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Seven legendary titles, including X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. And join new features like online multiplayer, training, and gallery modes. Plus join in on the action with one button specials, where players of all skill levels can unleash those epic moves with ease. Relive the classic arcade battles. Get your hands on the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection today, available now on PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Shopify is a global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. And sell more with less effort, thanks to the Shopify Magic, your AI-powered All-Star. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/RedCircle, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/RedCircleNow to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com/RedCircle. At King Super's Pharmacy, Care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID, and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's Pharmacy, so come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care, is in store. Visit KingSuper's.com/vaccines for more, restrictions, and exclusions apply seaside for details. Hello, and thank you so much for joining us for your SmackDown post show. It is Friday, September 13th. We've got Sean Ross up here. We've got Alex Cardosa here. We've got a loaded episode of SmackDown to talk about tonight. Back on USA, I even remembered. I even remembered to tune in at 8 p.m. to the right network, I thought for sure. I was going to be tuning in at like 8.04. But I remembered. I'm excited. New era stuff continuing through. Some good stuff tonight. We've got solo and Cody and Estile Cage, but we've got Sean Ross up here to talk about a lot of stuff, including kind of these branding changes that we saw. WrestleVotes reported the new logo. We've got the Megan Thee Stallion theme, the new song reported on Fightful Select. Best $5 in the biz. But why should I tell you about it? When these scoops stirs here to talk about it, Sean, what's going on with the new brand? The new brand? Well, it's the same brand. It's just new branding. Got you good. You're in the mud. Wow. I'm so in the mud. So I know there were a lot of people that were like, oh, new set, new, new ramp, any of that stuff. They feel like and have for years, like they can just sort of satisfy themselves and audiences with the giant screens that they can put literally whatever they want on there. Like they tried briefly with the 2019 Fox thing. They had the sort of tunnel thing. And then when COVID happened, they just it just went away. But Fightful Select had a bunch of news today on a lot of the branding changes earlier today. I had heard from somebody within the company, we're getting a new theme song and they told me they'd let me know or a person told me they'd let me know around seven, which is when we found out about the Megan the Stallion song, but just the phrasing that was used was like a legit artist, not Def Rebel. That's what they said. No. Okay. All right. I thought I was in the mud with my brand versus branding thing, but Deaf Rebel. Yeah. Yikes. Well, sounds like raw might not be the only WWE brand with some changes coming to it. Obviously, there is going to be raw moving to Netflix, NXT moving to CW, any other context that you want to provide on that? Yeah. So as mentioned, like this and a lot more Fightful Select dot com for just five bucks, but there were some things I wanted to clarify. Like there were some people that pointed to a time slot listed for this Smackdown and it showed like three hours on Monday, WWE very quickly confirmed to me that it's two hours. However, they do not have the same outs in America that they have had to have for five years to get off TV in time for the news because the 10 o'clock news for Fox is big because they get in before other networks get in for the 11 o'clock news. So it's very important for them to have that. Meanwhile, NXT has always had the benefit, not always, but over the last couple of years when raw hasn't even had the benefit of an overrun. We've actually missed some important stuff at the end of raw in the past. But now as we had highlighted on Smackdown Fightful Select today, Smackdown will have the benefit of an overrun sometimes when approved. USA Network will have shows naturally on at 10 PM that they are going to want to lean into. This is how I discovered burn notice and the ultimate fighter back in the day, all kinds of stuff like that. Yeah. There's. It's a good show, but I mean, naturally, they're going to have stuff to lead into. I would encourage people to check out Beyond the Bell with Andrew's area in this week because he really talks about it about how Smackdown was sort of a loss leader for Fox, but they would just lead into the news. And if you're watching Smackdown, well, I mean, okay, cool, you're going to follow up by watching the news, whoopee doo, not a big deal, but with your, with CW and some other stuff, you might have some different things depending on what CW shows, I'm not sure what they show Tuesdays at 10. I don't know if they do the news, 10, 11 or at all on CW these days, but WWE is, I think, being very smart about how they've got their programming on Netflix on network. They've got it on cable and they got it on peacock right now. So this kind of ties into, well, we're out of the Fox era of WWE, but we're not out of the Fox era of wrestling because as we have mentioned, they have shown some interest in AEW. They've shown some interest in a seasonal property. They showed interest in MLW a few years ago on Tooby. And I saw a whole lot of people saying, Tooby, why, why Tooby? Well, let me tell you why Tooby, you hear all this stuff about cord cutters? What is the most cord cutter friendly platform, humanly possible, that there is no charge, there is no cable subscription, you turn on your TV, you just tune in and watch. It is the most true cord cutting scenario that you could find. But those are interesting changes that could happen. I don't know if CW will give WWE the benefit of an NXT Tuesday night overrun, which I don't know how that will change that show when you have some younger talent, have to be a little bit more tight on their time cues and things like that. But that is something worth checking out. But I promise all of this had a point because the night that Raw got announced as three hours or two hours moving forward, I asked, Hey, guys, would that mean that it's going to be two or three hours once they moved to Netflix? And even though they quickly confirmed to me that Smackdown would be two hours, they didn't confirm anything about Netflix and that. So I don't know if that's necessarily guaranteed three hours. If I'm Netflix, I want as much time as possible, but I haven't got that confirmed yet, not to say that I won't, but yeah, that's, that's, that's an interesting note that we sort of are observing as things go. >> Can I add something to show the CW does broadcast abuse from 10 to 11 p.m. From what I see here Monday through Sunday, at least here. >> Glad you know, because I didn't watch that shit from me. >> No, yeah. So I know here in, in North Carolina they do and several other states they do the news as well. Some others do from 11 to 11, 30. But I don't think that's even, I think that's like actually not, they're not even doing that anymore. And then obviously to add on to the Tubi thing, I did hear about Tubi and Tubi is the number two most described, you know, network underneath Netflix. So they have a S time, I don't want to curse, an S time of subscribers that use them. >> Tons of S. >> And they're getting, they're getting tons of S all over me everywhere. >> They're getting straight up ads on there as well because I mean, it's sort of the older method of not DVR, you watch TV, you tune in and you watch the TV. But there were a lot of people saying, well, why would Fox still be interested in wrestling? Well, the way that this all went is Fox paid an incredible amount of money effectively as a loss leader. And I don't think they really ever implemented Smackdown to its fullest of ability. I think they got a sour taste in their mouth immediately when Vince wasn't showing up for Smackdown within a couple of months. Even when he did start showing up for Smackdown, they're like, well, be careful what you wish for. COVID heard it and all that. And then by the time they sort of repaired that relationship after the MLW snafu that happened that cost WWE 20, $25 million, it's sort of made a bit of a change. And now they're like, they don't have problem selling ads for wrestling from what I understand. It's just cutting into it. It doesn't help. >> Sure, when you look at the first and second biggest wrestling companies in the game, right? There are some really beneficial things to an AEW possibility of Fox could cut their cost to a third of what they were paying for Smackdown. That's a huge bump for AEW. So an interesting time right now in the rights renewal side of things would encourage you, Sean mentioned about Beyond the Bell, but also some good stuff on this last episode of the hump with this fella and Jimmy V and if you want to go back and watch. But guys, getting those super chats and humper chats as we continue to pick Sean's brain about a couple of things while he's here or anything else that you want to talk about regarding Smackdown. But one big thing that if you had reported or if you had been subscribed to Fight for Select.com, probably would have seen, probably would have known that even though it wasn't in the rundown proper, Roman Reigns was probably showing up at this one. We see him early in the show and late in the show actually. So of course, still just one of the hottest draws in wrestling. If not the hottest drawn wrestling, they really loaded up this show for the new USA relationship. Anything additional about that? Yeah, yeah, a few things. So he wasn't outright listed, but Triple H also wasn't advertised to kick off the show either. But we had reported that on Fight for Select. And then the Roman Reigns involvement, like when you see on the rundown, Nick Aldous Promo is the main event with Bobby Roode and Michael Hayes producing. It usually doesn't take that much for me to poke around and be like, okay, Roman's getting involved, right? And then somebody tells me, but yeah, Roman Reigns involved there. Some unfortunate ramifications from stuff like that. Women's match got cut pretty heavily. They were already set for a short match, it was like five minutes, and they had to cut it down to like one minute, which was wild to me because they had an overrun. And I'm like, I hate that that's what gets the time cut. And it's a bummer. It is a bummer, but Roman Reigns is back. I would imagine, you know, obviously he's going to, when he's there, he moves incredible merch numbers, like just does great things. We have seen Roman Reigns and his numbers as a heel for four years. So I can't imagine what type of things will happen as a, as a baby face there. But yeah, good to see him back. Definitely good to see him back. We do have some super chats rolling in here, bad robot, who's always so supportive of us saying hello, favorite post show, well, hello, extremely nice room, but new network graphics and KO versus theory waller, a new era indeed, Andrade's elbow pops me every time. Is there a move that always gets you other than SRS is drop toe holds? I'm going to go for a raise and say no, just, just Sean's drop toe hold. That's the only move in wrestling that I like. I'll throw in as honorary mentions Nigel McInnes, Larry, it's always, always, always and Kenny Omega snap dragons also absolutely. I love a good, I love a good Falcon arrow. I love a good pile driver. Yeah, I, but Falcon arrow is one of my favorite moves. Cardo's anything, anything, but it's a fave of yours, Spanish fly anything that's flippy. You put that in my soul and I'll be so happy with it. Well, Finn Mcawesome, who is both Irish and awesome, leaving us entire next topic here with justice for Ricky Sean, I got to be honest. I cover a lot of wrestling here at Fightful and I, I didn't know about Ricky until tonight. This is up and coming superstar covering for Randy Orton's travel troubles, even though he was ultimately able to make it, what do you have for us on Ricky? Quite, quite a bit. Fightful Select also had that Randy Orton would be the actual mystery partner. Ricky Gibson is one half of a team called Midnight Heat. You could tell by his gear, very good tag team out of the Pacific Northwest. And he'll be facing FTR later this month at Prestige in a very, very rare indie appearance for them. Also, I want to shout out Finn Mcawesome, who hit me up for the work that he did with Down Under the Ring, the interview that dropped yesterday with Tony Storm. And we've got one that drops with Paul White tomorrow. And this happens sometimes where people will hit us up and they say, Hey, we did these interviews. Would you like to run them on Fightful? And usually we'll be like, heck yeah. But I want to say, and this isn't something that I even feel like he would want me to put out there. But I feel like I should. He said that he wanted the proceeds of that to go to a family member who I lost recently. So that means an awful lot. I wanted to thank him for that. But guys, please check out that interview. The Tony Storm interview is great. They black and whiteed her. So good. I saw it. It was really, really good. Because I'll tell you what, I, in media scrums, she's the hardest person that I've ever had to ask a question to, because I ended up getting the Wendy Richter thing, which has now lasted us till now. But like, she's very, very difficult when she's a character to ask any sort of question to. But we'll ask you us a question that you're just going to get asked for the rest of your life. Yeah, I heard shit. I heard shit guys. If you're listening in audio form, the question was about Motor City machine guns. Sean's got nothing. Cody, or Corey, I don't think has anything new. There were some rumors about them showing up at NXT. But nothing sometimes. I hope they do. I hope they do. So I can stop getting asked this. I haven't had new information on them in quite a while. Quite a while. But we do appreciate you saying that you only trust Sean's reports. That is very kind of you. And if you want more of them, fightfulselect.com is all I'm saying. But in addition to everything that we talked about, the changes to NXT Raw and SmackDown, we've also got speed and we had some dark matches tonight. Any context you want to throw around those for us? Yeah, so they're continuing the speed tournament, obviously. They had, I believe it was Kyrie Sane and Electro Lopez. Also they had Apollo Crews Baron Corbin versus the OC. Well, those included with the OC, Gallows and Anderson. Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser also set for a dark match. Gunther is there. I assume he's working a dark match. I don't know. But a lot of people have been asking about Nakamura and AJ Styles, they were on the recent tour overseas. They're fine. They're healthy. They're just not being used on TV for whatever reason. Got it. Good to know. Guys, sending those super chats and humber chats, we're going to get Sean out of here and let him go get some rest for a bit in a minute. But we did see a series of cameos tonight for this new relationship or continued relationship, I guess, more appropriately said with the USA network. Tons of guests, Michael Pee Hayes, we saw Vicki Guerrero. We saw a ton of people, any info on that for us. Yeah. So we saw like Bobby Roode and Michael Hayes, they're their producers. They're there every week. So not a big surprise there. Rob Bandam and they didn't name Katie Forbes, but she was there as well. He is under some sort of merchandising agreement with WWE, but they allow him to take outside bookings and all that stuff. Vicki Guerrero, I haven't heard of what the relationship has been like there, but you know, Teddy Long and Ron Simmons always at least loosely affiliated with WWE as well. It's interesting with Vicki there because I know that's a bit of a controversial one, but if she were to get involved in this Dominic stuff, I think that could be a fun way to go. But Ryan Lambert. One more thing before we go before we go. They just announced that the NXT show on Tuesday, October 8th from St. Louis is now going to be in Chesterfield, Missouri instead of St. Louis. Oh, well, there you go. I'm glad I'll be watching from home either way. But Ryan Lambert, before you get out of here with the real questions, have the Motor City machine go inspired by all the team dream yet? Oh, I'm just seeing the news from SmackDown Lowdown as well, and it looks like that Vicki Guerrero made a dumpster match between Chelsea Green and Mia M, which sounds great. That can only end well for you. I know. So good, good things there. Well, Sean, we'll let you get out of here. There is one more final chat at the buzzer, though, from Bad Robot saying, "When Motor City Machine Guns debut, I'll keep the tradition and Super Chat asking creative plans backstage feelings and dinner plans," which I think is a more fun one. I want to know that at this point. I'll say this. I know a lot of people were sort of like dunking on Motor City Machine Guns, possibly going to NXT, and I have no insight on that right now. If I were WWE, I would really, really want them in NXT. I would really want them molding a lot of the young minds in that company. Alex Shelley is a great promo. He has incredible comedic timing. They're two of the best singles and tag team wrestlers that exist. Both of them have competed in factions, in teams, as singles, as cruiserweight wrestlers, as heavyweight wrestlers near the top of the car. They've opened world champions in DNA. I would absolutely want those two guys working with a lot of lesser experienced, but high talent athletes and teaching them things. Not only that, think about what Alex Shelley does for a day job and the way that he helps people from a physical therapy standpoint and healing their bodies and all that stuff. Those are absolutely two people that I would want influencing my younger talent in NXT. 100%. >> Yeah, we also don't know if there's a deal, so we certainly wouldn't know the terms of that deal, right? >> Sure. >> They could be maybe in a hybrid role of some sort, so I can't imagine two people better suited in modern wrestling to go ahead and help out the younger talent that is in that tag division. What I think of Yidra Sanofi and those upcoming tag wrestlers, I think there's a lot that how catapult people to the next level, hank in tanks, like those guys could use just a little bit more love from teams like the Motor City Machine Guns. So Sean, get out of here before you get asked to get about them, all right? >> Bye, guys. >> Subscribe to FightfulSelect.com best $5 in the bid, Sean, give you a glimpse of what got provided there today. So much more contract news on the way, so much more about these pending TV deals coming up, so much going on in wrestling, especially with these aggressive pay-per-view schedules too. You're gonna wanna join FightfulSelect.com, not only for the scoops that are there, but get in that discord, because during summer slam, Sean was just like, heard this person was in gorilla, heard this person was in gorilla, in the discord, before you could even get it on FightfulSelect proper. So lots of benefits to joining FightfulSelect.com, but let's finally swing into the Smackdown Review Cardoza. Tonight was a good night, like tonight was pretty solid, other than kind of what Sean alluded to with that women's match getting cut so short, especially because Piper Niven wasn't it? You kinda wanted to see her show off a little bit more, but we do have a refreshed brand, we did start with that Steel Cage match, which I thought was a lot of fun. And I feel like Cody always shows up for Steel Cage matches, man, it's like so, so in his blood, kind of in a literal sense. But some really good stuff on this one. I really am glad that they're gonna stick to two hours, I would like to see Raw move to two hours. Three Hour Wrestling shows are just a, it's a lot, and Triple H has even said like, it's tricky to play in that third hour, but a concise show like this with like a major event kicking it off. I thought we had a decent episode tonight. There was some really strong stuff and then a lot of stuff that was just kind of solid and made sense and continued to move things along. Yeah, I think the show moved along extremely well, started watching it and next thing you know, it's 9.45 and I'm like, whoa, you know, this show has really, really flown by. You know, a lot of it had to do with the fact that there was no commercials for the first 36 minutes. So you're watching, you know, you're watching it. And, you know, it also, it also felt good that, you know, they, they were adding a lot of the old nostalgic stuff almost at the beginning before every segment took off. So you were kind of engaged in, in a way that was a little bit different than your normal everyday rundown of a SmackDown where they just, you know, it's segmented like, you know, taught what we're doing match, taught what we're doing match, right? So it was fun. It was fun to see. And they're in a row, aren't they? They're on a roll. They, they mentioned 37 sellout, 50, right 37 and 38 sellout, TV sellout and like 57 event sellouts. So like they're on their way to their own 83 weeks. So I'm happy to see it. And if, and if the old saying goes, where is it rising tides, rises all ships, something like that. Yeah. And then elevates all of the other wrestling around TNA, M-L-W-A-W, so on and so on. Big time. And I think that's something that we are seeing, right? Like the fact that Fox is interested in A-W-I don't think that happens if Fox wasn't first interested in WWE and learn things, right? So wrestling is a very, very healthy product right now. It makes me very happy for wrestlers who have jobs doing this. It's, it's good that there is some stability there. But we do open with that reported on Fightful Select, new theme. We have the new logo, which I think looks really bad. The never play Megan the stallion opening really, really bad. It just isn't good. Like I, it baffles me that kind of across wrestling as a whole, you have billionaires who cannot afford, who I can't manage to get like really great designers across various facets. You're seeing some of that start to turn now, but like, I, I get that it's hard to evolve a standardized logo that has gone through so many iterations that has been around so long, but like something like making the S and, and D and Smackdown separate feels like something that's pretty basic to me. Passion, drive and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. Ebay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights and more, whether you're into speed, power or style, Ebay Motors has you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die, you'll always find exactly what you're looking for. And with Ebay Guaranteed Fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back. Because with Ebay Motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at prices you want, it's easy to make your car the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your ride or die alive at Ebay Motors dot com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply, Ebay Motors dot com. This podcast is brought to you by the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics. Seven legendary titles including X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Enjoy new features like online multiplayer, training and gallery modes. Plus join in on the action with one button specials where players of all skill levels can unleash those epic moves with ease. Every live, the classic arcade battles, get your hands on the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection today, available now on PlayStation 4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Like it looked like SmackDown. Yeah, it looked like SmackDown, and it also reminded me a lot of the subway logo, unfortunately. I like the way the SmackDown rolls around on the banners inside of the arena. That's really cool. That looks great. On the LED boards, looks great. But it's just, you're right. It was, did we not test this? Did we not test it with audiences outside and say like, here's an NDA, what do you think about this? You know? Yeah, it's a weird one, or maybe we're just nitpicky, I don't know. No, no. You don't want to do this. And I said this online, I wasn't trying to... That online, AG, all of our odds. A lot of people love to say things, but I like the way that they went for. I like that they try to update it, and it looks really good for this for the 2024, 2025 and beyond logo. But I think they tried just a little too hard, and it came out, yeah, as in the D. And they're trying to go really sports-centric. That's really, really, really, really, really by sports-centric type of logo, if you look at it. It definitely is. It definitely is. It is cleaner. I do like that. One thing that they are very good about now is the versatility that you get, and that it can be applied to anything. It looks good on a black background, or a white background. It can look good on t-shirts. It can look good on merchandise, and whatever. But if you are concerned about how your own D looks, and it's accompanying the parts... Oh, she's attacking me, couldn't they? If you're worried about making sure that your own S, and especially your D, look good, well, manscaped.com. Nobody wants to see your hairy balls. It's Friday the 13th. That's all I gotta say. Kate has lost her screen, her computer. She has no idea what's going on. Kate, you okay? Can you hear me? Uh-oh. So here's the thing. I can hear that ad playing in the background. That has happened to be twice on this stream, and I don't know why. It won't just like play normal. So we're gonna try it again. I think the Wyatt 6 might be trying to invade the stream. I had a great set way. That's one of this. It is Friday the 13th, and it is not even my internets fault this time. I swear it's a weird, weird thing, but we're gonna try and we're gonna play the ad this time. Okay. Everybody, are you ready? We're gonna try it. All of us together, we're gonna make it. Nobody wants to see your hairy balls, so clean them up. Manscaped.com and the code Fightful is taking care of you. Maybe you're just looking at yourself and you're going, "I'm too far gone. There's nothing I can do." Manscaped got you covered. You might say, "But Shawn, where do I begin?" Manscaped.com and the code Fightful. That's where you begin. That's where you go. That's what you do to figure out all this body wash, body buffers, shampoo, beard oil, beard balm, beard trimmers, beard combs, and then stuff for your nether regions. Erin knows here trimmers. What don't they have at Manscaped.com when you use that code Fightful? If you travel too much, you're like, "I can't be bothered with that." They got the go bag as well. They got the groin and go bundle. They have everything for you. Don't let yourself go by the way side. Take control of yourself and your cleanliness. Go to Manscaped.com. Use that code Fightful. Can I just say this? This is a live television program, okay? We made it. They've happened on live television, on live streams, on live radio, whatever. So here's what's insane about that is for some reason, in my instance of the platform that we use called StreamYard, I hear Sean's voice just talking about manscaping your man regions. Like I hear the audio while you're trying to talk to me at the same time. So it's playing the audio, but not the video and you're like, "Kate, are you all right?" And I'm like, "No, Sean is in my ear right now talking to me about trimmers and swords." So my god. I'm saving your pits. And various other skin-safe regions of things. But let's head back into this SmackDown episode and get this show on the road. One thing that I am a little bit tired of to be perfectly honest is Triple H coming out and saying nothing. Bring it. I get that what we're doing. Like I get that it's for the live crowd and not for me at home. But like if he could come out and say something of more substance, I feel like that would be better. Because we've seen a lot of that. We see it at every PLA now. And they probably, honestly, they probably shouldn't be doing that. Like corporate should be doing that. Like you should be kicking off your new relationship with that guy. I'm just bored by it. Like as someone that's a viewer of the product and analyzing this, I'm like, "Man, crazy to think that I was across the ring one-on-one on this very brand and now here I am." I'm like, "Nah, get off my screen." 25 years later, if you didn't know WWE is hot. Yeah, it's like it's getting aggressively braggy, but I'm going to spend my water up. Hold on. His, his theme rules. So like that's always fun to hear. But like there's a lot of times where he just kind of comes out and says nothing. So I get it. It's literally what they should be doing for the product. I'm just tired of it. So my objective criticism is like it was probably smart to kick off the show with him. My opinion on it is I'm bored of him doing that so frequently. But you are opinion is respected here and adored. That's all I got to say. Well thank you. Everybody just loves me for my ineffectual segues into products about man parts. That's all they want. You're really good at a K. I tell you you got a future in this business. I ever need you for any, you know, voiceovers about nether regions. I'm calling you first. That means a lot. That means a lot. I put money in your pocket. That's all I got to do, you know? I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Well, let's move along from our triple H segment then. We do start off really hot with this Cody in Solosa Coa match. If there's anything that Cody Rose knows how to do, it's matches like these. Like he's really good at getting your emotional investment and stuff like this. Overall, I really liked his whole arc in this episode. There was an interesting character layer that we're going to talk about in a minute. But I thought we got a lot of really, really, really good stuff in this match. I loved how like this is the first time it felt super personal and all of the like and all of the face to faces that we've got and all of the history we've got. It kind of felt like finally we're getting something like really, really emotive and it wasn't about the interference or what's next like it. It kind of felt like the most in the moment these two have ever been in my opinion. But this was a really great ending in my opinion as well like we get Cody crawling to the corner and the door opens and Cody's almost out but solo just shutting it on Cody's head. We don't see enough of that in cage matches. That was like a really, really, really well done spot and he then ducks the Samoan spike and we get the crossroads for the cover and three. So I thought this whole thing was really, really great you had Cody gaining the upper hand early but solo's power kind of just being too inevitable. Cody in the tree of low was really great flying headbutts but the biggest spot in this that massive superplex from the top of the cage. We're going to talk about the post match in a second but this is what I want to see from my champion Cody Rhodes like he's so great at getting your emotional investment and stuff like this. Sometimes less is more. There's a lot of wrestling math that goes on with anything bloodline related. But this felt like one guy and another guy in a cage match kicking each other's ass. Save the shenanigans for the end. I thought that was a good call. What did you think of our opening match and then we'll talk about the post match shortly. It was very well done. You know Cody has a flair for the dramatic. I don't know if you knew that. He's also a very, very good facial expressioner. Big time. One of his biggest in ring strengths all the time. He does things very well. By the way, I do want to say this. WWE has uploaded that entire 30 minute match to their WWE YouTube channel so you can actually go to YouTube and rewatch that. But I thought it was great. Perfectly, perfectly timed, it didn't feel rushed. It didn't feel like there was any dead spots. But I do got to say this. There's always a bottom end to it, right? I want to see them move on from this. I feel like this whole, because there's going to be a bloodline 3.0 eventually coming down the line. And I feel like maybe we should move, like can we find someone for Cody? I understand Cody has, this is his nemesis. And I feel like this is now where we're going into part two of a film, if you want to put it in film terms, right? And part two just ended, I want to move on from this. I want to see him new challenges, new long term fights with someone else. I'm not being negative about it. I just wish it kind of would just, you know, we would, and it's cool that what he said there, where he wants to move on from it, you know, we'll talk about that. But I personally feel like, okay, give me something else, because Cody has, his, his challengers have not, have not came in a fast pace, but they've also not been that great. Yeah, it's, they kind of, with like the AJ stuff and the Logan Paul stuff, they, it felt like they didn't really build stories. So it felt like they came too quickly. Like the, the AJ style stuff was all right, but they sometimes get handicapped by their own pay-per-view schedule. Like we talk about it all the time, like every fourth show is a go-home on this. So you don't have a ton of time. So I, I do like that we're doing something longer term, but because the beginning of this started a little bit weaker and because it feels like Cody is not the main character necessarily anymore, because Roman's back, like there's, there are some obstacles that they're going to have to come from, like overcome from a, a creative standpoint. But I really liked, this might have been my favorite defense of Cody so far. Like I, I really, really liked what we got out of this. And that first AJ match was really good, but like this was kind of what I wanted to see as far as, as getting me invested as a fan and an analyst of this. But let's talk about the rest of this bloodline through line up until the main event. We'll leave that for later, but we have the bloodline just coming in to do what they do, right? To beat that relevant crap out of Cody. So we'll get that some Owen Spike and then you have Jacob Fattu coming off the top with that springboard moonsault. He looked ready to launch from the top of the cage, but out of nowhere here comes Roman Reigns, who makes his very slow walk and Jacob Fattu kind of out of respect climbs down it felt like, which I thought was interesting. And once Reigns kind of steps into the cage and shuts the door behind him, everything changes. Roman goes crazy. And then his own bloodline members come in or taking out his own bloodline members. I misspoke there, but Slam's Tomatanga takes Tom Goloa out of the cage solo tries to stop him launching like an insane brawl. So we get some absolute absolute chaos here, which was fun. Like I'm, I'm glad that Roman was a presence on the show. He's unbelievably over as a baby face. Three years of being a heel has paid off very, very well for him. And we have kind of some interesting developments throughout the rest of the night here. And I loved what we get from Cody in this in particular, but Kathy Kelly is asking Nick Aldous what went down. He says that all the major parties involved are in their dressing rooms and that solo has a challenge with Fattu that no one can refuse and we'll find out what that is. And as we kind of go on here, Fattu and solo challenge Cody and Cody says, this sounds like a Roman problem, man. Like I'm moving on from this and I thought that was like, what are the more interesting thing Cody's and interesting things that Cody has done because to me that says like, man, I'm worried about this championship, not about this family that I'm not a part of and their issues right now, that's not going to stay the case as we head into survivor series. I don't think it feels like Cody is going to be on that team for survivor series. But we'll talk about the rest of that when it comes up. But I kind of liked this through line and I was pleasantly surprised by Cody's response. I feel like that's how he should be reacting, Alex. Yeah, I mentioned it, I just feel like, you know, he should be frustrated. He should be like, God, how much more do I have to put up with this like, dude, handle your business with your family, you know, like your family affair and blood on to everyone else. Yeah. I don't think Cody's moment. No, I mean, like, come on, bro, like, let's move it along. Listen, I've enjoyed what I've been seeing. It's just, I think it's just time. And when Jacob Fatu was up on top of the cage, I said, man, this is going to look great. This is going to look great. But we had a mega explosion the minute you hear the, you know, it's like everyone goes crazy for freaking Roman. It's exactly like that. If anyone wants to clip that, that's exactly what the song starts like. That is. I pop just hearing you do that, like, I love that you just popped and almost put your finger up. I was like, Alex is the one, man, the Cardo's a pop. That's what happened. The particles pops. I got you, baby. You got us covered. Absolutely love it. Your cover of a Roman theme is one that we'll, we'll live on. And we won't get, and we're not going to get, you know, uh, hit for that with copyrights because I just do it so well. Yeah. Exactly. They're going to be like, that was the real thing. You're learning can never keep up. Yeah. Yeah. Some good stuff there, but moving on to something that was kind of a bummer in the evening for me. Uh, not because of what we got, but because of what we didn't get, which was more time for our women's wrestling. We got two O eight for the women. Here's a hint, Randy Orton's entrance was longer than this entire match. Do better for women's wrestling. I complained about it for a W for like three years now. They've picked things up. I still have some complaints, but they picked it up. WWE's mostly been doing pretty well and I understand why this was cut. But like, man, why is there always the women's matches that get cut down? But you called it. Why did we need, um, the Viper to come down in three minutes? First of all, you could have cut the whole segment with Ricky. Ricky could have gotten his love elsewhere as number one, number two. All of a sudden he's there. Do you mean to me? He traveled all the way up there to the West coast in his undies and a vest or whatever he was wearing when he was on the plane in his gear. So how did justify what you just said, please justify the fact that, oh, he's here. He made it. He made it in his tighties all the way from wherever he was at. Is that not how you travel? I stopped after a couple complaints. I think the complaints were good. Like he's just too like, man, he's like, he's showing us up. Like he's making us look bad at the airport. I get that. Yeah. So I had to wear stuff, you know, unfortunately. I get it. I get it. You don't want to make everybody look bad, but I know you have that pretty deadly wardrobe. I know you do. I got them crop tops, clavicle showing, fish net. Oh, baby, you got to see me on the weekends. Oh, man, strolling into Newark airport and you're in your trunks and you're pretty deadly. Yeah. I'll be up there in October. I'll be 100% real with you. I'll wear that. I hope the music follows you. I hope you get to Newark airport and they're like, take off your shoes and it's I have all day, all day with that, but let's talk about this women's match and what we do get. We have Piper Niven versus Meachin, which like Piper Niven losing in two minutes and eight seconds is a problem. Like part of why this didn't work was because of the booking because Meachin gets the win. If Piper Niven smooshed someone in two minutes, I'd be like, well, yeah, that makes sense. She's Piper Niven. She's extremely strong and powerful and she could smoosh most people, but Meachin, not having enough time to kind of wear Piper Niven down in that two minutes really kind of took a lot out for me, but post match, we get Chelsea Green, who we talk about it every week, minute, maximizer, Chelsea Green attacks after and tells Piper Niven to get up and take her out. So you get Piper Niven with the elbow drop and Chelsea Green brings the garbage can in. We get an unpretty her on to the garbage can. So they did the best with what they were given and it's not that I can't believe that Meachin could beat Piper Niven or beat somebody in two minutes and eight seconds. It's hard for me to buy into the idea that she could beat Piper Niven specifically and I think for a feud where both people need to look great because Piper Niven hasn't had enough wins and Meachin is just starting to get some some screen time and some wins. Like we really need to give both of these women a lot more time so that they can look good both in victory and defeat because Piper Niven is great and she deserves to feel very important and Meachin is is really blossoming of late. So kind of a bummer kind of a bummer that that's what happened, but I'm glad that this story is continuing because all of the ladies involved are excellent and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it when there's space for it. What did you think of our women's match here? It was short in a blink of an eye. I pretty much got up and said let me go refill my cup of water real quick before this starts. I came back and I was like, whoa, what just happened? You know, I have always said this. I love my women in wrestling. We know this. I love my men too. But there's a certain thing with women that can crush you and choke you and just beat the hell out of you. That makes me happy, right? And I need more Piper Niven on my TV. I need her destroying people. I feel like this this this version of Piper Niven is a lot like the version of Nia Jax of the past where she was just lolly gagging around not really doing much and kind of being like not a comedic act, but more of a side chest piece as opposed to being the main piece, right? And I feel like maybe that means that she has to go berserk and pretty much destroy Chelsea Green. Whatever it is, I need to see that happen because I really, really think we're wasting that talent there, you know, and they sprinkle her here and there. I don't think that's enough. I'm sorry. Like she is that she is it to me. She had a title ring because Scotland or like a title shop because Scotland, not because of Prince, right? And she is a badass and the comparison to Nia is a good one because this is Nia's best work of her career in Rig wise, like undoubtedly Piper Niven has always been performing at a very high level and they've never figured out what to do with her. When she was do drop with Eva Marie, like, what the hell were we doing, right? Like she has never really gotten the chance to showcase what she can do. She is over and she is on TV in this pair with Chelsea, which is great. But I, yeah, I don't know, Luis, if it's the thing that is also being, if this is what I think it is, could you please put it on the super chat document so that I don't say something stupid. It was just put on for free, actually. So. Oh, really? It says free. It's just free on there. Am I reading this wrong? It might be on the free tier. I am CMG to w w w yep, there it is. Well there you go. Sometimes we do free post over on Fightful Select.com if you look at us, look at us. Yeah, especially when it's like confirming other people's work a little bit. But that is awesome. Thank you for hopping on that moderator chat, Alex. That is incredible. Sean was just on here. A lot of money. I get a lot of money to do what I just did. Everyone. There you go. Sean lied to us. Sean was like, I have nothing for you. I don't know shit. And then he was like, Oh, maybe he really didn't. Maybe somebody was watching and saw Sean say, I don't have anything. And then they were like, JK, we do. It also could have come through Corey Brennan. He's been on the NXT beat for us. So go to Fightful Select.com. You can't subscribe to the free tier. Most of our scoops are paid, but things like this where we're corroborating other stories, certain independent news and always for things of a sensitive nature, whether it's injuries, whether it's things related to the sex trafficking scandal, things that as Sean has said feel icky to charge for. We don't charge for those things. So head over to FightfulSelect.com. Most scoops like that are something that are paywalled, but hey, you got one from free. And please feel confident to know that you're getting your worth when it comes to getting Fightful Select. I used to be one of those people that didn't want to pay for it. I mean, in general, not Fightful Select, but like I was like, why? When someone's just going to copy paste it on the internet one, you know, in the next couple hours or whatever, right? But before I even joined this company, I became a Fightful Select member. And I was really enjoying reading and seeing everything that the guys and girls were putting out on the shows. And then obviously, you know, I got into the team and it's by far the best news and everything and beyond in wrestling that you can get your hands on. Trust me when I tell you that. I'm not trying to sell it. I don't make any money on Fightful Select. No, you really don't. I know. I'm not even on there. Okay. So just know that, you know, when you do spread it to your friends, your wrestling friends, it's worth your while. Listen, you spend $5 on worst things people. Trust me on that. It's true. There's a lot of coffees that have been more than $5. Am I like? Oh, yeah. No coffee costs $5 anymore. I know. Brian Tolle. He's saying, Hey, Kate. Now it's good smackdown. Bad blood is shaping up to be really good. SRS just reported that Motor City Machine Guns have reportedly signed with WWE. I'm excited. Are you? That Fraxiom MCMG Motor City Machine Guns match will feed families. You need to have an eye on Nathan Fraser and Axiom. If you are not an NXT watcher, they are an incredible tag team. They've been putting on excellent matches with everybody that they come across. They had Shopify is a global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business and sell more with less effort. Thanks to the Shopify magic, your AI powered all star sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify dot com slash red circle all lowercase. Go to Shopify dot com slash red circle now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify dot com slash red circle. At Sprouts Farmers Market, you'll always find fresh at the center of the store. Come in to discover a huge selection of the season's best produce bursting with flavor in every bite. Explore thousands of better-for-you products for every dietary lifestyle, from plant-based and organic to gluten-free and keto-friendly. Scoop up your favorite bulk nuts, fruits, sweets, and more, perfect for baking or snacking. Visit your neighborhood sprouts today to explore healthy products down every aisle. A great one, I mentioned Edra Santa Fe before, Emily Blakeblade, their best tag team ever that I've seen was with them. The rascals and them have been having absolute classics, so Motor City Machine Guns showing up for that CW show would be incredible. But I look forward to seeing what they can do, whether it's on the NXT brand or the main roster. I think it's a good call. And we've also seen veterans like Sean Spears, for example, come into NXT and have kind of what seems like a hybrid role of doing some on-screen work, but doing some production work as well. They are in the later phase of their career, so if NXT is where they land, I can't imagine a better team to coach people into a modern era of tag team wrestling. They were definitely a forefather of it. But speaking of NXT, we've got Alex Pulowski in the house. >> I'm so glad you brought him on because I was just about to say something that he mentioned on Wednesday. It's crazy that out of all the young talent that they have coming into NXT and all the talent that they do have that are young, it's crazy how the age is still up there in WWE. A lot of these wrestlers, believe it or not, are in their 40s and above, or in their mid-30s rising into those 40s. It's crazy. >> 38s when you get your first big push. So Montez's board has like three more years and then right to the top. >> We do welcome Alex Pulowski on to the show. Well, Shawn was a liar. He came on here and said he had no information about Motor City Machine Guns and then reported that they signed. So please don't make a fool out of us, it's all that I ask. But if you had anything that you wanted to comment on about tonight's show. Or if there's anything you want to tell us about Rampage, by the way. [MUSIC] >> No, I'm Roderick Strong fought a man named Beef. >> He's on our own age. >> He was very wet, I don't, you should pat your beef dry before you fuck it. You don't need to, I'm honestly, you know what I mean? I don't go in for all this all jude stuff, no friendship for this guy. So I'm not a, I'm not a big wet beef fan. So. >> That wasn't mid 90s to late 90s thing everyone had as you. >> No, I'm not an as you guy, but yeah, no, did you notice that? Honestly, I don't know if I have a flower, the whole episode's stuck. Kevin Owens is walking out, and we hear weighing in at 242 pounds. So the kyron comes up to 58. >> So like, obviously one of those has to be raw, maybe both of them are wrong. But they can't both be true. So whoever is writing the cards to give to Alicia Taylor should check what the graphics department has listed for their weight. And then they should make it match. That's just straight up, that's the, it's your first night on USA. You're a very young TV show, and you all have been around for a few years. Obviously, these production mistakes will disappear with time. But for now, maybe start getting better at that kind of thing. >> Sure, yeah. >> Was that, you just had one sour for today? >> No, it was just, that was something I remember now when I said it. Like, I, you know what I loved? I loved when Solisakoa as Cody was like, I'm gonna sign the contract. And he says to Roman Reigns, that's the guy who beat you. He don't like you. And that is a perfect microcosm for why I hate this whole thing so much. >> [LAUGH] >> He's just saying it, he's just saying it like eight words. And I'm like, yes, listen to Solisakoa. Solisakoa is the man of reason. >> He's your tribal chief, you acknowledge him. >> This episode, we acknowledge Solisakoa for that. We acknowledge Solisakoa. >> Just for that. >> Just for one night, kid, we acknowledge Solisakoa, but- >> I think it took longer for them to do the, Ricky is not actually Kevin Owens's partner. Bit, then the women got in the room. >> Yeah, you could have, thanks Ricky for driving down, driving up from Portland to the Seattle show. But we're running low on time. So we got to make sure the women's get more than 90 seconds. So your bit has been excised. And instead of doing a really dumb comedy bit that doesn't matter, you just have Kevin Owens come out, stand at the top of the ramp. And then like, haha, you don't even have a partner, Randy Orton shows up. You know how long that takes, 10 seconds. As opposed to five friggin minutes to do the Ricky bit. When the women get 90 seconds to rest. >> I mean- >> I mean his undies. Literally, Randy Orton's entrance was longer than the entire women's match. But- >> I was so worried about getting home in time to watch the show. So I was watching it while we were driving back from somewhere in the car on my phone. And we got back before the first punch was thrown. Because Triple H said nothing, a full inch of the cage comes down. Full entrance for Sukawa, full entrance to body roads. They do a full, just 20 minutes of nothing. Ridiculous. >> I like that you were like, I don't know, I don't really have a sour power. And you're like, here. >> Yeah, that's four, that's four. >> That felt like four. Well, well, we have you here because we cover NXT Motor City Machine Guns citing that came in literally while we've been on air. So people in chat were talking about Braxiom versus Motor City Machine Guns and how great that could be. >> And who else? >> Well, I had said, if it's a hybrid role, that makes a whole lot of sense to me. Those guys working with Hank and Take, those guys working with Malik and >> Yeah, they can teach them stuff, sure. >> Yeah, I think that would be good. I don't think they're ripe for NXT for the long haul or anything. I think they're pretty well developed. I mean, like, Braxiom is, yeah, go ahead and say Braxiom, hold on. How dare you, you just slip that in there. >> I'm sorry, the blurry boys. >> The blurry boys are probably the best tag team in all of wrestling. And all of WWE right now, because of the way they book all the other tag teams on Raw. By the way, the tag champs on SmackDown just got their asses handed to them twice today by Roman and Cody. So Roman and Cody are probably winning the tag titles. Like, honestly, I do not know why if you are not to say enough. Listen, if you really love tag team wrestling and you are a tag team with decades of amazing stuff behind you. Why you would be like, you know what I would like to do? I would like to finish out my career in a place that doesn't care about tag team wrestling at all and probably never has. So if it's what they want to do, good for them. I cannot fathom why you would want to do it if you were MCMG. I don't think- >> Probably a whole bunch of money. I would say part of it. >> If that's the reason why they make the decision and that's what they want to do, awesome, that's great. But if that's not what you value and you value the other stuff, then- >> I mean, they've already been in CNA and honestly the AEW tag division right now. Will Osprey, Team Brov just won the casino gauntlet? There doesn't seem to be a lot of upward mobility there right now either. >> No, I fully disagree. >> Really? >> To compare the two, I fully disagree. With the people who are in charge, I fully disagree that AEW is going to be in a much better place in six months than WWE is. >> I hope so, but I feel like I've been saying that for a while. I feel like I am waiting for this AEW tag division to pop off the way it was cuz it feels like ever since the guns won the titles, it just hasn't been where it's at. But- >> Team Nightmare Chief will be the tag champs before Christmas and we'll just have to live with it. >> I kinda like Nightmare Chief to be honest, I'm not mad about that. [LAUGH] Well, you can catch Alex Plaski being all sorts of sour on FightfulSelect.com. Ikey does a SmackDown review while watching Rampage. It's extremely straightforward and has no bits at all. So subscribe to FightfulSelect.com. You can catch us reviewing Moneyplane on FightfulSelect.com on Sunday evening at a time to be announced. >> All right, very nice. >> Cool. >> We'll see you there. >> Sunday evening, we'll review Moneyplane where you can lay bets on a man making sweet love to an alligator. >> Hey, don't say many ones to the movie. >> You should watch the movie. >> I'm certainly planning to do so tomorrow, and I am now intrigued. I am now intrigued- >> All right, don't get too intrigued. They never actually pay it off, so. >> [LAUGH] Well, subscribe to FightfulSelect.com. You can do it in a hard sell a couple of times. But you get scoops and you get me and Alex talking about Moneyplane. >> All right. Hell yeah, fight my friend. >> Well, let's dive back into this episode of SmackDown. I didn't think it was all that bad. I do agree with a lot of the points Alex made, but more to talk about. So get in those super chats and humperchets@humperchets.com. Please leave a thumbs up on this video as well. It helps people find us in the algorithm. The way the algorithm moves with the wrestling content that we have, man, there's so much going on that SmackDown happens. And then by Saturday, it's like there are six other events that have happened. We have CMLL tonight, TNA has a special. There's so much going on in wrestling. Kind of frickin' rules, kind of rules. But let's talk about what everybody really wants to talk about, and that is Ricky. Everybody wants to talk about Ricky today. Not Starks for change. People have stopped asking about his contract. We're talking about Ricky who was on SmackDown tonight. Kevin Owens gets to the ring. He says, I was supposed to have a tag partner, TBA. But he ran into some travel troubles, so here comes this guy. And we get Ricky, who feels like he's going to be of Nicholas fame almost. Like he's just gonna be over for being on the segment. He comes out proud. He comes out ready to fight. There's a little bit of dissension coming from a town down under. A little bit of making fun here. But Randy Orton ends up coming in to save the day. Poor Ricky, he should have had his spot. Kevin Owens thanks him and his Kevin Owens way, you know. And we get underway with our match. This was very silly, but Kevin Owens can make anything work. So worked well enough for me, but we have our tag team match. I am ready for Grayson Waller at Austin Theory to break up. I am so tired of like hinting at dissension and nothing happening. Let's get the show on the road. But we have Kevin Owens, who's outnumbered early on here. And we have Austin Theory and Grayson Waller doing a lot of double teaming early. And despite those attacks, we have Owens with a really, really nice inverted atomic drop and a clothesline on theory. And we get a superplex from Waller, but Owens headbutting and tagging Orton leading to a double superplex in this. This was really, really, really good stuff. You can feel the momentum shifts really well, but ultimately we get, have Waller getting grabbed, and on the apron gets caught with the hangman's DDT, fantastic, fantastic DDT variation. Owens grabs Waller, double hangman's DDT's and stereo, they drop down. We get a stunner RKO combo and Orton pins Waller for the big three count here. The Ricky stuff was silly, but Kevin Owens is hilarious, so God bless him for that. I thought the match was good. I feel like I have seen Kevin Owens fight a Town Down Under and the bloodline exclusively for two and a half years at this point. I'm ready for him to be in a proper feud. I'm wondering if he turns heel on Randy. Everybody kind of assumed it was going to go the other way. People thought Kevin might turn on Cody. I don't know what the possibilities are there, but I think Kevin turning on Randy could be actually really interesting, Alex. Yeah, you know, here's the thing too, I know you just expected, but I want, I want Randy, I don't know, man, Randy is so much better as a heel to me. I think I've seen almost every single type of turn that KO has done, whether it was with Sammy or whomever he was with, like we've just seen it all. I want to see finally the tables being turned on him, you know, and kind of like him, how having to fight for his life a little bit here, you know, I thought the match was pretty good by the way. I thought everything, but you know, when are we going to get rid of a Town Down Under? I say this almost religiously now every single week. I'm not, I'm not hating on them. I just think that they need, they need, and I would have to think that they don't have anything creatively for them separately. And I don't think they can do anything creatively for them separately at the moment, because everyone's kind of tied in in something. So they're keeping this tag team alive and feeding them to KO 464 times. I wrote it down and then, and then, you know, that's about it. They seem like they're going to fight within each other and then nothing happens. They get into a little scuff a little argument and the next week they're fine again. So it's, it's like, it's tired, it's like, they're also having a lot of TV time, which is not bad. Don't get me wrong. Listen, you get a lot of TV time perfect, but they're getting a ton of TV time, a ton. They are, they are, and it's a ton of TV time where nothing's progressing. Like I like that they're getting the time, but like nothing happens with that time. So like use your minutes more. I really thought they would have turned on each other by now and this would have been a really good bad blood feud like a tag team that splits up. That's a perfectly sound bad blood feud, but right back to Golden Egg, let's go. That's what a second Lieutenant Colonel photo is calling for here. Said, you know, a gold egg would do wonders for them. I, I'm going to say no, I'm going to say the Golden Egg was more harmful than helpful for our friend, we could finally open it and see what's inside it. Maybe the key, you know what she do is they, they, he opens a, he has the keys to Titan towers because we all know Titan towers is being sold. So when he goes, he's like, great, this is mine. All mine. And when he puts the key to open it, he can open it. See storyline of the year, God, I'm good. That is a that's entertainment of that is a thought that you have had. So wow. I thought you were behind me the whole way here, but it is insane. Sometimes like I think about how far we've come with WWE and to think that survivor series in Brooklyn, because I live in the Northeast, I know there were a lot of people that went. They were like, yeah, the rock, the rock is, the rock is going to be here tonight. They like, they basically promised the rock was going to be there tonight. And then they were like, actually, here's a movie prop Golden Egg from the movie he was in that people are going to be chasing around the entire episode. So we've come a long way, baby. We've come a long way, TD keys with a lovely chat saying, sending hugs on my way home from Smackdown fun show overall. Well, that's awesome. I love it. And if you guys didn't believe that they had a new Smackdown logo, I retweeted Tina's tweet with a picture of the ring with the skirt that had the new logo on it. And I was saying this, it looks a lot better on the skirt than it does like on a, on just like an, an entry logo on TV. I feel like it actually looks a lot better on the, on the branded canvas there. Tom LaValle saying, Jamie Hader going ginger, I did. I am a copperhead like the snake me and Randy Orton, me and Randy Orton are both just snakes in the grass. That's how it goes, but we move on. We move on from this a town down under and Kevin Owens, Randy Orton match to a segment between Nia and Bailey, Nia comes out and I love you that I think we lost you. We can't hear you. It just muted itself on its own. Ladies and gentlemen, I am loving the Friday the 13th episode of the Smackdown post show in the new era, 25 years in the making, we're back on a universal network. If you guys don't remember, I believe Smackdown used to be on, on sci-fi. That's owned by universal. Yeah. Kate just, Kate just went quiet on me. Kate, can you, can you speak to us? Kate, are you, are you there, Kate? Sorry, everyone. I think we're having technical difficulties over at Kate's home. There she is. Hey, sorry. I can hold the damn man all night. I just don't have the rundown to talk like she does, but I can talk. I can talk. They didn't want me to recap this Nia and Bailey segment. But I don't know why that is rude that we are back, baby. We are back. I ain't going anywhere until my internet forces me out again, but Nia comes out and she says that it's been about a year since she rejoined WWE and she's been a problem ever since, which I liked. She stands at her accomplishments, talking about the Queen of the Ring tournament, talking about how easy it was to become champion for her, really, really nice stuff. I like it when all wrestlers stand on their accomplishments, but especially women's wrestlers. It's nice when the wins and losses matter for them. And we get an interruption from Bailey, who says ding dong, idiot, which was fantastic. I really like that she kind of admits that Nia is doing the best work of her career and that follows up with the one-two punch of saying that was a low bar to clear, though. Some good stuff, some good stuff early on there. Nia kind of gets in some jabs to Bailey talking about hiding behind damage control and Bailey kind of counters by saying, "What about your posse? You got tippy time, pretty deadly's rolling around, but tippy interrupts." And she says that Bailey is simply jealous of her briefcase that she's basically holding as a person at this point, which is fantastic. But Bailey reminds us that she beat Tiffany Stratton, and out comes Naomi, who demands a title shot. I don't like that she's demanding title shots off of losses, that's happened multiple times. I guess we've just entirely dropped this thing with Blair Davenport, that's weird. But then it gets a little bit lost. We have Nia saying, "Why don't you two fight each other and whoever wins gets a shot?" And Bailey says like a triple threat, and I was like, "No." That's not what that is, that's a contendership match. No, that's not a triple threat. And Daya says, "You know what, why don't we have a tag match?" And the winner gets a title shot, but if Naomi and Bailey lose, they have to go to Raw forever. So some good stuff there. What's interesting about this is I think it could kind of go either way. I think the faces are going to win and we are going to get a triple threat. And I think you're going to see Bailey and Naomi have some dissension, but I think it would actually do Raw a lot of good, and definitely Naomi a lot of good if she went to Raw, because they have not booked her well. She's been over and she's looked great in matches, but they have just not found a way to book Naomi outside of like Bianca and Jade sometimes is the only way that she can get wins. So what were your thoughts on this segment and do you want to see Bailey and Naomi head to Raw? Hey, you know, five years ago, Bailey made her way into Smackdown and kill the Bailey buddies. So it was kind of good to have her now kick off yet another new era in Smackdown's history. I do believe and this is not a scoop or maybe it is, you know, the clavicles are running wild as of late with the end of the year approaching and the, you know, all these changes. I do believe that there's going to be yet another draft coming and I do see, you know, Bailey has kind of exhausted her resources at Smackdown. She's been, she's been to Smackdown, you know, home body for such a long time. I do believe also you might see Naomi move over. I don't, I don't, I'm not very certain about Naomi, but I'm very, very sure that Bailey will definitely be making a move and she needs that little fresh start with new fresh faces, you know, and whatnot. Also, by the way, the blade that you said, the dev import things, like where did that, where did I go? I haven't seen my spooky witches on the spooky, spooky months that's coming like, there's so many, I'm not going to get into it, but God, there's just like things that I'm missing out on right now. There are, um, I don't know how I feel about another draft being so soon. I get it with the brand splits, but they last one. Wasn't it like April around the NFL draft? Was it? I thought it was like October of last year. No, no, no, it was April around, they always do it like around the NFL time. Yeah, they do it. They do it like every six months, like every six to eight months, they kind of like bring it back. It would be nice if they got it right, because like they, it's, it gets very murky every time abide by it or kill it like in, in, in, in or out, you know what I mean? I feel like there was a year that they did it later though. I think you're not wrong, but, um, I just feel like if they would wait all the way to like made a do it again, it just, it wouldn't make any sense. And I'll tell you why. It's because with this new move to, um, Netflix, unless they do trades or, or they, they do the whole open thing again where people can start going back and forth, like, you know, something has to happen. There's just, we need to refresh a couple of things. I just wish they didn't do a draft and people could show up in storylines where appropriate or what they should do is trades, like trades would make sense. They do them when it's convenient. They don't really do them otherwise. Right. They'll be like, there's no, I create your rules and follow them is all that I have. She could be the face of Smackdown forever. Who knows? You know, like it's true. It's true. Well, you know what else is true? Oh, that these pay per views that we get are getting kind of expensive. There's a lot of pay per views to be shelling out for that Warner deal ain't done yet, guys. Okay. We've got a million subscription services we're logging into there's so much. And I'm just saying sometimes certain things are a little bit cheaper in other places. Maybe you miss the WWE network. If you want to see a W content through a different, a different lens, perhaps maybe you want early access to that library. Well, do I have news for you? I have long talked with you guys about the content that you can access with NordVPN.com/fightful, but it doesn't just stop at pro wrestling. You can get MMA and boxing pay per views at a much more affordable price when you change your virtual location with just one click using NordVPN.com/fightful. It doesn't stop there either, football games, man. If you want to check out those out of market football games, you don't have to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars, you can get NordVPN.com/fightful and just change your virtual location. How about baseball games? They make it harder than ever to actually watch baseball games. It is a task not with NordVPN.com/fightful. They got everything you need in addition to all the threat protection and security that comes with NordVPN. But if you want that content, NordVPN.com/fightful is right for you. Okay, it is right, by the way. Okay, it is right. By the way, there's websites that are also blocked in 12 states. But NordVPN.com is that what you're talking about? 100%. Yeah, that's why I figured. I figured it was a problem right now with dish and direct TV and sometimes you can't access them so you use your NordVPN. That's what's up. That's what's up. I'll tell you what else is up. Andrade and Melo show out every time these two are together, holy cow. My goodness, this was an incredible match again. You mentioned this at their last one. They've done a really good job with this series of matches of telling a different story every time. Like they threw some heat on this that was a little bit more personal that showed up a lot tonight. You can tell they're a little bit more comfortable and better scouted. You can tell there's a little bit more intensity in that it's built over and over again. And I really appreciate that about this. Like I think it's really refreshing to have a feud like this. Andrade picking up the win here. Him switching up finishers is always something that I appreciate. So I hope he does so more in the future. But I thought this was an outstanding match. There wasn't a ton of matches on tonight's card. This might have been other than the cage match, which felt like it's own event, kind of like my favorite thing that we got on the show. And I feel like I've been saying that a lot on SmackDown, that like man, Melo and Andrade really, really showed out for this. It is very funny when Carmelo goes for the nothing but net and misses because like in my head, I think in basketballs, terms of nothing but net and like that would just be like a brick then, right? Like if someone rolls out of the way and you go for the nothing but net, people should be yelling brick at you in the crowd. But I loved this match. I know you've been enjoying this series too. So Andrade versus LA Knight is where we're going with this. I thought it was going to be Carmelo. But we'll talk about the post match in a moment. What did you think of what we got in ring first? It was good. They continue to find ways to refresh the matches, you know, that Spanish fly off the side of the barricade. What a great spot. I thought someone for sure was going to bust their mouth open when he did it. But I like the fact that he got used to my pronouns here. You know, Andrade was attacked right off the right off the rift, you know, and you kind of just see a little bit of that rough and tough and having to fight from the ground up. Not bored. That's part of my notes. It was like I was not bored by it. There's times that I remember when we had the bar fighting each other for seven straight matches, I kind of got bored of it. And these two have shown away also they spaced it out. Yes, that's helped. Yeah. So these two have been I've been really good. Yeah, this was this was fantastic. I've enjoyed every single one of these that we've gotten from them. And it's been a nice evolution. And I like it when we see in ring evolve like I like when stories evolve through in ring. So this this has been a rivalry that has been for me. Andrade winning makes me wonder if Carmel is going to be the one to be LA night eventually, like it feels intentional that they're keeping him away from it at this point. I think they view him as like a WrestleMania superstar. So my hope is that he may be as the one to eventually take it from him though. I also would want it to be Santos. So tough, I'm all for hot potato wing and stuff. But like I think LA night's going to hold on to this for a little bit. So going with Andrade, not a bad call, but we do have LA night coming out after this. And I have to pull up what he said verbatim because it made me laugh. And I simultaneously like it would be insulting to get it wrong with what he says. He congratulates Andrade and then he says that he hopes Andrade is feeling tingles and jingles, but he just won the Quiddie sweepstakes in the prizes. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points. So you can get big flavors and big savings king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply getting dropped on his head by the megastar. He is doing it like nobody else right now. God bless LA night for that. But nice little post match promo there, nice little post match promo there for sure guys getting your super chats and your hamper chats as we are coming down the home stretch. Let's get into this main event before we do. We remind you to subscribe to five plus life. We told you a lot about it on the show, but it is $54 a year or $5 a month. Please help us out there. Not only will I be reviewing money playing back there, but Alex Plaski and I also do paper view post shows, so we have a lot of fun, kind of a lot of alternatives to what's on the main and in addition to scoops a whole bunch of other value. But me norm is saying self partners, let's crank. Here's a small sack of moneys for Kate's internet and the wild clavicles. That's a fantastic tag team, the wild clavicles. The wild clavicles. I love it. What famous dude with the wild some moments. The wild some moments are giving you the hardest headbud ever, because the morns are known for having the hardest head in the industry. You have the hardest clavicles. The hardest freaking clavicles you'll ever face. That's right. Damn right. But let's talk about our main event here. Let's call for super chats and hamper chats. I mean, truly we'll take your money at any time, but if you want to get your money. Yeah, I need money man. I want to buy stuff, send it. So we get back to kind of the through line of this whole episode we saw Cody earlier today say that he's not really interested in taking this on, but Roman Reigns is in the ring. He does the we the ones and Nick Aldous is there as well. We get Roman playing to the crowd. It's fun to see him get to play to the crowd as a face. It's a very, very different vibe, which is which is fun, but it's been a chaotic night and they have their own unique history and he wants to say that with everything going on and Romans puts his hand out and all just puts the hand contract in his hand. Reigns looks at it and then it takes his other hand and puts it out again and all just gives him the mic. That made me laugh and is in my notes that that made me laugh. So he says that he doesn't want to confuse anybody, some things change, but he does not. This is family business and it is bloodline business and he doesn't need a partner. He definitely doesn't need a Cody Rhodes help. But out comes Cody as he does. Cody says your ring at your WWE. Well it was, but it hasn't been since WrestleMania and Cody drops the mic and so does Roman and they kind of have this stare down. Solo and Fatu come out and Tama and Tonga Loa attack, raise and Cody from behind. Cody hits the Cody cutter, Roman with the Urnagi. I like a lot of what this is. Cody puts his hand out, Roman puts his hand over it and Cody sides the contract. They're not happy, but they agree to team up here. So there's good and bad about this. I like that there isn't an assumption that they are friends. They shouldn't like each other just because they're both faces. These guys were at war for two years with each other. That makes no sense, right? So I'm glad that there's dissension there. I don't know why Cody recognizes that this is none of his business and then switches. He just changes his mind kind of with no real explanation. So I hope that there's creative justification for that. I felt the same way watching AEW when they were like Brian Danielson can't wrestle and defend his title at Grand Slam and then Nigel McInnes was like, "I'm challenging you." I'm like, "This was the same episode and you explained nothing to me." So I need a creative justification as to why Cody changed his mind next week because it makes no sense. They don't even have titles that he wants. They have tag titles, right? So they need to justify why Cody changed his mind the same way that they needed to do that with Royal Rumble, they need to find a way back. But I do like that it's not just assumed that Roman and Cody are friends. So mixed emotions for me on the way that we closed out this episode, but Roman hugely over, we are on the road to survivor series after bad blood. So this seems like an inevitable thing. But what did you think of our closing segment? I really wanted it to end. I don't know, I don't know, I'm just an old man fan now. So from what I am screaming at the clouds, I'm one of those because I just was like, "Why are you coming out, dude?" Like he has other family members, get the uses involved, get one of the new kids that are coming up in the family to kind of give him some shine. You came out, you told me you were done with this, I love the attitude, I love the way he came out. He looked at the GM and he was like, "Yo, I'm done with this, that's his problem." I was like, "Yes, finally." But you know what, people are going to eat it up and they're going to enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to be like, "Cool, this is going to be a cool match, it's fun to see." I hope that Solo and Jacob Fatu destroy them because they would make no sense for Roman and Cody to win. I need them to win and by them I mean, you know, Bloodline 3.0 so that we could actually have a bigger story, a comeback story, the chase and then like get rid of Cody and then have him, have Roman bring in the rest of his family. You know, like, "R Cody, you sucked, you weren't there for me, you didn't even help me. I'm going to punch you in the mouth." This comment right here is where I kind of have a problem with this is like, I understand that they jumped Cody again so that he would have a problem with them again, but like, he has all these other friends like to back him up now, right? Like, we've seen DIY, we've seen the street profits, but like, I guess they just don't really factor in anymore like, I guess, begrudgingly teaming up with Roman and Roman knowing them is supposed to be the justification there, but like, that also just feels like a retread of Drew and Punk a little bit of like, well darn it, they just won't leave me alone. Like, freshen up the playbook a little bit because that goes stale for me. But I liked that he was moving on, like getting jumped is one thing, but like needing to team up with Roman to be the one to tell him off, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't need it. Not my favorite, not my favorite, but we will see, I'm sure the match will be awesome though. I think these stare down between Fatu and Roman will be like an all-tyber thing. So looking forward to that for sure. But guys, that is our review for the evening, we're going to wish you a safe and wonderful wrestling weekend, but before we get out of here, Cardozo, where can people find you? Hey, that's me. You can find me on IG, not only stop, Alexis Cardozo threads, Alexis Cardozo, and if you don't want to mind anyone who's everyone who's here, go head up that little follow button on Instagram. I would really appreciate it if you're not on threads yet. Make sure you go check it out. I make no money off of that either. I just think it's such a more powerful, like a friendlier and positive place to be rather than the other place. I also encourage you to go check out the other IG handle that I just opened up called That Was Pretty Jolly. Yes, October 9th, coming out with a new show, talking Christmas movies, and the play of it is instead of doing the 12 days of Christmas, I'm doing the 12 weeks of Christmas. And each week, I'm going to be talking, not reviewing, not breaking down, talking about a certain movie, a Christmas movie, which will be really, really fun to share with you guys. So yeah, yeah, that's come on October 9th, and I'm an old man screaming at the clouds. I love that for you. I love that for you. I also love this jet. You jumped me, we got a square up. You know what? That's fair. That's a fair take. But just then, just fight right there. Why are you going to wait till? Why are you going to do that with a friend? Beat the mask, Cody. Why? You can catch me at Ms. Kate Vape on social media. You can find me here on Fightful every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday reviewing NXT, ROH, and Smackdown. You can also catch me on Fightful Select without it's Pulaski for any pay-per-view post shows and Mondays doing your Sour Grapes RAW review, and the mark order on Wednesdays. We have a lot of fun over there talking, all things all elite, but not this Wednesday. I will be in Wilkes-Bair, Pennsylvania for that, and I will also be at Grand Slam if you are going to be there. I'm going to try to get to that October Smackdown at Madison Square, or no? Is it in Brooklyn? I can't remember. I think it's in Brooklyn. It's in Brooklyn. I'm pretty sure it's in Brooklyn. I'm going to try to get to all of the wrestling. I think October 25th, maybe, but I'm going to be seeing a lot of live wrestling, so if you see me there, please say hi. I look forward to seeing and meeting more of you, but we're going to get out of here. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you next week. Peace. This podcast is brought to you by the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics. Seven legendary titles, including X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Enjoy new features like online multiplayer, training, and gallery modes. Plus, join in on the action with one button specials, where players of all skill levels can unleash those epic moves with ease. Relive the classic arcade battles. Get your hands on the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection today, available now on PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. At King Super's Pharmacy, Care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID, and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's Pharmacy, so come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care, is in store. Visit kingsuper's.com/vaccines for more restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping King Super's for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices. Plus, extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points, so you can get big flavors and big savings. King Super's, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Hi, I'm Devin Whitmire. People from South Carolina, like myself, are proud of their state, but even we don't know every nook and cranny, or every piece of culture or history. To explore places that are off the beaten path, you have to talk to the people there, because their stories make everything come together. And discover South Carolina, it's the Palmetto Porch, premiering September 18th. To learn more, visit scpalmetoporch.com.
