we all saw coming, but it
officially happened with Oscar spraying missed in Ripley's eyes, and
we had you know, Kyrie beat down Rhea and then
EO Sky tries to come out and reason with Osca
(41:11):
and Osca turns on EO and then gives the orders
to her lapdog of Kyrie to attack Eo and that
was it. So yeah, the women main evented raw and
SmackDown this week for the for the company. And again
I don't think that's by accident, that's by design. I
think that's absolutely by design for the for w W
(41:33):
E N T k O. So solid week in the company. Yes,
the botch, the batch of the botch, but I think
that there's more to the week than that if we
take it as a whole, I mean, I can see
a little bit more of the picture and you can
as well of where they're headed for Crown Jewel and beyond.
As we really start to dive into the deep fall here,
(41:54):
we can start to even look at Survivors series and
dare I say Royal Rumble and potential winners there. That's
a fun conversation to be had, and we're not too
far away from having that conversation, believe it or not,
So that will do it. Everybody. I appreciate your patience
with me or you're consistent listening. I know that this
podcast is going on for I got eleven years now,
(42:16):
which is kind of crazy, and I'm trying to expand
it the best way i can. But my personal time,
like yours, is limited. So all right, everybody, thank you.
I'll be back on Tuesday for the Monday Night raw review,
and I hope you'd joined me then. If not, and
you're just look, oh my god, the ads, you hear
them every nine to ten minutes, well, go to the
Patreon side of things Patreon dot com, slash ww podcast
(42:39):
and join us ad free for one dollar a month.
Of course, you can go higher than that for more perks,
but that is the one to do. And one final
thing if you've gone this long, well, we have a
couple openings if you are interested in doing NXT or
WWE after Dark, which can be about anything and it's
an adult version of the show. So if you're interested
(43:00):
in after Dark or NXT, the floor is yours. Send
me an email at mailbag at w W podcast dot
com and tell me interested and send me like a
five minute sample of the audio. Five minutes, it's all
I ask, just so I can hear what you sound like.
Give me, you know, kind of like your version of
(43:20):
what the show would sound like in a very very
quick snip and let me know mailbag at w podcast
dot com. Thanks everybody, we'll talk next time.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to
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all of these shows add free head over to Patreon
dot com slash WWE podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Until then, we'll see you next time.
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