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Sat, July 6: On The Mat Wrestling Show Money In The Bank Preview With Gerald Bentley
Welcome in to wrestling spotlight. We're going to take a quick look. Kind of dive in to the WWE premium live event coming up this holiday weekend. Money in the bank. We'll get to see who's Mr. Money in the bank, who's Ms. Money in the bank. And they have that briefcase with the championship opportunity at any time. I'm joined by Chase from Fountain City Pro Wrestling in Kansas City, the newest member. Of the wrestling spotlight universe. We're going to have Fountain City Pro Wrestling events featured on the channel. Going to have the first two events airing over the next couple of weeks. So it's a great time to get caught up. And Chase, the third event and Justice for all coming up a week after Money in the bank. Friday July 12 at the Ball Events Center in Olathe. If you're in the Kansas City area, just give the viewers a quick preview of what's coming up at Fountain City Pro this July 12. Yeah, July 12 and Justice for all. We are going to take one more step towards crowning the first ever Fountain City Pro Champion. Got some other matches included in there with the likes of Gary Jay, War Horse, Jake Parnell. And then, of course, Fountain City Pro, the fans of Fountain City Pro's favorite. One half of Only Friends Logan Knight. So very excited to share that event with everybody. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a great atmosphere and talking about great atmospheres. You can't get a better atmosphere lately than at the WWE live events. They've been on a run since WrestleMania. Every event has just killed it. The foreign events. The one in France. Clash at the castle. My God, those were some of the most intimate crowds I've ever seen at a pro wrestling event. Money in the bank is heading out to Toronto. So another international event, although a little bit closer to home. Have you been excited with the build up to money in the bank? I have, man. It's crazy. You know, I've always been a professional wrestling fan, always kind of kept up with it. But these past two years, ever since, you know, kind of triple H dipped his toes in the, in like the head, the head chair, if you will, you know, not fully taking that over, but kind of, you know, started a couple of years ago. I've taken a big turn on going back and being a huge fan of it again. And what they've done this past year, you know, WrestleMania and LA, all the way to WrestleMania and Philly. And then now, you know, you talked about the international crowds. You cannot forget about the Puerto Rico show that they ran last year. Yeah. Backlash. Yeah. Backlash, you know, where the fans were, you know, they had the drone camera going through and the fans were just just rocking the building there. I think that was kind of a catalyst to say like, Hey, like these international crowds, they want to see more. And so them and clash the castle, just super, super excited WWE is hot right now. Very, very hot. Yeah. And not to undercut the American crowd because, yeah, night, night to WrestleMania. It was maybe 40 degrees when you factor in the windshield. And there were still 70,000 some people there after Cody won, singing along to Kingdom for three or four runs through. It was an amazing crowd, very electric atmosphere. I've covered World Series. I've covered NFL championship games, covered NBA playoffs. And the atmosphere was quite similar, actually, as an electric atmosphere. They're doing a great job. Well, let's get into this card. How about, we'll start off with the Intercontinental Championship. Gunther, the ring general, held it for 666 days. It gets knocked off by Sammy Zane in a rocky type story right at WrestleMania. Sammy Zane is going up against the second generation superstar. Braun Brieker, the next generation of the Steiners. How do you feel about this one? A lot of people have been saying that Sammy is a transitional champion. And most people thought he was going to lose the Chad Gabel. Is there a way he gets past Braun Brieker? I think so, man. I really love what they're doing with Sammy Zane in the Intercontinental title. First, I mean, I loved what they did with Gunther. They had him carry it for so long, and it brought a certain prestige back to it. Yeah, that they had tried to revitalize over the past 15, 20 years. And they finally were able to do it with Gunther. And you go back to when we were younger, the Intercontinental title was the Workhorse title. Those matches were, especially if you're really, really into professional wrestling and everything that happens from Belle to Belle, those matches for you were more entertaining than the main events were. And, you know, I think putting it on the guy like Sammy continues that trend. And so you're going to see Sammy Zane have matches to where, you know, it almost looks like he's going to lose it and not continue on. And then it goes. But I'm a little skeptical of this one. I feel like that's going to be the case with this, but Braun Brieker is just undeniable. He is, he's, he's what, you know, everybody always talks about the WWE mold, right? Like, what, what does WWE look for in a WWE superstar? And if you want to, if you want, you don't want to do much homework, Gerald, just look at Braun Brieker. That will tell you everything you need to know about what WWE considers a WWE superstar. He just oozes it. He's the mold of it. And I kind of feel like, I kind of feel like this is just an opportunity for him to look really, really good. Again, Sammy, because I think we all know that Braun has, Braun has much bigger things in his future than the Intercontinental Championship, not to undercut the Intercontinental Championship, but yeah. He's a future, he's a future world champion. Absolutely. And the guy's here in the spirit of his uncle, Big Papa, Bob Scottie Steiner. He's a genetic freak. Oh, absolutely. And he has this has been proven mathematically. He has a 103.3% chance of winning. Yep. Love that now. Out it all up, 103.3% chance of winning. It's right there. That is correct. He's got the Steiner legacy, for sure. His dad, Rick Steiner, his uncle, Scottie Steiner, he can do it all. The guy's really, really impressive. Yes. The women's money in the bank ladder match coming up. E.O. Sky, Chelsea Green, Tiffany Stratton, it's tippy time. Naomi, future star wrestling from Las Vegas Hall of Famer, Zoe Stark, and Lyra Valkiria. How do you feel about this matchup? Who's going to be the person who comes out with the briefcase? I mean, I think the natural choice is Tiffany Stratton. I mean, she seems to be the next level, next generation star. But I think we've both got to feel like the male next level, next generation star is probably not winning. Does the same whole turf for Tiffany Stratton? I don't think so. You look at the pieces of this match, what they've done. Everybody is here to make this match sell tickets, if you will. But I have a hard time picking against Tiffany Stratton. I think since she came in, she is going to be next generation's Trish Stratus, Mandy Rose. It's just, it's clockwork. She's got the look. She's got a great presence in the ring. Her character is meshing really well with the crowd. It is really, really hard to pick anybody else but Tiffany Stratton. I have some favorites. Of course, EOS guys, a huge favorite of mine. Chelsea Green will always be one of my favorite female talents. Very entertaining. Yeah, Zoe Stark is a monster. Just extremely athletic. Very, very good. And Naomi's great too. Vakira has a very bright future. But I think Saturday we're going to see Tiffany Stratton just give that huge, huge push into the future. She's got that athletic background too. She was an Olympic level gymnast. She is an absolute elite athlete. They added some major athleticism. When you get her at the top level, you got Jake Hargill at the top level. That's a lot of pure raw athleticism on display in the women's ranks in the WWE. Yes. And like I've been saying since she won the title, I think the clock is ticking on Bailey's championship reign. I think it is too. I think it is too. Which is funny because as of right now, there is, of course, anything can change on Friday. But as of right now, Bailey doesn't have a match. And that kind of throws a fork in the old, you know, whoever won the women's money in the bank would have a really, really high chance of cashing in that night. Oh, on that night, yeah. Yeah. So this is looking like it's not going to be the case on this one. So SummerSlam and Cleveland. SummerSlam and Cleveland. There you go. Not that far away. No. Let's look at the world heavyweight championship match. Damien Priest versus Seth Rollins. If Damien wins, Seth can't get another title shot. If Rollins wins, it's time for Damien to leave the Judgment Day, which seems to be on its way to happening anyways. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I love, I love Damien Priest and I love everything. It almost felt like for a little bit, you know, while there was this struggle internally in WWE and felt like Judgment Day was sizzling out. And then when Hunter, you know, fully took over the reins, he was able to kind of dig that back up and make them a strong unit again and make them be like must see TV, love what's going on with Dom and live Morgan right now. You know, and then before with with David and Ben and J.D. McDonough. Holding your tag titles now. Yeah. Yep. So just love everything that they've done. And I just can't see Damien Priest dropping it right now, but I do think that they have drug out this tension between Finn and Damien and it is. It is something that they need to pull the trigger on very soon. You know, the stipulation if if Priest wins, Rollin will never challenge for the title as long as Priest is champion. You know, those stipulations are always really funny to me because it's like, well, that's really easy to get out of. Especially if Damien loses in a couple weeks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or, you know, loses the next night on Raw or not the next night on Raw, but Monday on Raw. But yeah, my gut is still telling me that a Damien Priest will walk out victorious, but by summer slam, I think that I think that the Judgment Day will be slowly fading out. Well, just to take a different pick, I'm going to say Seth Rollins wins thanks to botched outside interference by Prince and JD McDonough. I think that something gets screwed up because Damien's been turning on him. He doesn't want Finn Balor's interference. He doesn't want JD McDonough there. He wants to do it on his own and they've interfered and helped him win a couple times. It's time they got all these little stories going on, how they're breaking up, you know, Finn's working against Dom Dom's messing around with Liv and Priest wants to be the upfront fighting champion. He doesn't want their help. I get to see some interference going wrong. Seth wins. Damien's going to leave anyways, and that lets Damien slide straight to that face role that he's kind of been pushing for. And really is more natural at anyways. I think people want to like Damien Priest. They do. He, again, like I feel like it's, you know, not in a negative way, but I think it is starting to run its course. It has been drug out a little bit. And I think that I agree with you. I think now would be the perfect time, you know, no matter if it's at Money in the Bank or it's on Raw, I think now is the time to finally pull the trigger on it. Because like I said, they've been teasing this. Finn and Damien things since the beginning of the year. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I think it's time. It's been highlighted in every championship match he's had. Yeah. Let's take a look at the men's Money in the Bank match. Main event, JU. So, Mela doesn't miss Carmella Hayes, Andrade, El Italo, Chad Gable, L.A. Knight. Yeah. Drew McIntyre. Yeah, this, this one's, this one's a little bit more difficult for me. You know, I think a lot of people, you know, the elephant in the room is Drew McIntyre. But then the other side of that is is, you know, does this punk cost Drew McIntyre Money in the Bank? So then that leaves somebody else. You know, they, L.A. Knight was literally the hottest thing in pro wrestling one year ago. Yeah. And a lot of people felt he should have won Money in the Bank last year. Is this, is this an opportunity for WWE to kind of circle back around because the argument can be made, Gerald, that L.A. Knight is still just as hot this year as he was last year. He seems to be on a collision course for the U.S. title though. He does. Carmella Hayes, could they, could they pull a fast one on us and, and give, give the Money in the Bank to the young kid? Or Jay Uso. I think Jay Uso would be a very, very interesting choice, especially, you know, especially given, you know, the Seth Rollins and Damian Priest match, you know, if he wants to stick to Raw. Also, you know, depending on how long he holds that briefcase for, you know, we know stories can shift and change. Sure. Later down the road, you know, six, six, eight months down the road, Gerald, could we see a Roman range return or, you know, something of that matter and, and Jay get the opportunity to cash in on Roman or Cody. There's a lot of different things about this one and, and for, for the first time, you know, obviously last year, like I said, I think everybody thought L.A. Knight would win and it was, it wasn't a huge shock with Damian Priest won, but for the first time in a while, looking at this Money in the Bank ladder match, especially the men's one, I would, I would be shocked no matter who won. Because they all have different aspects. Anybody's ballgame and, heck, Chad Gables had multiple championship chances. L.A. Knight, multiple championship chances, all the most of them were during Roman's reign. He had no chance of winning it. They were just kind of matches and, um, Andrade Alita Lowe's easily one of the best wrestlers going. I mean, he is just a good professional wrestler. Yeah. He's a, he's a, he's another one of those guys where, you know, from beginning, bell to end, bell, just, just has everything you would want. I think that I think that his, that's a really, it's really weird with him, Gerald. I think that AEW really dropped the ball with him because they had an opportunity to, you know, he's more of their style. Yeah. But I know, I know Triple H really likes him, but him and Cross, I just feel like the crowd is not, the crowd is not getting behind the same way that the same way that those two did in the NXT black and gold era. I think their main roster, their main roster runs are, are not, not what they had hoped it was. And which is, again, a shame because, like you mentioned, Andrade is one of the best from Bell to Bell. Yeah. And his best run in AEW, unfortunately, was towards the end when he was already, he already knew he was heading out. He had a great series of matches on collision where he was fighting House of Black to get his mask back. And they were just really good, aggressive, pay per view, quality matches every week. And he was just going at it. And he was DJ there as his manager. And, you know, that ended it. But now that he's been in WWE, he's wrestling the same way. So you are seeing that Triple H effect where the matches are a lot harder hitting. And what I've noticed over the last few months is WWE programming is sliding a little bit more towards AEW style programming was longer, harder hitting matches. And AEW is sliding a little bit towards WWE with more character and more vignettes, which honestly is good. It's a little more balanced. Yes, it is. Absolutely. I just, I think that the, I think their crowds are a little bit different. And that's where I think that AEW really, really dropped the ball on a guy like Andrade. Because the crowds at AEW are really, really, really invested in that bell to bell stuff. Not so much the outside. It's, you know, I hate using the term, but you know, the entertainment stock or the entertainment value that WWE provides. I don't know what it is, but it just, you know, the WWE crowd doesn't get as, get as excited for Andrade as what AEW crowd could have. Like you mentioned that last part of his run in AEW was great. But imagine if he'd have been used, you know, and I don't want to use that term either, but imagine if he'd have been used properly from the beginning of his tenure with AEW to, to, you know, the end. I think that I think that Andrade could have been a huge, huge star. He still can. But like I just don't feel like the, I don't feel like the crowd has gravitated towards him the same way they did in the NXT days. Well, which is a different crowd as well. Yeah, very much so. Well, I'll pick Andrade on the strength of the momentum from capturing the speed championship. I love that on acts. I'll give him the money in the bank. Last match. What a great, what a great concept. You know, really. Yeah, you talk about innovation. What a great, great concept. Short form content, you know, which is what what social media has become nowadays every, you know, the launch of TikTok and then YouTube going to shorts, Facebook and Instagram going to reels. Absolutely. And you get, you get WWE and X working out a deal to have three minute matches and work a title there. That's, you take that three minute match and you've got seven, seven or eight clips of short form content you could put out and it's just genius. I love it. And they're fun to watch in person too, because they got the clock ticket on the scoreboard and you know it's going to end soon. So it's actually, it's a fun match. It's a good idea. Kind of in the spirit of the old, and I've got the belts here behind me. It's just off camera. The old NWA TV championship where it was a six minute, five second match that NWA has brought back six minute time limit for the TV title. So, very similar idea. Let's go to the last match up. It's the new bloodline, the fake bloodline. Solo, the Gorillas of Destiny, Tom and Taga, taking on the American nightmare Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton and Kevin Owens. Yeah, this will be a fun match as well. I love the uncertainty. I talked about it with the men's money in the bank and this card has a lot of it, which is great, which is something, again, Triple H has done a fantastic job of taking the two years ago. You could look at a WWE premium live event. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Exactly, exactly. You could check. It was borderline almost unwatchable because it was just like you knew exactly what was going to happen from start to finish. And now you don't, and this is another match. Does Randy Orton, does Randy Orton finally turn on Cody Rhodes and we get Randy Orton versus Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam? You know, is this going to be a, is this going to be a new bloodline beatdown? Does Roman show up after the match and we get Roman and Solo at SummerSlam? There's just, there's so many questions about this match. Or do we just get a good, a good quality six man tag match out of this? I think so. I don't know. Something, you know, SummerSlam is, is one of those, you know, the big four that we talked about earlier. And it doesn't, Cody Rhodes doesn't have a clear opponent for that. And I think by the end of the night on Saturday, he, he will definitely have a clear opponent for that match. Oh, come out of this match. Yeah. Like I said, no matter if it's Randy Orton or if we possibly get a Roman range return and, and, you know, a solo, a solo and Roman match. I really would like to see that bloodline civil war with the Usos and Roman going up against. I think it's not a matter of, of if it happens, Gerald, I think it's a matter of win. And, and I think with, with Roman's limited schedule, I think this would be the perfect time to do it. Yeah. He could face solo at SummerSlam and solo could win with some, you know, not win, but maybe, you know, I'm out on top, you know, with some outside interference. And then Roman comes back around survivor series and we get that civil war then. Well, with Paul Heyman saying to solo, you're not my tribal chief. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that was, you know, obviously we could spend, I could spend hours talking about how great Paul is, you know, for the business and everything he does. That just getting prepared for that promo on Friday, you know, his eyes are red. He's got a five o'clock shadow. He looks like he is, he is visibly stressed and just playing so much into that. I absolutely love it. Yeah, nice to integrate work and I'm going to pick the bloodline to win just because, I mean, obviously, Cody, Randy Orton and KO can afford a loss. Doesn't mean the solo needs to get a win here. Yes, we may see hickalayo. We may have hot coo. He's in WWE now. So he's coming soon. And that's what's crazy too is you look at, you look at this match. And there's three of them. And there's already four of the bloodline. And then you add hickalayo in there. And I think that I think it could very well. Very well, it, I agree with you. I think the bloodline needs this, especially if, you know, they're showing unison at the end of the match. And we somehow, we somehow get a Roman Reigns return. I think that, I think they need this. So that's my, that's my, that is my bold prediction, if you will, Gerald, I think very in production. Yeah, Roman returns at the end of Money in the Bank. We get a, we get solo in Roman at SummerSlam solo comes out on top because of the new bloodline. And then we get a, we get the new bloodline and versus Roman and the Usos at Survivor Series. Yeah, break out the war games. Well, hey, let's go ahead and break out the wrestling spotlight championship here. We'll go ahead and wrap it up like we do on most of our shows. How about a champion of the week? It was a big week in professional wrestling. We had Forbidden Door, he had a loaded week with Raw. And we got the Money in the Bank coming up. Who is your champion of the week? I think that, you know, if, if we were, if Money in the Bank had already passed, I think that it would clearly be one of the individuals that we talked about on this card, Gerald. But I'm going to give mine to Isaiah Swerve Scott because, you know, there is an obvious shift right now. And I think, I think you're seeing a little bit of a struggle with AEW, you know, trying to, trying to keep up with the big, you know, the big dog. But I think as long as they've got guys like Isaiah Swerve Scott leading the, leading the charge, I think AEW is going to be okay. Yeah, I mean, he's, he's a star. He's an absolute star and, and that match that he had with, you know, Will Ospreay was fantastic. So I, I'm going to pick Isaiah Swerve Scott as my champion this week. People like him and Will Ospreay, that is a loaded, loaded roster they have. They're, they're definitely ready to go. Well, I'll stick with AEW. I'll go with the CEO, Mercedes Monet. She now is holding the title that was essentially created for the new Japan strong title. She's a double champion. And she's got her opponent looks like set up for all in at Wembley. It's going to be the CEO against the DMD as Dr. Britt Baker, DMD came back in a four-bit indoor. So we'll go with a couple of AEWs, but I'm sure some WWE talent will be in the running for weekly champion next week after money in the bank. And before we wrap up, Chase, where should people go to find out more about Fountain City Pro and Justice for all coming up on July 12 here in Kansas City? Absolutely. Anything and everything Fountain City Pro, you will find at FountainCityPro.com, links to social media, news, links to videos, all that stuff, very, very active on social media. So definitely give a follow, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok. And tickets are still available. You can go see it live Friday, July 12 at 7.05 p.m. Central time at the Ball Events Center in Olathe. So go ahead and get your tickets value priced at only $20. It's even better. $20 you get in the door every seats a good seat, Ball Events Center in Olathe for Fountain City Pro. Well, hey, for Chase, I'm Gerald Bentley. Thanks for stepping into the ring here on Wrestling Spotlight and the fired up network. Tell us what you think of money in the bank and we'll be back next week with weekly champions. Stay tuned for more wrestling throughout this holiday week right here on the Wrestling Spotlight. Have a good night.