5 YRS AGO SMACKDOWN POST-SHOW: King of the Ring and Queen’s Crown begin, Edge picks HIAC for Seth match, Heyman runs down Lesnar, more

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1:35 Now, PW Torch brings you the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show.

1:44 On today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show for Thursday, October 8th, 2026, we jump back five years to October 8th, 2021. To the SmackDown Post Show, Zach Haydorn hosted with Alex McDonald, now of the PWTorch 90s past cast. They had live callers, answered emails, and talked with an on-site correspondent about SmackDown.

2:01 Discussion points include the success and failures of the King of the Ring and Queen's Crown tournament matches, the weak depth in the mid-card of the SmackDown women's division, all the nuance between Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman, Reigns getting a babyface reaction in the building, Edge vs. Seth Rollins inside Hell in a Cell taking place at Crown Jewel, and more. So let's get to it. This is today's 5 Years Ago Smackdown Flashback.

2:27 All right, Alex, I thought this episode of SmackDown for a while was pretty quiet.

2:33 But we got some big news at the end of the show.

2:36 Edge returning to SmackDown and accepting Seth Rollins' challenge for another match. But with his own added hell in a cell stipulation. So newsworthy in that regard. And I want to make sure we give that story and that development away. plenty of time here on the show, but I kind of thought we'd start things off, though, with the two tournaments that kicked off tonight on the show. We had the King of the Ring tournament and the Queen's Crown, and Alex, I thought in very.

3:10 Kind of in a very prominent way, but not in a good way, like two really different presentations for both the King of the Ring and Queen's Crown tournaments. I mean, on the men's side of things, I thought two really good matches between four top stars and kind of outcomes in those matches where The next round on the SmackDown side makes sense. And then you go over to the women's side of things. And collectively, I don't know if both matches together even got four minutes of time. You've got two heels colliding with each other in the next round.

3:44 So kind of a tale of two tournaments at this point in time.

3:47 But just high level. I mean, what did you make of WWE's.

3:52 Presentation of King of the Ring and, you know, the first Queen's Crown tonight?

3:57 All right, I want to get the Queen's Crown thing out of the way because I don't want to get more upset about it.

4:02 Okay.

4:04 I cannot believe that I was actually fooled into thinking that they were going to take it seriously. I can't believe that I actually thought that they would. Those two matches tonight were an absolute joke. Absolute joke. They didn't even total five minutes between the two of them. Liv Morgan who was seemingly getting some sort of push I even said a couple weeks ago that I thought that she could possibly be the next challenger on Smackdown once this was all said and done so again I feel really stupid for thinking that now considering she doesn't even get her full entrance on TV and she gets beat by Carmella in a minute and 40 seconds just bad just really bad they're, they're going into the, the second

4:54 part of this with Zelina Vega and Carmela now. And so we're, we're guaranteed one of the two of them in the finals. That doesn't make any sense. Uh, the biggest glaring difference between the two tournaments before I get into the men's side and just, just to touch on the brackets, you look at the men's bracket and I honestly don't know who's going to win right now. I have a couple of ideas. Uh, And I'll get into that in a second here. But the women's bracket, clearly Shayna Baszler is the winner, right? Right, Zach? I mean, clearly. That, too, it has to be because I don't see anybody else that it could possibly be that would make any sense, especially considering the fact that Liv Morgan and Toni Storm

5:45 are both of whom would really benefit from winning something like this, were disposed of in a minute and 40 seconds each tonight. So it has to be Shayna, right?

6:01 Yeah, I mean, when you look at that bracket, especially given how things played out tonight, where you had two up-and-coming babyfaces on the SmackDown side of things that that.

6:12 Like you said, it could have used, uh, this at least a first round win, right?

6:17 Like, and, and you look at the bracket collectively, you know, I think the top of that, the, the Baszler side of the bracket has do drop in it. And, uh, Natalia, maybe I, off the top of my head, I don't remember, but, but I think you're right. Like you look at that and, uh, But I mean, on one hand, you know, I look at that and go, OK, you know, Shayna Baszler is getting a getting a push. I mean, that'll be a big win for her if she can if she can pull that off. But at the same time, I also worry for her because it's like I just I can't imagine her out there with a cape on or a crown.

6:53 Like that doesn't seem like her like her either. Like, I don't know that she can do with that gimmick what she's. uh, you know, Baron Corman did for, for better or for worse. You know, he got, he got TV time with it. I still think that that's not, that's not really up, up her alley, but at the same time, I think, yeah, I'm with you that she's, she's the one that you look at now and go, okay, she's going to win. But I think the bigger question, Alex, though, is what you kind of tapped into at the start of your comments, which is this, I mean, five minutes, like two matches. It's like, I don't know, man. If you want this thing to mean something– I mean that's why King of the Ring has the equity that it

7:35 has right now today after so many years of it even being misused, especially in the recent past, is that it's got equity because– They took the time at one point to put effort into booking it with up-and-coming stars and using it clearly as a way to launch somebody to the next level, not to just have them wear a crown around and be the king of something. There's a total different tone around the two tournaments because of the history King of the Ring has.

8:07 And I'm with you.

8:07 I kind of was hoping that they would look at this Queen's Crown tournament as a way of to to make somebody and maybe they will with shana baszler but you can't do that in with with with two minute matches in three minute matches i mean it has to be more than that for people to to care about this and just a simple you know obviously you know twitter and social media is a fraction of the audience that uh wwe speaking to but it's like i don't know how you can invest in this tournament any further seeing what they did tonight period.

8:36 You can't, and that's the interesting thing, is they really had an opportunity to right some wrongs and build up the lower part of the women's division. Even if somebody like Toni Storm, for example, doesn't win the entire tournament, if she comes out tonight and has— I mean, Vega's a poor opponent, but— You'll I'll you'll see where I'm going.

9:03 You know, if she comes out tonight and has a seven minute match with Zelina Vega and beats her and then next week has a six, seven minute match with either Liv Morgan or Carmela, you know, and looks good, whether she wins or loses, at least now, Toni Storm has some equity. What we saw tonight was she lost to Zelina Vega, who I don't keep track of this, but how many wins on TV does she have since she came back? Is this the second one or the third one?

9:37 It might be three, but it's certainly not more than that. And even still, are those wins.

9:45 Even if they're wins, they're not.

9:46 Meaningful or impactful in any way because we're sitting here thinking about whether or not they actually were wins or not.

9:51 So they just weren't worthwhile.

9:53 The other part of this, too, that was really confusing, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more as the the show goes on but as far as the women's side of these brackets aren't all four of the women that competed tonight now.

10:09 On raw.

10:12 So shana no shana shana's on smackdown No, I mean the women that competed tonight, the four.

10:19 Oh, yes.

10:19 Yes.

10:20 Yes.

10:20 You're correct.

10:21 Yep.

10:21 So that threw me off quite a bit also, because if I'm supposed to be a SmackDown fan and I'm supposed to root for SmackDown people, I'm now watching. Basically, the raw half of the bracket, this whole wait in two weeks to split this up is very confusing for me, even if I know who's on what brand. It's I don't know. I kind of wish they had done that differently.

10:45 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man, I thought it really was a mess tonight. And even, like, the men's side, we can touch on that briefly, and then we'll open it up to calls here. But, you know, the men's side of things, it's like you kind of– you look at the matches that they have, you know, set up tonight. Rey Mysterio against Sami Zayn. Look, a really– I thought that was a really good match, you know, a good tournament-style match.

11:07 Same thing with Finn Balor and Cesaro. But the problem is with it– I just don't know where you go with those guys.

11:16 Okay. They win this tournament.

11:18 You know, they're all so defined in their roles that I think even winning this tournament is going to be really difficult for them to kind of break out of, of their, of their slot. You know, had there been somebody in this thing, that's not, you know, kind of set where they're set on the card for, again, for better or worse, you can see, okay, they could use this as an elevator for them, or they can use this as a way to push them harder. But again, If Finn Balor wins the King of the Ring tournament, okay, that's great, that's nice for him, but I still don't know that that changes anything for his position in the company.

11:55 Rendering that tournament kind of... useless outside of watching good wrestling matches. So I, and plus you layer on top of that. I don't know that they framed like these guys didn't have a chance to talk about winning. Ray did a little bit, but I thought his promo was kind of like super kind of convoluted about being a king of nothing. So I just think these tournaments are just kind of there right now, Alex, and missing the context that they need to be successful.

12:23 Well, uh, real quick, king of the ring, uh, I think you and I are actually around the same age, so you might relate to this. Growing up as a kid, I always loved The King of the Ring because it signaled summer for me. And in school, you know, I wasn't allowed to stay up late and watch all the pay-per-views, but The King of the Ring pay-per-view was always the first one of the year I was allowed to stay up and watch the whole thing because we didn't have school.

12:50 So The King of the Ring has always been really special to me. I kind of hate what they've done to it in recent years. But I like it coming back, and I actually thought they did a good job with the two matches tonight. For my money, Cesaro and Balor, that's about as good as you're going to get for a 10-minute WWE-style match right now. It's just not going to get much better than that. And I disagree with you on one point. I think with Balor, winning this could mean something. If he became some weird kind of tweener Sato heel and got a shot against Big E in a major program over there, I think that could work.

13:34 The other thing I want to throw out there is do you think it's possible that they go with either Xavier Woods or Kofi and that transitions one of them into a feud with Reigns, even if it's short term?

13:53 I mean, I wouldn't put that past WWE to happen. No, I mean, I think I mean, look, Xavier Woods have been, you know, working behind the scenes with the to be king of the ring for a while. Roman Reigns, you know, with the with the draft shaken out the way that it that it did, Roman Reigns needs to. opponents like without question you know so i mean he he has nobody you know uh drew mcintyre and then and then that's really that's really it so so i absolutely could see that at that happening and and you know that that's a fair point i mean that would be you know if it was xavier woods that'd be an elevation into that that main event level slot that he hasn't really been in before on the single side of things

14:35 so that yeah that that that could work and i think that's a Boy, now that you mention it, like a really good possibility actually. Maybe it's not even with the King of the Ring win, but at some point I would imagine one of those two, maybe both going up against Roman Reigns because he just doesn't have anybody else right now.

14:52 So we'll keep this discussion going. I think there's a lot of different angles to hit.

14:57 The King of the Ring analysis from and the Queen's Crown analysis from.

15:01 We'll open it up to calls.

15:03 Definitely want to get to chatting about Edge and Seth Rollins and Hell in a Cell. But let's pause right there for a second. We'll set the table for the show and then start taking calls here. This is the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show covering the October 8th, 2021 edition of WWE SmackDown. I'm PWTorch Assistant Editor Zach Hadorn filling in for Wade and As always, Wade is going to be around on the VIP side of things a little bit later with his Wade Keller hotline, breaking down all things SmackDown. And you can go VIP and check out that show, PWTorch.com slash go VIP. PWTorch.com slash go VIP is how you get information. on going VIP with us. And you get the Wade Keller Hotline and a host of other podcasts. Mine, The Fix with Todd Martin,

15:47 Everything with Rich Fan, and just a multitude of others. Just really good stuff that I think our VIP members enjoy. So if you want to give us a try, pwtorch.com slash go VIP. The other voice you hear tonight is that of Alex McDonald from pwtorch.com. Alex, first time doing a show together, man. I'm really looking forward to chatting.

16:09 Welcome.

16:10 Thanks, Zach. I appreciate it. It is nice to be here with you.

16:14 Yeah, very good.

16:15 So let's open up the phone lines. The 347-215-8558 is the phone number if you want to get in on the calls tonight.

16:26 347-215-8558.

16:26 Make sure to press 1 when you're in the queue to let me know that you want to talk. It's kind of like raising your hand. If you don't want to talk with us tonight, you can send us an email. WadeKellerPodcast at gmail.com. wadekellerpodcast at gmail.com. I'll be checking that as the show goes on, and we'll make sure to hit a bunch of topics from email questions that we get.

16:50 So we got a lot of callers in the queue tonight, so we're going to try our best to get to everybody. But again, there's a lot of folks in there, so we'll try to keep it to one or two topics so we can try to.

17:02 Get everybody in.

17:04 But Alex, with that said, if you're ready to rock, let's go ahead and take the first call.

17:09 Always ready.

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18:16 All right.

18:17 We will start tonight with 615.

18:21 615, you are up.

18:22 State your name and where you're calling from tonight.

18:24 Zach and Alex, always good to talk to you. Sean, VST from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. How are you guys doing tonight?

18:29 Good, Sean. Great to talk to you, man. What did you think of SmackDown?

18:35 Uh, Oh, Alex and Zach, I got to get my rant out too to start off. I'm with you guys 100%. I was so effing pissed to watch that Queen's Crown garbage. I mean, I said from the very beginning, I told you guys and Wade multiple times, I don't know if they're going to do this the right way. I'm afraid this is just another gimmick that they're going to– because King of the Ring– When Michael Cole talked about Stone Cold and all those guys, back then it meant something.

19:02 It was important. Now it's not important. It's just some dumb gimmick that they want to put a crown on their stupid head and act like a bunch of goobers and say a bunch of scripted stuff. And it's just... Liv Morgan had beaten Carmella how many times in a row? Even before last week, like five? And then you're going to have her lose, like you said, with Carmella in a mask in a minute and 40 seconds. With a stupid, beautiful woman mask. I got to cover my face.

19:27 Crap.

19:28 It's like, what are we doing, WWE?

19:31 Stop.

19:31 Stop with the nonsense. It's ridiculous. Shayna, like you said, has to win because... It's the only option, but at the same point, I don't know if they're going to push her the way they should because they're WWE.

19:43 I don't know.

19:44 I hope I'm wrong. Sorry, you guys.

19:47 I apologize.

19:48 Alex, you took it fine. I had to go with it because it was just ridiculous. And Toni Storm, going back to her really fast, Toni Storm. We never get an entrance other than tonight. We don't know anything about her. She won the freaking Mae Young Classic. Nobody knows about it because they never tell you about it.

20:05 But she did.

20:06 They were actually behind her. They cared about her. Then they bring her on TV. We never know a thing about her. And she loses to nobody but people in like two seconds, and nobody cares.

20:16 I just– oh, my God.

20:17 Yeah.

20:18 Here's the thing.

20:19 Like, well, real quick, Sean, because I mean I think we have– I mean– This topic deserves time because I think it's a really big miss on a couple levels. I mean, at this point, I'm not surprised when WWE does something like this, but I was a little bit surprised tonight about it because the women's division for them draws.

20:42 Some of the biggest stars that they have in the company right now are in the women's division.

20:46 When you talk Sasha Banks, you talk.

20:48 Becky Lynch, you talk Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, you know, Ronda Rousey, you know, maybe at some point is going to be back in the mix. I mean, those are big time players for the company. And so to see them kind of treat this, you know, the women's division version of the King of the Ring the way they did tonight, it just seems really tone deaf for what has worked for their top acts in that division on the main roster. Like this isn't like, you know, women's division of You know, 10 years ago where it just is dismissed for matches like we saw tonight. I mean, there's some real players and you think you'd want to just double down on that and if nothing else, build somebody up. with this tournament to feed to those acts.

21:33 Like if, if absolutely nothing else, make this thing mean something. You got a hot, you know, live Morgan as a baby face or a hot ish Morgan is as a baby face. And then, you know, whatever feeder, Becky Lynch as a heel, Becky goes over it.

21:46 And that's that.

21:46 But at least you've set the table and a foundation for this tournament moving forward here.

21:51 I mean, one day in here.

21:53 Five minutes worth of wrestling, if that, and the legs are cut right out from under this thing. So, and then real quick, Alex, before I throw back to you, Sean, on Tony Storm, they got to figure out this act. Like, this whole Child of the 80s thing and her dropping Bruce Springsteen and Joan Jett in promos, it's like, you know, I said this on Twitter during the show, you can't be dropping those names. Not that there's anything wrong with those performers or those musicians, but But you can't drop those names in a promo and wonder why your audience is significantly, you know, in the ballpark of 50 plus.

22:29 Like you have to you can't have a gimmick child of 80s. It's just it's eye roll inducing. It's not going to go anywhere. People aren't going to get it. And it just screams Vince looking at her for two seconds and going, oh, she looks like somebody from the 80s.

22:43 Run with that. And yeah.

22:45 OK, so now my rant's over. So so now all three of us have ranted. Alex, back to you.

22:51 Well, I mean, again, going back to it, I don't want to harp on the point, but the bottom line is with this Queen's Crown thing, they had a chance to build up the lower card of the women's division. They have already shown us that they're not going to do that because the other half of this tournament, I think Natalia and I want to say Shayna's first-round opponent was Tamina. Maybe one of you guys caught who it is, but I thought it was Tamina. Anyway, they're not getting any help from this anyway. So... They show us yet again that all they care about in the women's division is the top tier. And that's great because Sasha, Becky, Charlotte, they all draw. But the problem is going to become, other than Bianca Belair, over the last year, year and

23:42 a half, they have built no one. And right now, with the injury to Bayley, they only have three credible women on TV because they treat everyone else like a joke.

23:56 Yeah, yeah. Sean, back to you.

24:01 Yeah, I mean, totally. And Shayna, unfortunately, has to wrestle flexing herself, Dana Brooke, unfortunately.

24:07 Dana Brooke, that's who it is.

24:09 Whatever that is. Yeah, so... going off that, because like I said, we can rant on that all day, and WWE, you know, do better in that area. Do better in that specific area, because you can do better, and you just choose not to, and it's unfortunate, but going back to the end of the show, the Edge Seth stuff was really good. Seth's promo was great. I really enjoyed that.

24:32 He's getting more serious now. You know, just disgracing Edge, making him want to get out there and beat the living crap out of him and Edge, and I love when Edge came out Yeah, he didn't run out right away, but he was seething, and he didn't play to the crowd, thank God. He's a great baby face to where he knows he can't do that kind of stuff. So thank goodness for that. He came out and tried to take care of business, and he almost did. But at least he had the right mindset. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to come out to the crowd, I'm going to play to the crowd. It's a serious angle. I'm going to make it serious. And so like, what did you guys just think of that end segment? Cause I thought it was really good. And I, and I don't know,

25:13 obviously I'm assuming the hell in a cell in Saudi Arabia. Oh God, please. No, but I think it's going to. So what'd you think about all that?

25:22 Yeah, I thought it was a really good segment to Sean.

25:24 I thought it was well done. Seth does.

25:28 To me, he is starting to click a little bit better and finding kind of that the main event part of his of this kind of drip God act that he's doing.

25:38 You know, I think it's. Like you said, it's moving into.

25:42 That more serious territory where when he talks, he's kind of able to finesse the character into the seriousness of he still wants to win matches. And I think that was missing for a while. And I think this feud with Edge has really brought that to light. I thought Edge was good too.

25:59 And yeah.

26:00 the match is super intriguing, Alex, Hell in a Cell, Edge versus Seth Rollins. But, you know, I get the same feeling that Sean gets. They didn't say it, that it's going to be a crown jewel on the show. I was waiting for that to drop. I'm sure it might even be on WWE.com right now.

26:17 I don't know, but I'm with you, Sean.

26:19 I think we're looking at that match being in Saudi Arabia, which, you know, it is a, That's unfortunate, like a batch of other matches on the show. But Alex, what did you think of that segment at the end? Rollins is on fire.

26:33 Over the last four to five weeks, maybe even six weeks, Rollins is one of the best parts of the show. Any of you guys who have read my reports over that time period will know that the Edge-Rollins feud has been probably my second favorite part of SmackDown, other than Reigns. For obvious reasons. But I think Edge is probably the best thing that ever happened to Seth Rollins, and I'm really surprised I'm saying that at this point in Edge's career.

27:05 But there couldn't have been a better opponent for him right now. And again, Rollins is just doing great things. I'm so disappointed that he's going to Raw. I think that's probably my biggest disappointment from this whole draft because I was hoping– that he could move on from Edge and possibly feud with McIntyre before McIntyre moves into a program with Reigns. It's all fantasy at this point, but I don't know if you guys remember Reigns' first title defense. Or, I'm sorry, McIntyre's first title defense after he won the title at WrestleMania 36 was against Rollins in a great match, but they only had the one-off. So I was hoping we could get a feud there to get... through this fall winter time before we went to McIntyre Reigns at WrestleMania. Again,

28:01 complete fantasy at this point. But I love it. I love the whole feud. And I don't know if Hell in a Cell was the right way to go. I do like that it seems that Hell in a Cell has a purpose and we're not just shoehorning it because it's the name of the pay-per-view.

28:18 Yes, yes.

28:20 But with that said, I don't know how I feel about Saudi Hell in a Cell. I don't really want to get into the... You guys have seen the jabs I've made and have heard the things that I've said about not being able to buy a ticket to go see Reigns and Lesnar. Because honestly and truly, if I had the ability, I probably would. And I can't. Also, I can't be home at 1 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon to watch it. So... that's great.

28:51 No, I mean, that is that, gosh, I mean, there's, there's a lot wrong with, with the, this, the relationship with the WWE and Saudi Arabia and these, and these shows. And even if you take away like all, any, anything else that, that is involved in this and just look at, Hey, I want to watch, I want to watch this show.

29:09 It's at one o'clock, you know, on a Thursday, you know, and it's just, it, these big matches living outside the bounds of like WWE's normal cadence of shows. It just, they're not going to be as impactful as they otherwise would be. And if this is on that card, I'm assuming it's going to be just added to the list of, like I said, added to the list of others. Sean, anything else for us tonight, man?

29:34 I'm Chris Maitland.

29:35 I'm Justin McClelland.

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30:09 Yeah, really quick, I wanted to bring up something a little different that I don't know if it'll get talked about. And then I'll let Nick from Brattleboro, Kyle from Baltimore. I got to hear all you guys, man. I want to hear all your thoughts tonight. But I wanted to bring this up real quick was, With the Naomi and Sonya stuff, it was fine as far as I assumed they were going to have a match. That seemed obvious to me and probably to you guys as well. I don't...

30:44 First of all, I know they don't really go to that length to tell that, because it's such a small story, I guess, in their eyes, but have. Adam pierce at some like at some point during this like her and naomi going back and forth like adam pierce should be saying to sonia hey you're uh you know you're with with me now you're not wrestling right now you need to be focused on on what we're doing and not getting in getting arguing with naomi about whatever and then naomi like oh you know somebody's like you're gonna be facing me and adam pierce like doesn't even like just kind of doesn't even bat an eye about it he's just like oh, stop battering.

31:22 And then they go.

31:22 That thing was just weird to me.

31:25 I mean.

31:27 I like Naomi's fire that she's kind of gotten under her here with this thing. And maybe the match will be really good. But, again, Sonya hasn't wrestled in a while. I love Sonya as a heel, of course. I mean, she's done a good job as a heel. What did you think about all that? And Adam Pearce with them?

31:44 It just seemed weird to me. And I'll leave it at that. Let you guys kind of mingle back and talk about it. And, Alex, good to talk to you again, man. Zach, hope your family's doing well, man. I appreciate you guys always taking my call. Thank you, man.

31:57 Thanks very much, Sean. Appreciate, appreciate you making it as always.

32:01 Yeah. Alex, what do you think? What'd you think of, of that segment with Sonia and, and Naomi?

32:07 I'm actually glad he brought that up because I wasn't sure if somebody else is going to bring that up either. And I'm, I wanted to talk about it. So, all right. I think they're a little quick to get to the payoff on this. I kind of, still hold out hope that Naomi's going to join the bloodline. And this is a way to do that. I don't necessarily think that's going to happen at this point, but I still do hold out hope for it. I completely agree with what Sean just said though. And why wouldn't Adam Pierce react to that? Why does he not care that she's going to wrestle? And the other part of this is, does this lead to Deville wrestling more now than and not being in that authority role. Are they going to insert

32:57 somebody else into that authority role? It's, this brings up a lot more questions than answers, which is kind of a good thing. But to me, there's only two ways this match goes. And, I don't know if either one of them is great. Option A is Naomi just absolutely destroys Deville in like 45 seconds and earns a future SmackDown Women's title match. Option B is no finish slash Deville wins by some kind of screw job. And then...

33:34 I don't know where we go from there. I didn't think that far past that part. But to me, that's really the only ways that this can go.

33:42 Yeah.

33:42 And I think that's look, I guess on the surface, I don't have any like deep problems with this. I think I'm willing to see it, see it play out. But it's already starting to show some some holes in the story.

33:54 And I think, yeah, the Adam Pearce thing is is is one of them. On a couple of different levels, too.

33:59 It's like, yes, he should have reacted to Sonya Deville just saying, hey, I'm going to wrestle. But also like you'd think that he'd react to her just openly not giving Naomi a match and like just rebelling against her requests because Adam Pearce is kind of always.

34:16 That's a good point.

34:18 Yeah, right.

34:18 Like he's always kind of just the even keel, you know, backstage manager guy. And so you'd think he'd go, wait a minute, Sonya, like what's what's what's going on here? And then the other part is, like you said, it's hard to figure out where they go. Because if they go through the storyline and they have the match and Sonya just beats Naomi, then OK.

34:41 Then what have we been doing? Feud kind of over.

34:44 If Naomi wins, it's kind of like, OK, Sonya's back and she gets beat. So you know that this is not going to end in something like this. There's going to be some shenanigans or trickery of some kind. But I keep saying to myself, to what end? You know, like there is a story here, but you can't see where it's going and not in a good way that it's OK.

35:06 I'm not sure.

35:06 It's just that there isn't a good payoff that I can see in my eyes at this point. And I think they have to define what that is.

35:12 What is Naomi doing?

35:14 Like angling for, is it a, you know, at this point it was just a match. Well, she got that now, you know, so is it a championship match or is it, you know, main events or, or, you know, whatever. I think they really needed to find this better so that the story can progress, you.

35:29 Know, in a way that's, that's, that's logical. That, that to me is what's missing at.

35:33 This point, Alex. Again, I hold out every possible hope that we get super vicious Naomi and somehow Reigns and or Jimmy slash Jay slash Paul insert themselves in this and remind Sonya and Adam Pearce, who really runs the show, and Naomi joins the bloodline. To me, that's the resolution.

36:06 Yeah, we'll see.

36:07 It's a title match against somebody.

36:09 Yeah, yeah. Right, pick a person.

36:13 Yeah, yeah.

36:16 If you're listening to us on the Apple Podcast app, on Spotify, or any other app that allows you to rate our podcast, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating. It really helps us in the algorithm and helps them know that you recommend us to others. Just look for a place to rate the show on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to our shows, and please click that five-star rating. And of course, thank you so much for listening.

36:41 All right, let's keep the calls going here. We will go to Nick from Brattleboro. Nick, great to talk to you as always. Thanks for calling.

36:48 What did you think of SmackDown tonight, my friend?

36:51 Good evening, guys, and shout out to Sean. A couple of just observational points is, one, Sami Zayn is not going to win because he doesn't go to Saudi Arabia. So I'm assuming that he'll get beat in one of the prelims. And then also I saw that McAfee is not going to Saudi Arabia, which I just find interesting.

37:28 Because I guess he dumped on them after the whole plane thing a couple of years ago. And so he's persona non grata, I guess.

37:37 I don't know.

37:37 Oh, interesting. Interesting. I forgot about that.

37:41 Yeah, no, there was a thing on the internet, you know, listen, it's on the internet, so who knows, but supposedly he was talking on his podcast where he, you know, listen, Saudi Arabia's great, bravo, but then when he got stuck on the airplane, and I guess he talked about it. So anyway, he's not going, which is interesting. I find that interesting. And then also, I found it very interesting that they just kind of folded in right at the end that next Friday's show is on FS1.

38:13 Yeah.

38:15 The baseball playoffs.

38:17 Yeah.

38:18 They just said, our super smackdown on FS1.

38:23 Yeah.

38:24 Well, you know, I kind of give them credit for– I give them credit, Nick, just because– well, you know, they're– I mean, Brock Lesnar is going to be on that show. He was announced tonight. They're doing also Becky Lynch versus Sasha Banks. So it's it's kind of telling that they they just kind of snuck in. Like you said, they snuck in FS1, but have the card, you know, or the show kind of stacked at this point. So you'd think they'd want to go heavier with the marketing on that. I'm sure it's coming. I'm sure it's coming.

38:54 And if we talk next week, we'll be like, oh, my God, too much FS1 promotion.

38:59 But yeah, we'll see.

39:02 I just thought it was funny that it was really just kind of like, this great match, Becky is on FS1. I agree with all of your rants. I could double down rant on Liv Morgan. It just seems I guess they lost interest in her, that she wasn't shaking her butt enough. I don't know. But she seems dead in the water. And the only thing I'm scared about is for some reason Vince likes dewdrop, and so he's going to have her beat Shayna in the semis. Yeah. You know, just– you know, just– you know, just I– Because I also agree, and I don't know whether he can see this, is Shane is not one to parade around with a crown.

39:54 I can almost imagine if she wins, she takes a look at the crown, throws it on the ground, and steps on it. You know, I mean, you know, the crown gimmick is not good for her.

40:08 She'd be more over than any queen of the ring or king of the ring in the last five years if she did that.

40:16 Oh, yeah, no, I just couldn't see her doing that. And I'll just, on a real positive note, you know, I thought the show basically sucked today, but I got to give, first of all, did you notice it seems that Roman is getting more and more and more cheers? And when he says, acknowledge me, the crowd is. You know, I hope he stays heel for two years, you know, but, wow, it's starting, you know, people are enjoying screaming for him. It's just, you know, during the matches they're booing, but in all the pomp and circumstance, they're going nuts for him. And I thought Paul was a master tonight. He was just, he... He, you know, changing from cringing fool to evil genius right before our eyes.

41:21 You know, I just, he was, and Reigns, too. I mean, I love the fact that Reigns was able to, you know, it's like the people are shouting, you know, we want Brock or whatever, and he kind of looks at him, he says something about it, and then he gets right back in. I thought that He was great. Their symbiosis, whatever Paul is teaching Roman, is just off the charts.

41:56 I'm really glad you brought that up because I noticed the exact same thing. We haven't talked about this segment yet. I thought it was just a tremendous, tremendous piece of business. I thought Roman Reigns, to your first point, Nick, he I mean, the people are starting to react to him. The acknowledge me thing is getting over. You know, it's almost like, you know, he kind of he's he asks for it because he kind of says the name of the city, which is like the classic kind of a baby face trope in a lot of ways. And, man, they react to it in a big-time way. And you can see it kind of building week to week to week now.

42:37 I'm with you, Nick.

42:38 I hope that Vince can just keep on the path here because this Roman is more over than he's ever been. And this is where the business is in him. And Paul Heyman, I mean, what can you say? I mean, the guy– knows exactly what his job is out there. He's able to execute it to a T. And when he talks, he's able to juggle so much. He juggles Roman Reigns as a big time star. He's able to put over Brock Lesnar. as a big time star, the story, the universal title crown jewel, the show, you know, he just is able to take all those things and put it into this one concise message that, that.

43:19 That gets over.

43:20 So yeah, I thought it was a really good, um, really good segments and, uh, Alex, but curious as to, as to your take, if you have a different perspective or if you thought it was as good as a, as.

43:30 Good as, uh, Nick and I did.

43:32 Uh, well, full disclosure, I'm currently sitting here in my Roman reigns t-shirt. So, uh, That should tell.

43:37 You guys all you need to know about how I feel.

43:40 With that said, the line that you're searching for, Nick, is this ain't suplex city. This is the island of relevancy.

43:50 That's right.

43:51 Uh-huh.

43:51 Yes, right.

43:52 And it was brilliant. Loved it. And it came off the cuff. Oh, it totally was. That was not planned at all. Thousand percent. And the reason that I think that is because he immediately cut it off and went back into what he was talking about. Yep. And backing up just for a second before I go into full thoughts on the segment, I think the acknowledge me thing has been– brought in because of the character getting pops I think what the thought process is is it's to allow the quote-unquote smart fans or the people who like heels or even just the people who appreciate reigns whatever it is I think it's to give us the opportunity to cheer him even though he is a heel and And then when that is over, you go back to,

45:02 to kayfabe it up. I think it's on purpose. And it's very recently that he started doing that. The first time I actually noticed it was at a house show here in Fort Myers. When I saw rains about two months ago, that was the first time I noticed him doing that. And then I don't think they do it again on TV because, until he was in Madison Square Garden.

45:30 What was the reaction when he did it in Fort Myers? What was the reaction, Alex?

45:35 Well, full disclosure, that crowd was very casual and a lot of kids, so he got mostly boos.

45:43 Okay, okay.

45:45 I honestly think I might have been the only person there in Reigns gear. I think me and my wife were the only people that cheered him.

45:54 Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts? Well, come join me, Alan Forel, over in the Pro Wrestling Paradise at PWTorch VIP as we bask on the bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the great matches and shows from around the world, be it the US, Japan, Europe, or Mexico. There's always a place for wrestling's past in the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows such as the We Love Liger series, celebrating the glorious career of Jushin Thunder Liger. and our I Was There When shows, where our guests will join me to talk about a classic bout that they were in attendance for. We love variety, and you can expect lots of it at the Pro Wrestling Paradise. Detailed PWTorch VIP subscription information and a list

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46:55 See you in the paradise.

47:03 There's another element here, too, with this. He is such a big star, just in general. Top star in the company. Arguably one of the best things in pro wrestling.

47:18 Period.

47:18 I think there's certainly an argument for that. But he's also on a show and in a company that lacks, like, star power. I mean, he's the only one on this show tonight. Edge, you know, is up there, but he's still not on Roman Reigns' level. That just exudes that top star, drop everything that you're doing and watch type vibe.

47:40 type act I mean like you know Finn Balor star you know yes he's that but he's not he's not Roman Reigns I mean there's he I think Roman Reigns is on his own level in WWE right now and so that I mean people are going to be drawn to that and that's why it's really important if you want to keep him a true heel is to build strong baby faces for him to wrestle otherwise he's just going to be you know this reaction for him is going to keep growing and growing just because people like to see Stars, Alex.

48:13 I completely agree. I actually wrote that in my report tonight, that it is so clear how much bigger of a star Reigns is than everybody else on that show tonight. It also tonight, the placement of him may have aided in that because he came out right after that either Tony Storm or Carmella match, one or the other. And then whatever followed it was– I think it might have been actually the other women's match. I think he might have been sandwiched in between those two. And you guys can agree or disagree on this, but from my vantage point tonight, the biggest stars on this show, based on the way they came off, ranked are Reigns and then the three women that opened the show, followed by Rollins and Edge. And then everybody else was very, very, very, very,

49:09 very distantly behind.

49:10 I would agree.

49:12 With that, and I would throw in the fact that– do you notice who we didn't see tonight?

49:22 What do you mean?

49:22 Charlotte.

49:24 Oh, yeah, yeah.

49:25 Oh, that's a good point. I didn't catch that.

49:27 I mean, you know, it's like.

49:31 Technically, she's still on Raw.

49:34 Well, but so is– Yeah, I don't know.

49:40 I don't know. I mean, it is confusing.

49:47 Yeah, oh, it's totally confusing. I mean, Alex said this at the beginning, is that it is so messed up that, you know, in terms of, yeah, all the women who were on tonight, in the Queen's Crown were SmackDown people, but they're all, except for Tony Storm, are all going to Raw. And even Cole made the mistake that he said, oh, yeah, no, both Tony and so-and-so are going to Raw. And then McAfee had to correct him.

50:23 Yeah.

50:23 You know, and said, no, Tony's staying. You know, I mean, but that's what I mean.

50:27 It's, I think.

50:31 you know, obviously they're doing this because of the whole crown jewel. And, and, oh, by the way, the hell in the cell has been announced for crown jewel.

50:39 It was only a matter of time. It was only a matter of time.

50:43 I just, I just checked the WE website and it's right there, you know? Um, but it's actually, and one of the things is I won't watch it. It's my, it's my deal. I, I won't, I, I won't watch it. It, it, I'll watch recaps of it and stuff, but it's... Sure. Even though Peacock already has my five bucks, because I get five bucks off for AT & T, or Xfinity.

51:16 I watched the first Saudi show, and then after Khashoggi, I just said, that's it, I can't do this.

51:25 You and a lot of people.

51:26 They actually mentioned Yeah, Cole actually mentioned Rydia, Saudi Arabia, I think twice or three times.

51:35 Yeah, yeah.

51:37 So there.

51:38 Somebody forced him.

51:39 I'm going to let you guys go. I could talk about this show forever, but I know you guys have a lot of callers. No, thanks for calling me. Here's hoping Toni Storm can move into the 2000s or something with her music or something, you know.

51:58 Oh, my gosh. I mean, I don't know.

52:03 I mean, the 80s was, you know, 40 years ago. It's, yeah, it's wild.

52:08 I mean, that gimmick, I just can't.

52:10 That's my music. I'm 64 years old. Joan Jett, The Blast, Springsteen. I would still pay $ 200 to go to one of his concerts. But, you know, yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, 18 to 34-year-olds, yeah, they know who Springsteen is. But Joan Jett, they're going, huh, who?

52:29 Is that a wrestler?

52:32 Right.

52:34 One of the greatest female rockers ever, right up there with Joplin. None of this crowd knows who she is.

52:44 Anyway, good night, guys. Have a great weekend.

52:47 Yeah, you too, Nick. Thanks for making the call as always, man. Appreciate it. Good to talk to you.

52:52 Just a reminder, you can reach us at wadekellerpostshow at gmail.com if you're interested in contributing to the flagship or wadekellerpostshow at gmail.com if you're interested in submitting a question or a topic or even a rant on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Shows.

53:05 All right, we'll keep going here.

53:12 We'll go to 709 and then we'll go to 609 after that.

53:16 709, you are up.

53:17 Go ahead and state your name and where you're calling from tonight.

53:19 Good evening, gentlemen. Chris calling from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. How are we doing today?

53:24 We're doing good, Chris.

53:25 Good to hear from you, man. What did you think of the show?

53:28 Well, first of all, it's great you put me on after my two future co-hosts on the future podcast that I'm pitching to Wade. That hasn't actually been determined yet, but it is happening. This was quite possibly the worst episode of SmackDown I've seen in a long, long time. They've been doing so well. especially with everything to do with Roman Reigns. And this just... I won't relitigate the women's stuff because that's been done already and it was awful and we know it. But Doudrop is more likely to win than Shayna, unfortunately, because she has to dance, guys.

54:09 She has to dance. We know this. Hogan must pose, Doudrop must dance. These are the rules. I didn't write them. The other thing to worry about, though, is some... is just this Baron Corbin, madcap Moss nonsense. What, what is that? It was bad last week. And then this week he's got, I've got three jokes for you, two short and a long, and then he just says joke. Like, is the joke him?

54:39 Is that the joke? What, what, why, what about this is supposed to be amusing or entertaining or designed to get anyone over?

54:49 Yeah, you know, Chris, I find myself wondering the same thing. And I even like take– I try to look at it to take the obnoxiousness out and just go, OK, what are they going for here? And I don't even have a good answer for that. I mean to me it's just, hey, we got to fill time. This is funny. Go with it. Except the thing is it's like I can't see an avenue for anybody right now to get any sort of comeuppance on Happy Corbin. Like yeah, Kevin Owens is the guy that's I guess feuding with him.

55:21 But– He's not going to get anything out of beating Corbin or ending this happy schtick or whatever. To me, it's like The Miz and Morrison downgraded significantly. Just because I don't think that Corbin and... Gosh, I can't even remember the guy's name. They have the same type of charisma as Miz does. And this is that, but just with a significantly weaker definition, Alex. And I just don't know how long. I don't know what the shelf life is.

55:56 I don't know its purpose. And it really hurts the show holistically. And I think it hurts what WWE wants SmackDown to be in a lot of ways. I mean, you can't have... the seriousness of Roman reigns and that story on the show. And then just a few segments later have, have this kind of out of nonsense living in his own world.

56:17 I just, I don't think that works.

56:19 I don't think it sets the tone correctly for people at the top of the card that are trying to do serious business to have, to have this happening and then to.

56:27 Have Kevin Owens involved with it.

56:29 A guy who you can, you know, who's going to be going over to running at raw and you're going to want to position him on that show as something at least somewhat important, even if it's in the mid card and he's out there essentially jobbing to these two guys on, on this segment. So I, I agree with Chris.

56:46 I thought it was a mess. I don't know the end game. And I think it, it really does damage to, to SmackDown as a show, you know, when they go, when they go this route, Alex.

56:57 Well, I don't want to necessarily open this can of worms, but what the hell?

57:05 Great.

57:06 You said that Kevin Owens beating Baron Corbin and Madcap Moss or whatever. What did his first name used to be before I go on, just so somebody can tell me? Riddick.

57:18 Riddick Moss.

57:19 Riddick.

57:20 Okay.

57:20 Thank you. With that said, you said that him beating them doesn't do anything for him, right? But him losing to them and getting his ass kicked by them every week sure does some damage to Kevin Owens, doesn't it? Yes. Damage, yes.

57:37 Fair point.

57:38 Kevin Owens is probably, and this is saying a lot, is probably the most misused person on WWE TV. Probably. Because he could be a perennial main eventer and instead. He's playing with Logan Paul and getting beat up by a guy who laughs hysterically at bad jokes. So do they already know that Kevin Owens is going to go join all his friends in AEW or what?

58:20 I mean, I think that's easily a possibility that they know he's going to leave. And so, you know, he's getting the Jon Moxley jobbing out to EC3 type treatment. But, I mean, at the same time, like, even if that's the case and they're going to, you know, whatever, job him out before he goes, I think he has more value than this. Like, I don't think him doing this is going to get him more over in AEW, not less.

58:47 Yeah. He does have more value, and that's what my point is. What you should do is the rosters don't move over for two weeks, right? Owens has nothing going on. Why the hell does he have to be on TV?

59:03 Right, right.

59:05 Just keep him off TV.

59:06 For two weeks, and then he can show up on Raw.

59:10 He's even somebody– I talked about this with Balor earlier, but I don't necessarily think that there's a huge heel for Big E to face on Raw right now as his first challenger, next challenger, however you want to phrase that. But what you do have is you have guys like Balor and guys like Owens who are believable, and they could be an almost kind of tweener kind of deal for the ultra babyface that is Big E, and those would be great challengers for him. However, with Owens being beat up by some guy that I didn't know who he was until two weeks ago, and– Baron Corbin, who is the resident joke of the company, even though, guess what?

59:57 Baron Corbin's not that bad. His moveset's actually pretty cool. He could be higher up on the card, but that ship has sailed. But putting Owens in this position, I just don't know where you go from here with him. And again, that is a huge tangent off of what we're really talking about here, but that's just unbelievable. That's just where my mind sticks when we talk about Corbin right now is Corbin is what he is.

1:00:21 It's ridiculous.

1:00:22 It's stupid. But Corbin is going to be your five minutes of silliness every Friday on SmackDown for the next forever. It just is what it is. It's a shame because I do think Corbin could be more. I actually like Corbin, honestly. But that's what he is, and that's not going to change forever. but the pieces around him can change.

1:00:48 Yeah, it's well said. Well said, and I think it's a good point. Yeah, I mean– and that's true. It's all a matter of perspective. If Corbin's doing this stuff with– in a similar capacity to what happens with the 24-7 title on Raw, I think you could look at it– you would look at it significantly differently.

1:01:05 But this is Kevin Owens.

1:01:08 And so, yeah, I mean if you're going to send him over to Raw and he's going to do the job for Big E– for two straight pay-per-views or something before leaving the company. Like you don't want to have them doing this type of, this type of thing. It doesn't, it doesn't help Biggie at all. Who's going to be the guy that's, that's sticking around. So yeah, it's a great, great way to frame it, Alex. Chris, back to you.

1:01:31 I think I want to actually give, give WWE some credit here. Fasten your seatbelts, but it takes just a monumental amount of skill and and talent and booking foresight to screw up something as royally as they screwed up bankrupt Baron Corbin. That could have gone so well. They could have gone so many directions, and they chose literally the worst way to go with it. So you've got to give credit to them for managing to just absolutely muck it up that well. The only other thing I wanted to touch on was I actually want to disagree slightly with Sean. I did not like large chunks of Seth Rollins' promo. I thought he came across as grating at times and obnoxious and kind of shrill. I mean, that is his voice, but he's been around long enough

1:02:23 and cutting promos long enough that he should have learned by now to how to tamp that down a bit. There were points where he was just repetitive as well while he was calling out Edge, and Edge wasn't responding, and he was just going back to the same well over and over again. He's got to be better than that if he wants to be cutting show-closing promos to build an incredibly poor-taste match in the worst country that the WWE regularly visits. They won't go to China.

1:02:52 So, I.

1:02:54 Think that the content of the promo was fine. I thought Edge's reaction to it was fine, and Seth wasn't bad always, but I don't know. What did you think? Did you, did it come across as grading to you at all at any point?

1:03:06 You know, it, it, it definitely comes across as grading. I kind of, I think I, I give him more points for that grading though. Cause I think I get the sense that that's exactly what he's going for. Like, I think he's leaning into that, that bet for better or worse, he's leaning into that part of like how he cuts promos or the cadence of his promos and the.

1:03:26 Sound of his voice. So I think he's, I think he's trying to tap into that.

1:03:30 Um, Which obviously changes the perspective of my analysis of it.

1:03:36 Alex, what about you?

1:03:38 I think Seth Rollins is the second best heel in the company. I think it's on purpose. I think all the things that you're talking about tonight is on purpose. I do tend to agree with the repetitiveness, though. I did notice that. I'm not going to harp on it too much because, honestly, the company didn't do him any favors by having Edge wait so long. That was a little drawn out for my taste. They probably should have started that segment two minutes later than they did. Yeah. But, again, and I will freely admit, too, that I'm a little bit of a Seth Rollins apologist, and I feel like the company has kind of screwed him a couple times, and he just kind of has to do the best with what he's been given.

1:04:19 Yeah.

1:04:21 But with that said, I think the grading this is on purpose. But I do I do tend to agree about, you know, some of the repetitiveness again. Again, they could have helped him there, though. Yeah, I think.

1:04:36 Yes, that's a good point on the time. The other thing I'll I'll say about Seth tonight was I thought that he really had a really awesome. facial expression when when edge like because when he's leaving the ring and you know he escapes edge and before edge gets on the microphone he has that kind of arrogant cocky you know seth rollins smile and laugh going on and i thought the maybe the best part of his night was when edge utters the words hell in a cell and his facial expressions just totally changed and i thought that was really well done i think back to when you know qt marshall did something like that on AEW where he's trying to change his facial expression. And he looked just super cartoonish and over the top. And I thought

1:05:18 Seth finessed it really, really well tonight. A total sidebar on Chris's point, but I thought that was good.

1:05:24 Chris, over to you.

1:05:26 Somewhere in the Twin Cities, Wade just shuddered, and he doesn't know why. And it's because you mentioned QT Marshall just out loud.

1:05:33 Yeah.

1:05:35 I i hear where you're coming from on seth but uh for me and i'll just leave you on this for me it's not i want to watch this guy get his butt kicked it's i want to change the channel and that's not what you're going for with that sort of heat i i think the goal is solid uh and it's it's nice to have a second angle on smackdown that doesn't make me want to turn my eyes into pudding but uh it it just didn't do it tonight for me so um I'll leave you on that one, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my call, and enjoy the rest.

1:06:02 Of your evening. You too, Chris.

1:06:04 Thanks very much, man.

1:06:05 Hey, Chris, if you're looking for a co-host, I got you.

1:06:10 Do we lose him?

1:06:10 I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, man.

1:06:14 We're just one big happy family here on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show.

1:06:18 Go ahead, Alex. Real quick, I'm glad you brought that up about the facial expression. That was a straight— I don't want to call it a ripoff because it's probably more of an homage— But do you remember when Mick Foley turned into Cactus Jack and Triple H was looking at him all smug because he thought he was going to wrestle Mankind and then Foley changed from Mankind into Cactus Jack and Hunter looked like he saw a ghost?

1:06:46 I do remember that. And yes, this is kind of an ode to that angle. Yep, absolutely.

1:06:51 Almost identical. Hell in a Cell, Utterance, all the same. Almost identical. Really cool.

1:06:58 Yeah, yeah, great historical perspective there, Alex.

1:07:03 Good stuff.

1:07:04 Yeah, if you haven't seen that turn before, if you can navigate Peacock long enough to find it, it's definitely worth watching, especially off the heels of tonight. Because you're right, it has to do with Hell in a Cell, and yeah, Triple H sells it just like Seth did.

1:07:23 What I also did not realize until that just came out of my mouth, is the impact that Foley had on Edge's career and the impact that Hunter had on Rollins' career. So that actually could be a thing.

1:07:37 Yeah, yeah, true.

1:07:39 Yeah, that's very true. And it's just one of those things. It's a small thing, right? But it's something that kind of takes. If you do that wrong, if you're too over the top or you don't sell it enough, I think it can be a really big miss. And it doesn't necessarily add a ton, but it can really hurt you. And so it's kind of a risky little play because you do have to walk a line. And I thought he hit the note perfectly.

1:08:14 Longing for some nostalgia? Or maybe you want to learn some wrestling history? Don't miss the 90s Past Cast every Friday on the PWTorch daily cast feed. Alex and Patrick will transport you 30 years into the past by taking you through the Torch issue from that very week. Follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as the Torch reported it 30 years ago. That's the 90s Past Cast every Friday on the PWTorch daily cast feed.

1:08:57 Let's keep going here with the calls. We'll go to 609, and then after that, we'll go to 443. We'll try to squeeze in those here. 609, you're up.

1:09:06 Go ahead and state your name and where you're calling from.

1:09:09 What's up, guys?

1:09:09 It's Mike from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1:09:12 Hey, Mike.

1:09:12 What's going on, man? Thanks for calling. What did you think of the show?

1:09:16 It was okay.

1:09:17 I mean, I like the opening segment with the three women and the closing segment with Edge and Rollins and the Roman segment. But then, like, everything in the middle, that was kind of just there. I could care less about King of the Ring. That gimmick is stupid. The Queen of the Ring, that had me interested, but now I could care less about it because Toni Storm lost, Liv Morgan lost. So now it's just stupid because Shayna Baszler is probably going to win, and she does not need that gimmick at all. She can just be pushed just on being a badass. She doesn't need the ground.

1:09:56 So I think that's stupid for her to even win that thing. She does not need the queen gimmick. So I think that's stupid. And if I was Liv Morgan, after her contract expires, I would just go to AEW. Because over in AEW, she's going to get time to perform. She's going to get 10 to 15 minutes, I guarantee it, to perform. She's going to be main eventing shows like Ruby Riott. And she can go in the ring. I don't understand why she doesn't get the time to showcase herself.

1:10:30 I don't understand what Vince has against her. I mean, she's a beautiful woman. She's obviously athletic. She can go in the ring, definitely. I don't understand what Vince's problem with her is. And if I was Liv, I'd be pissed off. I mean, maybe there's more to it. Maybe she will get pushed. Maybe she'll get pushed. There's more to it. But if I was Liv, I'd be pissed.

1:10:56 I'd go to AEW.

1:10:58 Yeah, I think with Liv Morgan.

1:11:00 Sorry for the rant there.

1:11:01 No, no.

1:11:04 They've been so off and on with Liv Morgan, even going back to like. the days of the Riot Squad. It's like they would go with her for a little while and then not fully pull the trigger. And then they'd go with her for a little bit with the whole, you know, whatever they were going for with the Lana thing.

1:11:19 And then they pivoted away from that. And then they kind of heated her up again here. And now they've slowed that down. And it's like, you know, nobody is going to succeed with that kind of herky-jerky.

1:11:31 Booking.

1:11:32 You know, and to me, I look at her and I think that she's got potential. I think there's an innate you know, part of her personality that, that people, that people like, you know, and I think she has a lot of energy. I think she's, you know, certainly grown in the ring. I think she could still, you know, take it up a notch in, in certain areas, especially if she wants to wrestle, you know, at the, at the tip top of the card, but she certainly made progress, but has to have some sort of push and get wins to give her, you know, credibility at some point.

1:12:02 Otherwise it's all, it's all for nothing. And I, I wonder Alex about her, you know, we talk about Tony storm and, and Vince, uh, for looks at her and goes, wow, child of the eighties, boom, perfect. Like outside of like, I don't know, I guess punk rock chick, maybe for Liv Morgan. I don't know if he looks at her for a snap second in 15 seconds, 30 seconds that he can tell like what.

1:12:25 And who she is.

1:12:26 And I, you know, Vince leans into though, he tries to find like that one personality, the bro thing, the stoner gimmick with, with Matt Riddle and turn up the volume on that one personality trait. And, And I think that it's a lot more nuanced for Liv Morgan than that, and that could be hurting her in the eyes of Vince.

1:12:44 And that's not a good thing, but I think that's my take on what's happening with her.

1:12:48 Well, full disclosure, I don't get Liv Morgan. I'm sorry. I don't get it. She does absolutely nothing for me as a performer. I think Toni Storm has a lot of potential, so I completely agree. This just in, the new... Wrinkle in Tony Storm's character is next week she's found a brand new band. They're called Nirvana.

1:13:13 I've never heard of them. They're probably pretty cool.

1:13:17 So moving on, though. Liv Morgan, I don't get it, guys. I'm sorry. I don't get it. I do wonder, though, with the start and stop thing, if she has a bad attitude backstage.

1:13:30 Yeah, it could be.

1:13:30 Just something weird. You know, we've all we've all watched wrestling for a long time. Just something to think about. It's it's weird because, like I said, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, even I thought for sure that she was the next challenger to Becky. Now, I don't know.

1:13:53 I don't know.

1:13:54 I don't know what she does on Raw. I have no idea.

1:13:58 Yeah.

1:13:59 Mike, go ahead over back to you for another topic or other comments.

1:14:04 Yeah.

1:14:05 I mean, I don't think Liv Morgan's here. She's definitely no Toni Storm. I just, you know, I think she has potential. I think, you know, you want to push people and just like they did with Bianca Belair, like that was such success. And now she became a huge star and they're just not pushing people. And I think Liv, you know, just like Chelsea Blackheart, I think she has potential.

1:14:26 I think it's crazy that Blackheart wasn't even in the tournament. Like what's up with her? Like I, I don't even see her. Why did they even call her up? Because they're not using her. The same with Tegan Nox.

1:14:38 It's stupid.

1:14:40 Use these women if you're going to call them up.

1:14:42 I was just going to say, too, at some point, you've got to try. You can't run with the same four people over and over and over and over again. It makes for a stale product. really, really quick, especially with two shows, five hours a week on the main shows, you know, and, and right now, you know, you look at those women, Sasha, Bianca, Becky, Charlotte, like most, I think any combination of those four have already had, you know, really big time matches, you know, it's like, that's not, that's not new. And I, I'm not advocating here for like pushing somebody just to push them, it's gotta be good for business, but you have to, you have to decide, okay, we're going to try to go with this person and, and, and,

1:15:31 and see it through, you know, who, you know, if you would have stopped and started Bianca Belair's push over and over again, you know, she wouldn't be where she's at right now. And so you have to, you do have to like pick, pick sometimes and just go with somebody new. Maybe that's going to be Shayna Baszler here coming out of queen's crown.

1:15:47 I don't know.

1:15:48 But to your point, Mike, like you have to, to keep things just fresh with so much content, you have to have, you know, up and comers and people that, uh, you, that can flirt with the top of the card that aren't, you know, Becky, Sasha, Charlotte. And you just, you have to have that to have a robust and fluid, uh, division and entertaining television.

1:16:11 Go ahead, Mike.

1:16:13 Like, just imagine like down the road, like a Tony storm, Sasha Banks match. That would be awesome.

1:16:19 Exactly. Yeah.

1:16:21 Yeah.

1:16:22 But to touch on, um, the Becky, Sasha Belair, uh, thing going on you know as far as they go like I never get tired of them because you know I'm a diehard Sasha fan and Belair so I never get tired of them I hope Sasha gets another run as champion uh I think the opening segment was great I love the spot where Belair did the kiss of death to Becky right through the table on the Sasha like that looked really good um I can't wait for the triple threat match at Crown Jewel with the three of them and um My question is, though, I want to touch on a potential Sasha Charlotte feud. Sasha was coming off kind of baby-faced, I think, the way she was reacting to the crowd tonight. Do you guys see a Sasha Charlotte feud on SmackDown with Sasha the baby

1:17:13 face and Charlotte the heel? And how do you think they'll mix things up with the belt and all that?

1:17:20 And.

1:17:22 Are you guys interested in a Sasha Charlotte feud again?

1:17:24 I am.

1:17:25 I think their matches were really, really good several years ago. And I think their matches would be even better now because Sasha is even better now than she was back when they had their matches before. So I think their matches would be even better now. So your thoughts.

1:17:42 Alex, what do you think?

1:17:45 Sasha is one of the best women's wrestlers in the world. I'd pretty much watch her wrestle a stick at this point. So Charlotte is fine. With that said, I do see some of the hints of a face, Sasha. That's one of the big problems and big mistakes they made with this draft, though, is they left SmackDown with no real women babyfaces. Actually, I shouldn't even say women. They have no babyfaces in general on SmackDown now, male or female.

1:18:19 which was probably the biggest mistake of this draft. With that said, I do think that we're going to get Charlotte and Sasha for the simple fact of who else are they going to wrestle? I hate to keep bringing this up, but the women's division has no depth. They care about the top four women that you just listed, Zach.

1:18:46 And then the other two women that they care about are Asuka, who's currently not on TV. and Bailey, who's currently not on TV. Other than that, if we're going to get Shayna elevated, Shayna's on SmackDown now, right? But she's also, so she's also a heel. So I'm just going to, Have a little exercise really quick here, and let's go through the women that are on SmackDown. Charlotte, heel. Sasha, heel. Shayna, heel.

1:19:15 And after that, is Toni Storm on SmackDown still?

1:19:19 Yes, I believe so.

1:19:21 Okay, face, but just lost to Zelina Vega tonight. And Shotzi Blackheart, who hasn't been on TV in three weeks. So there's your SmackDown women's division right there. Yeah.

1:19:36 I mean, gosh, boy, when you break it down like that, I mean, yep. I mean, Sasha and Charlotte pretty much have to wrestle each other. And I, you know, Sasha as a baby face is always a concerning proposition just because I think it's good. Yeah, it's not good. I think she loses like what makes her a big star.

1:20:00 when she goes baby face, she's not been able to finesse kind of the edginess and arrogance of the boss character in a baby face way. You know, I think when she goes baby face, she eliminates a lot of that from her act. And, um, It doesn't work or she just keeps it the same and it doesn't work because that's not really, you know, a baby face, baby face act. So she's got a lot of problems. And I don't know, maybe Charlotte, you know, can bring it out of her. But I just yeah, it's a concerning and concerning endeavor just because we've seen it now two different times. And neither time it worked, and they pivoted back in relatively short order both times. Mike, thanks so much for the call. I've got to move on to

1:20:44 our on-site correspondent here because he's been waiting, and I want to get him before he gets out of the car.

1:20:50 All right, no problem, guys.

1:20:52 You both have a great night.

1:20:53 Thanks for taking my call.

1:20:54 You too.

1:20:55 Thanks for making it, man.

1:20:55 Great topics.

1:20:58 You know that last segment you're just listening to and the next one that you're waiting to listen to? Those can be one second apart with a VIP membership. You can unlock our commercial-free versions of our shows. PWTorch.com slash GoVIP tells you how to do it. That's PWTorch.com slash GoVIP. Options exist within the Apple Podcast app using your Apple account, through Patreon, which, by the way, you can sync up with Spotify, or just about any iOS or Android app with a full VIP membership. You can customize the feed for individual shows and clusters of shows and themes. Go to PWTorch.com slash GoVIP for full details on all the options to listen commercial-free. And with upper-tier options, unlock our

1:21:37 VIP-exclusive podcasts that run throughout the week every week.

1:21:45 We are going to go over to our on-site correspondent who was in the building.

1:21:51 Richard, can you hear me? Are you there?

1:21:54 Yes, I'm here.

1:21:57 Thanks so much for calling in.

1:21:58 Excited to get some kind of the perspective of somebody that was in the building that can help us navigate the show. So appreciate you taking the time to do this. Yeah, no problem.

1:22:12 Yeah, man.

1:22:13 Before we get into the show stuff, the show-specific stuff with angles and stars and stuff, just talk about, was it a sellout? And what was your kind of take on the audience as a whole?

1:22:26 Well, it was a sellout.

1:22:29 It was a sellout. It was tarped off, but the lower bowl was all full to the camera side. When the camera hit, it was full.

1:22:40 Yeah.

1:22:41 Yeah.

1:22:43 And the crowd was just crazy over all these WWE superstars. Any other questions for me?

1:22:54 Yeah, man. A couple, if you have time.

1:22:58 Yeah, yeah, no problem.

1:23:00 Okay, cool.

1:23:01 So you said they were going crazy for everybody?

1:23:03 So were they a crowd that was reacting for the babyfaces and against the heels, or were they just happy to see wrestling stars in the ring?

1:23:14 Yeah, they were happy to see wrestling stars in the ring.

1:23:17 Okay.

1:23:18 Who got the biggest reaction?

1:23:20 The biggest reaction was Roman Reigns.

1:23:23 Yeah, man.

1:23:24 So we were talking about that, and was it like a– was he over as a heel? It sounded on television that there was some cheers there for him, and people really excited to see him because they were happy. Was it a babyface reaction, or was it mostly boos and jeers?

1:23:46 It was a baby face reaction.

1:23:49 Yeah.

1:23:50 I mean, the crazy just loved them so much.

1:23:53 Yeah.

1:23:54 Wow.

1:23:55 So how did his pop compare to like, you know, because obviously he's booked as a heel right now. How did his pop compare to like the Edge reaction at the end of the night?

1:24:07 Well, to tell you the truth, it was almost the same thing. Just like Edge and Roman, they were the biggest pops.

1:24:15 Wow.

1:24:16 Man, that's really interesting. Alex, you got any questions?

1:24:21 Yeah, I have a bunch. Okay. First, you said Edge and Roman got the biggest responses. That's pretty much expected, so that's good. Were there any dark matches?

1:24:36 The dark match was the Street Profits and Finn Balor against the Bloodlines.

1:24:45 And that was after the show?

1:24:46 That was our dark match. Yeah, that was after the Edge thing.

1:24:52 Okay, what about before the show?

1:24:54 Before the show? No, that was it. That was our dark match. Roman Reigns and the Bloodline against the Street Profits and Finn Balor.

1:25:06 Okay. Where were your seats?

1:25:10 Our seats were in the lower bowl.

1:25:12 Okay.

1:25:15 Uh, section seven.

1:25:18 Yeah. Oh, okay.

1:25:20 So you have good seats.

1:25:22 Yeah.

1:25:24 Oh yeah.

1:25:25 Okay. Good stuff. Good stuff. Um, so what was the crowd like? Was it a lot of diehards, a lot of casuals, a lot of families? Like what, what were you looking at crowd wise?

1:25:37 Oh, it was the, it was the, the whole, the, the fans were just crazy over, uh, over every superstar.

1:25:43 Yeah.

1:25:45 Was it a lot of kids, though?

1:25:47 Oh, yeah.

1:25:47 There was a lot of kids, families.

1:25:50 Yeah.

1:25:51 And there was hardcore fans.

1:25:53 Okay, let me phrase my question a little differently then. Of the people in your section, what percentage of them read PW Torch?

1:26:03 What was that again?

1:26:04 I couldn't hear you.

1:26:06 Of the people in your section, what percentage of them read PW Torch would be your guess?

1:26:13 Uh.

1:26:15 I don't know.

1:26:16 To tell you the truth, I don't think there was people in my area.

1:26:21 I mean, in my section.

1:26:25 Yeah.

1:26:25 OK, gotcha. So a little more casual then. OK, that's good. Yeah. All right.

1:26:30 Yeah, it was a little casual.

1:26:32 And merchandise wise, a lot of rain shirts. I mean, Sina, what did you see?

1:26:40 Um, I seen a lot of Roman reign shirts, uh, no Xena shirts to tell you the truth. There wasn't anything on the merch, uh, belt.

1:26:48 Yeah.

1:26:48 It just, it just, uh, Oh, Finn Balor shirts were there. They were selling, but mostly, mostly it was, it was the bloodline shirt. Everybody wanted that shirt.

1:27:01 Wow.

1:27:03 That's wild.

1:27:04 Um, Yeah.

1:27:06 So I'm just going to jump in here with or sorry, Alex, keep going.

1:27:09 Do you have any more? No, no. Go ahead. OK. Yeah.

1:27:13 So just the last one here for you. We talked a lot on the show today on about the the two tournaments, the King of the Ring tournament and the Queen's Crown tournament. What was the reaction in the building to how quickly those women's tournament matches ended? Because it got like just some I mean, it really was was fast.

1:27:38 I mean, so did how did the crowd react to that in real time in the building?

1:27:42 Oh, they reacted.

1:27:44 They actually reacted to everything on the on the tournament. Everybody reacted to everything.

1:27:53 For both the men and the women.

1:27:56 Yeah, for the men's and women.

1:27:58 Yeah.

1:27:59 Okay.

1:28:00 All right.

1:28:01 Well, Richard, thanks so much. Did you have a good time? Was the show– would you go again?

1:28:06 Oh, yeah.

1:28:07 I had– oh, yeah.

1:28:09 I would go again. And if you guys need somebody, you know, I'm here.

1:28:13 Appreciate that, man. Thanks so much for calling. I really appreciate it. Safe travels home.

1:28:20 Yeah, no problem.

1:28:21 All right, man. Okay.

1:28:23 Thank you.

1:28:23 Thank you. Thank you.

1:28:26 Man, Alex, it's crazy hearing that about Roman Reigns. I mean, you got to think that Vince McMahon is sitting there, number one, thinking he's a genius probably, even though people, you know, were begging him to make this turn five years ago, but that he's just itching, itching to have him.

1:28:47 Go babyface again, man. I mean, you know, I don't know.

1:28:51 Vince really has to lean against against all of his natural tendencies, because this is one of those things where I could see him, you know, pivoting way too soon with a lot of big business on the table and having it be less effective.

1:29:08 I mean, we've seen him stay the course in the past. Not to go back into history, but, I mean, it's relevant to Reigns because the guy's related to him. But when The Rock went from The Nation– into a survivor series 98 and was getting heavy cheers. And then they turned it back heel. I mean, they did stick with that and let it play out for, you know, six or seven months. Uh, things were a little different then with the hot shotting, um, as opposed to now, but I, I do hope that that shows us that Vince is willing to stick with a, with a heel. Um, the only thing I see is a problem and it's something that we've touched on tonight is that unfortunately, uh, There's no other male stars on the SmackDown brand. And again,

1:30:03 they made that worse with the draft. If you look at that graphic they showed tonight of the people that got drafted over to SmackDown, and I don't know if it was Cole or McAfee that said, oh, you know, we have this great roster. This is like the greatest SmackDown draft ever. There is no way that in the back of their head they're not going, no, not really, because this roster just– like if you look at that graphic, that graphic is Roman Reigns, Sasha, Charlotte, and everybody else.

1:30:45 There is not one person outside of them. And if somebody can find somebody who I forgot just now– outside of those three that sticks out, please point it out to me. And I will tell you that, that you're probably right, but I cannot find that person. I do not see it.

1:31:02 Yeah.

1:31:03 Yeah.

1:31:03 And that's what I'm saying.

1:31:04 Like, you know, it's, it's going to be something where, yeah, yeah. I mean, and, and here's the thing, man, it's like, Drew is so is damaged right now. And, you know, if, if, if rains continues to get like this kind of wave of, of momentum, like, And they hold on to that feud and do it– they do it at WrestleMania or they do it in the wintertime, maybe at the Royal Rumble or something. I mean because Drew's damaged, who knows if Drew's going to get universally cheered against Roman Reigns.

1:31:37 That's not a certainty.

1:31:39 And here's something too, and this kind of goes back to what I said before. um about about Rollins what I would have done is I would have kept Rollins and on Smackdown obviously I would have kept Becky there too because of the whole situation but I wish they had moved AJ over and turned him face because what we could have had was AJ against Reigns uh from you know December to February and we could have had Rollins against McIntyre for that same period of time And then we could have swapped them, and that could have been your two big SmackDown main events. You could have had Reigns against McIntyre and AJ against Rollins, and those would have been two big-time SmackDown main events for you.

1:32:26 Right now, I mean, what do you do with McIntyre and Reigns? Let's say that's penciled in for WrestleMania. Let's say that's the WrestleMania main event right now. Well, what do you do with them until then?

1:32:42 Right.

1:32:43 Yeah, exactly. And maybe it's that– like you said earlier in the show, it's the Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston stuff. You go there for a bit.

1:32:53 But you're right. I mean it's so– it's weak.

1:32:55 But who does McIntyre feud with? And I'm honestly asking you. I hope you can give me a couple ideas because I got nothing.

1:33:03 No, no, I can't. I can't, not off the top of my head.

1:33:07 I mean, Jinder, maybe?

1:33:08 I mean, he's on the show, but they've kind of been there, done that, and it wasn't good. So, yeah, I don't know.

1:33:16 Hey, everyone.

1:33:17 Longtime PWTorch columnist Sean Radican here to let you know I've revamped and renewed the Radican Worldwide Podcast for 2026. a weekly VIP exclusive. Every week, I break down four or five of the biggest trending topics in pro wrestling. I also present my analysis, providing insight that helps you understand the story better or see it another way than maybe is the controversial take out there. Then I bring on a special guest for the second half of the podcast.

1:33:44 Sometimes it's a wrestler or someone else who works in the business. Other times it's a guest analyst who brings their specialized point of view on a particular key topic in the news. Recent guests have included Bronson Reed from WWE and PCO. One of my areas of specialty is the Japan wrestling scene, so I often cover a big topic from Japan with PW Torch's own Alan Farrell, Kelly Wells, and Chris Lansdell. I don't just cover the news. I don't just riff on the news or give a standard hot take. I'll bring my decades of studying this industry and talking one-on-one with dozens of wrestling promoters to each week's show so you understand not just what's happening, but the context of why. Get ahead of the news. Get

1:34:23 ahead of the pack with Radican Worldwide only at PW Torch VIP.

1:34:34 Let's hit a couple more calls here.

1:34:36 See if we can squeeze a couple more people in.

1:34:39 443.

1:34:39 I think this is Kyle in Baltimore. 443, you're up. State your name and where you're calling from. Unless you are Kyle, and if you're Kyle, hello.

1:34:49 Hey, yeah, it's Kyle, yeah.

1:34:50 Hey, man.

1:34:50 What did you think of the show?

1:34:52 Oh, Yeah, it was good, and a little fast, I don't really want to bring this up right now, but I was there for Samantha last week in Baltimore, and Roman Reyes got cheered in the beginning of the show, and during the dark match, he was in, everybody likes Roman Reyes, and I personally do, because I'm already a fan, I've never hated him anyway, so, but he's gotten a bunch of cheers last week, when I was at Samantha last week in Baltimore, so, yeah, he's He can't get booed.

1:35:19 It's so bizarre to me. But, yeah, he has that cool factor. Like I said last week when I was there, he has that cool factor that no one wants to boo him. So that's what he says with Reigns, but that's how I feel about that. So going back to the beginning, I do agree with you about the three women that they've been focusing on a lot. Well, yeah, they went with Becky. Sasha and Charlotte and now Bianca has gotten in that category now because it has been.

1:35:47 I mentioned this before.

1:35:48 It's been about the four horsewomen since the very beginning. Now, I have never cared about the women when they were, you know, the very beginning when they were like in 2014, 13, all that stuff. I did not care. When 2015 hit, it was boom, right then and there. Because when Sasha, Becky, and Charlotte debuted, I've never watched them on NXT at that time. And it was when they debuted. They had all three of them had.

1:36:15 Something about them.

1:36:16 When Sasha came on, I was like, whoa, she has that star factor. She just caught my eye very quickly. So then throughout the years, it's been about Sasha and Charlotte. And Becky finally, after... after her being the man finally, being the top starter she is now. And luckily for Bianca, she's in that same category now, luckily. But it's like, and that's who they've been focusing on. And then also, too, with this match itself, who wins? Because neither woman should win.

1:36:48 Even next week, between Becky and Sasha, which I'm looking forward to, they're going to have a great match, because they have great chemistry, as it is, with Becky and Sasha.

1:36:57 But the problem.

1:36:58 The problem is, though, with this match at Crown Jewel, there's going to have to be a loser.

1:37:02 Here's the problem, though.

1:37:03 With Becky winning the championship two months ago at SummerSlam the way that she did, she cannot lose because if she does lose, because if Becky loses, why did he do what he did at SummerSlam and then what he did last month with having Sasha come in to fight? And the message just walked in a DQ, right? So there's that problem. The other thing is that if Bianca wins, then it's like.

1:37:39 Why did she have to lose it in the way that she did? And if Sasha loses, then it's like... And Sasha shouldn't lose because she just came back. She just had that... So I just think by default, Sasha's going to win because Becky was drafted to Raw and Bianca was drafted to Raw and.

1:37:53 Sasha was drafted to SmackDown. So just by default, I don't know.

1:37:57 I can't believe I'm saying it like that by default, that Sasha's going to win the championship and probably will pin Bianca because... i cannot see becky getting pinned even though i look because i just i just i just feel like that when it comes to when it comes to becky sasha and charlotte they don't want to they want to try to protect them the best way that they can unfortunately for bianca even though she is doing she's doing a great job and she's she's awesome they clearly don't i don't know i feel like they still feel they'll still see that something within Bianca even though she is really good in the ring but that's my thought with that it's like they need and I feel like you're gonna go to switch switch titles too like

1:38:42 they did like they did the tag team titles where Becky's going to hand the title to Charlotte, Charlotte's going to hand the title to Becky, and then they'll do that again, I feel like. I don't know if that's my thought.

1:38:56 Yeah, well, let's break that down a little bit here, because we haven't spent too much time on the opening segment, so I want to just touch on that briefly. I thought that segment was well done in that it was different than other contract signings. You know, like it didn't... Alex, I think you pointed that out maybe on your report, or maybe it was Wade's. And I agree with that take, that it just was a little bit different. And I think that's good. Ultimately, it ended the same, but how they got there worked for me. And I also think it was just.

1:39:34 There to make Bianca look really good and look really strong. I thought that spot at the end through the table was really well done.

1:39:41 And it just.

1:39:42 It got a big reaction. And I thought Bianca looked good at that point.

1:39:47 And I.

1:39:48 Obviously, she's a project for them. She's going to be a top star.

1:39:51 She already is.

1:39:52 And she's going to continue to be. But I think.

1:39:55 You're right, Kyle, in that they booked themselves into a massive corner with this.

1:39:58 It's a mess.

1:40:01 I think just looking at the belt that's on the line, it has to go to the woman that's staying on SmackDown.

1:40:09 So if I'm betting on this, I'm taking Sasha Banks.

1:40:12 But Alex, I'm not confident in that decision at this point.

1:40:16 Well, it depends on what decision they want to make as far as the championship goes. I don't think... that they can have the amicable hand the titles over that they did with the Street Profits and the New Day. As ridiculous as that was, it did fit both of those characters to just kind of hand them over. Both Babyface tag teams, both very similar in a lot of ways.

1:40:49 So that made sense.

1:40:50 Becky and Charlotte's characters cannot exchange championships. They're both too proud. They both care too much about being champion. They both take being a champion seriously. So they can't just have them swap titles. So with that said, I agree with you, Zach, from the standpoint that logically... Again, we're getting into WWE here, so using that word loosely. Logically, Sasha should win. With that said, I could also see a situation where Becky wins and ends up with both titles somehow. I don't necessarily know how that happens, but I think it could.

1:41:47 Just really quick as a sidebar because we didn't get to talk about this earlier. Did anybody notice that on Raw, Becky was more of a tweener and on SmackDown, she's more of a heel?

1:41:58 Yeah, I did.

1:42:00 Okay.

1:42:01 Yeah.

1:42:02 Is she going for like a Bret Hart, America, Canada thing or– Or are they just so unsure of what they're doing with her they don't know what to tell her to do? Or is she playing off the character she's working with? What do you think, Zach?

1:42:19 I kind of think at this point she is walking that middle ground because they just want to be able to put her against any top star that they want. I think she's entertaining in the role that she's in. And I think she can walk the fine line. And does it effectively. But so to answer your question, yes, I think she's kind of, you know, kind of swaying back and forth depending on who her opponent is like opposite Charlotte. on Monday night, you know, she was very baby face in nature. And even like when she was out there alone, Monday night, she was kind of talking about the crowd being appreciative. She still like hits all her, you know, usual crowd poses in the ring, like, like a baby face would, she's not dismissive of the audience.

1:43:00 So they're really careful to have her not, not lose that. And she only kind of turns the heat up heelish when she's, you know, working opposite of baby face and the opposite when, when she's, um, Face off with a with with a heel.

1:43:14 So she's kind of like just blown in the wind.

1:43:16 And I just prefer clearer lanes in in wrestling. Like I I know there's an argument for shades of gray and it's not always black and white.

1:43:25 And that's true.

1:43:26 But I think just generally speaking, it'd be better for the audience to be just universally cheering Becky Lynch right now, because I think that's the natural, authentic reaction that crowds have to her since they haven't seen her for so for so long.

1:43:41 So so that's that'd be my preference. But I don't think it's not.

1:43:45 Working at this point either. So they're kind of it's it's it's fine, I guess.

1:43:52 I agree for the most part. I think they should. I don't want her to act differently. But I don't necessarily want them to position her as one thing or another because I do think that she's a rare character in kind of the same way that early Steve Austin was where she can act like a heel or like she doesn't have friends or like she doesn't care and still be popular. I think they can get away with that.

1:44:23 With that said, though, I don't necessarily know if right now is the time. Going back to the Magic Crown Jewel, I guess they're going to wrestle each other in track suits or something, right? But besides that, Kyle, you think Bianca's going to lose no matter what. I actually don't. I think– I do not think Bianca's going to win the title. But I think if Sasha wins the title, she's going to pin Bianca. I think if Becky wins, she's going to pin Sasha. Yeah, I mean... Just to throw that out there.

1:45:08 Kyle, thanks very much, man. Any closing topics for tonight?

1:45:15 Yeah, so it's... Yeah, I just think it's... I don't know. I just feel like... I just feel like that it's hard because personally... You know, of course, I'm a Becky fan, and I'm a Sasha fan, and I do like Bianca, but I think because of the length of me watching Becky and Sasha, I liked them a little bit more than Bianca herself. That said, it's just.

1:45:42 I don't know.

1:45:42 To me, I would feel kind of weird if Becky loses the title this quickly after winning it, but then it's going to be a bizarre feeling no matter what happens, and it's just... We'll see what happens, and then hopefully once Crown Jewel is over with, with the women themselves, I hope SmackDown will be good, because right now Raw, because Raw itself has all the star power, and there's no question behind that. SmackDown is really lacking behind Roman Reigns, and I like Hit Row. Hopefully they'll do something when they debut, whatever that will be. But overall, Raw has the advantage of who is there currently with Becky and Rollins and Bianca, but that's just it.

1:46:27 Thanks for calling.

1:46:28 Yeah. Thanks for making it, man.

1:46:30 Always, always great to chat with you.

1:46:32 Appreciate it.

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1:46:52 Your home for live TV coverage every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with my TV reports. And also check out our NXT and impact coverage on Tuesdays and Thursdays, our collision reports on Saturday nights. And of course our live pay-per-view and PLE coverage on weekends, all waiting for you at PW torch.com.

1:47:13 All right.

1:47:14 We're going to wrap up the color portion there. We'll go to our round table portion here. Um, Thank you to all the callers. And we're going to get Javier on the line here in a minute. But thanks to all the callers. Apologies for not getting to everybody tonight. I know there's a handful of folks still waiting in the queue, but we'll make sure to. Get you next time.

1:47:34 With that said, over to Javier. Javier, great to talk to you as always, man.

1:47:39 It's good to see you resurfacing from all your wonderful G1 coverage that you've been doing at the Torch the last two weeks, man.

1:47:50 How are you?

1:47:51 Man, to be perfectly honest, I was actually considering not watching SmackDown tonight, but I saw that Alex was joining you. On the post show. So I was like, I cannot let Alex handle Hadorn by himself.

1:48:04 Well, yeah, good.

1:48:05 You're a good man.

1:48:06 Good man. Yeah.

1:48:10 Yeah. So, yeah.

1:48:11 So, in fact, you know, I'm kidding, right?

1:48:13 Of course.

1:48:14 Yes. Only a stupid person would show their hand.

1:48:17 Yeah.

1:48:17 Only a stupid person would show their hand as they finally planned. their revenge on their enemies.

1:48:21 You know that, right?

1:48:22 Yeah.

1:48:22 I mean, I'm just a hundred percent.

1:48:27 What did you think about that? That, that, that from, uh, from him.

1:48:30 And I thought that was that, that entire segment was amazing with, uh, with him saying, you know, you know, Why would I show my hand? If I wanted to betray you, wouldn't I wait until Crown Jewel? And he made such a good point to the point where it's awesome. I mean, there's so much awesome in that. There's him not looking in his eye and then Reigns making him look him in the eye as he said what he had to say. And then by the end of his promo on Brock.

1:49:05 The Usos, who had been side-eyeing Heyman throughout the entire thing, looked, like, comfortable around him finally. Like, the Usos bought in that he was on their side. And they've had, to this point, still been, you know, like, you know, looking at him side-eyed and giving him a hard time.

1:49:23 So.

1:49:25 Which obviously makes me think that Heyman is with Lesnar and not the bloodline, particularly since he didn't answer the question, which was....

1:49:34 Oh, what was the question?

1:49:37 It was about– Yeah, whatever question he was supposed to ask.

1:49:42 Yeah, what was it?

1:49:44 No, I'm trying to actually go through the show report here.

1:49:47 I don't remember.

1:49:47 Alex, do you remember off the top of your head what the exact question was? Because, yeah, he didn't answer it, and that was clear because I was watching that. Alex, do you remember what it was? The exact question was– give me one second. I'm actually still looking at my report, so hang on one second.

1:50:02 All right. Okay. He wants Heyman to be wise and come clean and tell the truth. He wants Heyman to admit that he was responsible for Brock Lesnar being a free agent. So that would be the question.

1:50:21 Yes.

1:50:21 That was the question. Yeah, that was the question. Whether he didn't actually answer that question, whether he was the one responsible for him being a free agent. Instead, he, you know, changed it to like, look, everybody knows I'm full of... You know, bleep. But, you know, I'm smart about it. I'm not going to mess. I'm not going to mess up. That was I mean, it was just stellar work playing into character work. And this is like by far like I agree with you, Alex, that I think the Seth Rollins storyline is the second best storyline on Smackdown. But it is such a drop from the storyline because of the nuances and the fact that this is all based on character work instead of– and I'll talk about that in a second, about the character's gimmick.

1:51:08 So yeah, that's the highlight of the show for me by far.

1:51:14 Definitely.

1:51:14 And you, you said it. And that was the word that was jumping around in my head too. Just the nuance, like the nuance of it all. And just like, yeah, the moment where Heyman's looking down and Roman, you know, lifts his head up so he.

1:51:26 Can look him eye to eye.

1:51:27 I mean, it's, it's all just really well thought out and not just well thought out, but well, you know, executed in the moment too. And Heyman, I mean, gosh, it'd be, look, everybody, we all know that he's a great promo and he knows what he's doing in there. But I, I think even for him, this is like another level, you know, another level of, of work. I mean, he's really getting over Brock and, and, and reigns just at the same time at a very high level with, with his work.

1:51:55 And it's not to say that Roman.

1:51:56 And Brock aren't doing their thing, but, but he's, he's there tying it all together. I think it's, it's really, it's really brilliant stuff.

1:52:03 Alex.

1:52:07 I just, I want to ask Javier a question because he said something and it's bothering me now. I, I, Unless I was misinterpreting what you said, I think that you just said you think that Heyman is with Lesnar.

1:52:25 Yeah, mainly because he refused to answer that question. We're still waiting for that one time that the spoiler line is not going to be the real spoiler line. That's going to be broken. Because until now, the spoiler line has been kept... pure uh so so to speak so could this be the time that he reveals that no this has all been you know i have been working with with lesnar and uh you know because you know he he again he did not take responsibility for the for the the whole free agent you know the whole free agent thing he he basically moved the focus of the conversation to something else turning it like you know i even answered but hey you can trust me because of all these reasons Instead of just saying, yeah, no,

1:53:14 it wasn't me. And then, you know, particularly when he said, because that was the other line that I loved. So it was the whole, because in particular the line where he said, you know, because Reigns realized that he was between a rock and a hard place, so he gave him an out by saying, Be honest with me. I'll protect you from Lesnar.

1:53:36 Yep, yep.

1:53:36 So that was, you know, so he had a not too. So that's why I'm beginning to think that, hey, maybe it's 4D chess, you know?

1:53:47 Well, I really, really liked that Reigns made a whole show of making Heyman look him in the face. And then after that, he said, uh-uh, I don't want you to tell me. I want you to look at that camera and tell Brock. I thought that was really cool. But the reason I asked you that Javier is because I, I don't agree with you at all. Like not even a little bit. Um, so under your premise, could you fantasy book us what happens between them at crown jewel then?

1:54:27 It's a possibility that Raymond, that, that, uh, that, um, Heyman betrays Roman Reigns. Well, I don't think it ends up with a title change or anything. It might end up being a failure, but he ends up on Lesnar's thing. It's not what I would go with personally, but I think that it is, you know, because I personally would prefer that this is, you know, that it's straight up, that he's being straight up, right? That's what I think, and I'm still leaning towards that way, but this is the first time I have felt that there is a possibility for something else. Because until now, Wade's been asking, you know, oh, do you think that he's with Heyman or if Heyman's with Lesnar or if he's playing Reigns.

1:55:14 Until today, I thought 100% that he's with Reigns and he's worried about Lesnar. But the fact that he was still protecting Lesnar after a fashion, that's what actually creates doubt in my mind.

1:55:31 Okay, and here's where I'm going to go.

1:55:34 I'm not saying I'm going to bet my house. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying I'm going to bet the house, but, you know, I'm saying that there's now room for doubt.

1:55:43 I'm excited to debate the topic with you. So the reason that I don't agree with you is because I've watched Paul Heyman on TV for 25 years, and we've heard enough stories about him in real life. Paul Heyman has never given a straight answer to any question anybody's asked him his entire life. So it makes sense in the context of this story that he would dance around that subject and not give a straight answer.

1:56:11 Second, Paul Heyman is always, always, always going to have a backup plan.

1:56:24 Whether we talk about his real life when ECW was going bankrupt and he already secured himself a job with the then WWF, or if we go all the way back to when he betrayed Lesnar the first time for the big show on a TV sense, right? Heyman always has a backup plan. He wants to make sure that he doesn't burn his bridge with Lesnar and in case Reigns decides he doesn't need him anymore because he knows how volatile Reigns is. Therefore, Heyman, this time, is still only half telling the truth, but I don't think that he has anything to do with knowing Brock is going to be in certain places, but he probably does have something to do with Brock being a free agent. Therefore, he Is with Reigns, but he still has ties to

1:57:25 Lesnar as a just in case or CYA.

1:57:29 Yeah.

1:57:29 Yeah.

1:57:30 Well, and I think that's the I mean, really, that's the. the beauty of what they have going on. And it's one of those reasons why I wish it wasn't getting paid off. And it might not even fully pay off, pay off at Crown Jewel. But the fact that this is going down on that show, I think that's, yeah, that's a little troubling. What else do you have for us tonight, Javier?

1:57:52 A couple notes. First, before I forget them, if it was any question, I looked it up. The Hell and Salt is taking place at Crown Jewel. I am wondering now whether they moved the pay-per-view because they had already promised the match.

1:58:11 Which one?

1:58:13 Didn't they move Hell in a Cell to earlier in the year, this year?

1:58:16 Oh, yes.

1:58:17 Yep, yep, yep. Absolutely. Yeah, gosh, I didn't think about that.

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1:59:19 Also, on the Queen of the Ring thing, the only thing I'm going to mention about that, about Shayna being... you know, the queen, uh, let's not forget that her gimmick is the queen of, or her gimmick name is, uh, queen of spades. So maybe she wins to legitimize the whole queen of spades.

1:59:37 Oh my gosh.

1:59:38 I just, I, I mean, I look, I, When you look at that field, she's the one person that makes the most sense.

1:59:45 But I just I just I.

1:59:48 Can't see her like I could see what Vince's vision is for the Queen's crown. winner first one right decked out just like king corbin was and that i don't know javier but like with shana like i don't know that that that just doesn't fit for her for me i think that that hurts her even even though she gets the big win but man being saddled with that gimmick i i worry about that with her I mean, where are you at? If you had to pick, like, okay, Shayna wins this thing, is the first ever Queen's Crown tournament winner, but is saddled with the cape and crown, and that's her act, which one.

2:00:28 Are you picking?

2:00:29 Well, because the thing is, remember that WWE, when it comes to money in the bank, they want one person with the money in the bank, and the other person cashes in immediately. I don't think they want, like, two people in full regalia at the time.

2:00:42 True, yes.

2:00:43 And if you're going to, you know, so I think that, you know, you could have, you know, one person from, you know, the male winner being the one in the full regalia while she can, you know, she could just basically walk around with a scepter and use it as a weapon, you know, that sort of thing. And still be, you know, just call herself, you know, the Queen of Spades and make sure everybody refers to her that name.

2:01:04 And that just be, like, what they... emphasize for her is the queen of spades name. Um, so I, you know, I, I think that, you know, she can win the queen of the ring and not be, you know, destroyed by it.

2:01:19 Um, yeah, that's a fair point. I think that's.

2:01:22 Otherwise like the, yeah. So I mean, and then the dew drop, you know, the, the dew drop thing would be the, like my second choice on that. uh, since they had already teased something between the two of them, but I don't know if they're going to have to drop, just beat Shana like immediately. And then we're going to just, you know, waste Shana, you know, the building Shana is a monster. I don't think they're going to waste her on, on do drop.

2:01:47 Um, yeah.

2:01:48 Yeah.

2:01:49 Then again, they're going to be on two different brands, I think. So, you know, it could be another one of those, uh, losing on.

2:01:55 Your way out of territory.

2:01:57 Yes.

2:01:57 Quote unquote territory.

2:01:59 Yeah.

2:02:00 Yeah.

2:02:01 Um, Alex, you asked about Vega's victories. She has had two wins since she came back this year. One of them against Liv Morgan because of Carmella's distraction, and then the one against Toni Storm. She's 2-4, 2-10 if you include multi-woman matches.

2:02:26 Wow.

2:02:28 Wow.

2:02:29 And she just beat Toni Storm.

2:02:30 Yeah.

2:02:31 Yeah.

2:02:34 Which one of the things I want to talk about was the Tony Storm thing. So Tony Storm is someone that, you know, and you guys already mentioned that they need to bolster, you know, the depth chart on the roster. And so you have Tony Storm, who's a great wrestler, and the whole Child of the 80s has always been part of her storyline since the Mae Young classic. but something that informs her character. She is Toni Storm, a child of the 80s. And then when I saw that promo right before the match started, the inset promo, and she's talking about dropping all the 80s, you know, Joan Jed and Bruce Springsteen and stuff, and the only thing she's talking about, it's a quick promo, so make sure you get that in, and she's no longer Toni Storm,

2:03:25 child of the 80s. She is the child of the 80s, Toni Storm.

2:03:30 Right, yes, yes.

2:03:31 Because you have to completely reduce the characters, which worries me for Hit Row because they ran that promo, and the first thing that McAfee, and McAfee's usually, you know, in McAfee I trust when it comes to commentary, but the first thing he mentions is, this is a musical group. Who also can fight?

2:03:55 Yeah.

2:03:56 So already I've got it.

2:04:01 I mean, look, look, look, look. Here's the thing.

2:04:03 I mean, WWE, with this type of thing, does not— they don't deserve.

2:04:10 The benefit of the doubt right now on this stuff.

2:04:12 I mean, they'd lean— very heavy into like the one note nature of this. And so I think the only way to properly analyze, you know, a Hit Row debut or Toni Storm or, you know, whatever, like when you when you hear a promo like tonight's with Storm is with just intense skepticism because like Toni Storm, what makes her a really good performer and a good wrestler in the ring and good on the microphone is that she isn't just one thing. She's got, she's got a personality and yeah, like you said, Javier, it kind of, you know, that's the, constitution for her character in a lot of ways but she's but she's not one note and what works with with Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman is that there's all this nuance everywhere and a lot of I

2:04:59 mean look you're not not every character is going to have it like Roman does but not everyone is just the bro stoner riddle and so like there's these characters that are leaning into one personality trait all over Raw and Smackdown right now and I think you know it's it it it it I don't think there's a lot to invest in with that when you're in the audience or you're watching on television, it's like, okay, Tony storm child of the eighties. Like if you, if you get that reference, okay, maybe it means something to you. If you don't like, it means nothing. And Tony storms essentially a done at that point.

2:05:37 Yeah.

2:05:37 And speaking for, you know, and I, and just my, my personal anecdote, when I saw her on, uh, uh, on the main young classic and then in, uh, NXT UK, uh, You know, she was like, OK, she's a cool character. But then I'm like, oh, man, she kind of looks like she's, you know, the way that she dresses, like she kind of looks like one of the, you know, backup dancers for like Motley Crue. It reminded me of Motley Crue. And sure enough, she, you know, in an interview talks about it. And I'm, you know, I, you know, when I was younger, I was a Motley Crue fan. And, you know, so I'm like, I'm like, oh, that's cool.

2:06:10 That informs me on her character. And she talked about that's the music that she's into. And I'm like, okay, so I get who you are through that connection. But if you're a person, a normal human being, you're not going to say, hey, yeah, look, my entire being is that I'm a Motley Crue fan. Right, right.

2:06:28 That's my entire being.

2:06:30 Judge me on that.

2:06:31 Yeah.

2:06:33 You know, and sometimes, you know, very few times it works. It's like your best superheroes, your best supervillains are, you know, one note kind of characters. But, you know, you only have so many one of those one note characters that, you know, that exist. So some people need to be a little bit more complex. And even those one note characters, they, you know, they get more popular when you add backstory to them.

2:06:59 So yeah, it's just, it's frustrating.

2:07:01 And, and, and I'm, and I'm really bringing it up because I'm seeing more and more of it now with, uh, what they've been doing with Shane storm, Shane Thorne with the whole crocodile than the gimmick.

2:07:12 Yep.

2:07:13 And you know, all these, you know, one note gimmicks that they've been doing lately, you know, all of a sudden popping up where it feels like we're, you.

2:07:19 Know, in the eighties.

2:07:21 Well, I mean, and, and I mean, NXT right now, like the NXT 2.0, there's a lot of those acts around, like, you know, the, like that are just leaning into one, one thing. And, and it just, that can work on a surface level, but it just doesn't have a lot of depth longterm.

2:07:38 Yeah.

2:07:39 Yeah.

2:07:41 Anything else for us tonight, Javier?

2:07:42 I want you to, to plug at some point that all the just really great G1 stuff that you're doing. It's a SmackDown show for sure, but you are churning out a ton of, a ton of podcasts on, on the G1. And uh it's uh it's at kind of the the the i don't know the dog days of the g1 right now let's put it that way.

2:08:02 Yeah yeah definitely uh the last two last three ones haven't been too great uh mainly the a block because uh a lot of these shows seem like they were uh being uh they were meant to be uh shorn up by naito in the main event So with him going down, the last couple of A blocks have not been so hot. And not to mention that I'm a Yano fan. I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm a Toriano fan. I like the comedy wrestling. And his comedy has not been good this 51.

2:08:33 So that kind of hurts me too.

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2:09:34 I've got two quick things. One was one of the notes I made. And I need this explained to me. So Naomi asked to be traded to Roth to get away from Sonya Deville. Who runs Roth?

2:09:51 She has more authority than her.

2:09:57 Did they ever, like, actually– did they ever actually establish that he runs Raw and she assists and then, like, she runs SmackDown and he assists? Because, I mean, it almost looked like that's what they were going for when they– when Pierce and Deville were feuding, but they never did, like, ever tell us that.

2:10:14 So is that what ended up happening?

2:10:15 Because that was just– it was just weird that you asked, you know, Adam Pierce, please move me to SmackDown so I don't have to deal with her anymore. And I'm like, but she's there too.

2:10:21 What are you talking about?

2:10:23 Yeah, I think– I think the thought process is that Adam Pierce has more power than her, but you're right. She's on both shows. So the question still doesn't make sense.

2:10:34 It definitely doesn't make sense.

2:10:36 And yeah.

2:10:37 Yeah.

2:10:39 And the other thing I had is that, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but McAfee sounded like somebody who just didn't care that he got fired today. Cause he was like, the way he was going at Carmela and the mask was not like, Oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, doing commentary stuff, but he was basically talking about how ridiculous the mask was, that it's obviously not protecting anything, and to the point where there's one point on the commentary where you hear him stop and he says, oh, but Carmelo's a great wrestler, which you could tell by the.

2:11:12 Line that he was saying.

2:11:15 But he was talking about how, oh, I didn't know technology had advanced to the point where this flimsy thing protects your face. You know, so you have that. Then you also have with the Mace, when Mace came out, I say he said something along the lines, oh, did you, you know, he goes, oh, what an amazing pop. And then when he finishes promo, he says something along the lines of like. You know, so he paraphrased what Mace said.

2:11:41 He's like, oh, so he's just going to eat everybody on the roster.

2:11:44 Good luck with that.

2:11:45 It was just so off-handed.

2:11:48 Like, I don't care. You know, this stuff is ridiculous. I want to make fun of what's stupid.

2:11:54 And you can hear.

2:11:55 Cole, like, you know, because when Cole, like, Cole always seems like he sounds like he's stuck up. But then, like, when he relaxes, he kind of felt like he had a more relaxed atmosphere. Like, he was, like, following what he was, you know, what... what he would, uh, McAfee was saying, but it, it felt like it was either, either, either McMahon wasn't there on the headset and they were like, just going off doing their own thing because they felt freer or McAfee said, okay, I'm, I already gave him my two weeks. I'm just gonna say whatever I want to say.

2:12:25 Yeah. I, I mean he certainly has like a– I mean a fresh take on things given that he just feels freer than other commentators do.

2:12:37 But it makes for like really good moments.

2:12:39 I caught the Mace thing too about that– like the line about the pop.

2:12:43 It just almost– spit the drink I was had out of my mouth.

2:12:47 Cause it was, it was just under like, you know, off it off the cuff, you know? And I thought it was just really well done, but, but you're right. As far as you can tell what lines he gets fed, because there's always a little bit of a pause. And then he comes back with like that corp, that corporate, you know, like Michael Cole-esque line. I, I still, I still get a kick.

2:13:05 Out of McAfee. I, I, I, I like him, Alex, where are you at with him?

2:13:10 The best thing about McAfee and it's, Exactly what you're illustrating right now. It's that he thinks like the rest of us. And what I really like about him, too, is that when somebody turns heel or changes character or whatever, he doesn't change his opinion of them. Like, did you guys catch tonight when Corbin came out and Cole mentioned something about having happy talk? And McAfee said, oh, well, this is the greatest show, but this guy is the worst part of our show. And he said something about happy talking and... And McAfee goes, no, that show sucks.

2:13:47 SmackDown's awesome.

2:13:50 Yes.

2:13:51 So I just like it because McAfee says all the things that I feel like I would say if I was on commentary. Because you're right, Javier. I even said that tonight. What are they going to do, fire him? Like he cares.

2:14:07 Right.

2:14:08 And that was the other one. Cole had gotten a mistake with– Yeah, during the Tony Storm Vega match, he said that both women are going to Raw when Tony Storm was staying, I believe. And then, so he said that, and then he corrected himself. And then McAfee said, he goes, oh, it sounds like someone corrected you.

2:14:33 I'm not correcting myself, but yeah.

2:14:34 Yeah.

2:14:40 So, yeah, either.

2:14:41 It's something that caught my eye. You did ask, was the confusion with the four women, whether they're on SmackDown now or.

2:14:50 If they're going to Raw?

2:14:52 Because the four women who wrestled today are all previous SmackDown women.

2:14:57 No, I know. The only one that I had a question about, now that the Toni Storm thing has been cleared up, is Zelina Vega is on Raw, right?

2:15:06 She's moving to Raw. She's currently on Raw.

2:15:08 Okay.

2:15:08 Okay. And Carmella moving to Raw. Yes.

2:15:13 Yeah, and so is Liv.

2:15:15 And Liv Morgan.

2:15:16 Moving to Raw.

2:15:17 So three of the four.

2:15:21 Yeah, three of the four are.

2:15:21 Moving to Raw.

2:15:22 So, yeah.

2:15:26 Very confusing.

2:15:27 Yeah.

2:15:29 Well, I mean, and it's only confusing, again, sacrificing ease at the altar of the Saudi Arabia show because– You know, they want to make sure they can continue to build to the matches that are happening without, you know, so they have the draft and they need to keep this stuff going so they can, you know, have their Saudi show.

2:15:48 And then, you know, we'll do it after the Saudi show and just, you know.

2:15:53 I understand the reasoning. But my thing is, if I'm somebody who covers the show and types all the stuff that's happening and I can't remember who's on what show, then what does that say for the people who are sitting at home? It doesn't work.

2:16:07 Yep.

2:16:07 Yep.

2:16:08 Yep, and it would probably be easier if it weren't for that other show that's happening. So yeah, which hey, it's a pay-per-view. I'm not watching with my family this month, so there's that.

2:16:26 Well, is everybody else watching it on delay or are you guys watching it at 1 o'clock in the afternoon?

2:16:31 No, no, I'm watching it. I'll probably watch it at some point in the weekend and just mainly to catch up. I'm not even paying attention to.

2:16:37 The background while I do something else.

2:16:40 Yeah, because, you know, the last few, you know, unless they added air conditioning, because I know they've had issues with like a lot of heat there and the wrestlers were exhausted just coming to the ring and. you know, and in a lot of cases it feels that they're just putting in a house show level performance and, you know, not to mention the exhaustion of probably flying over there and everything else that you've got to deal with. So I'm not, you know, because it's a WrestleMania caliber like card, but you're going to get like house show level work.

2:17:15 So, you know.

2:17:19 Yeah, so that, you know, it is what it is.

2:17:23 Yeah.

2:17:24 But, yeah. All right, so that's pretty much all I had.

2:17:29 So good talking to you, Alex.

2:17:30 Good talking to you, Zach.

2:17:32 Sort of, kind of.

2:17:33 Maybe, maybe.

2:17:34 Yeah, it's nothing.

2:17:35 Appreciate it, Javier.

2:17:37 I hate you.

2:17:39 Uh, do it.

2:17:39 Yeah.

2:17:39 You got it. Come on, play, play, play the game.

2:17:42 Yeah.

2:17:44 So, uh, yeah, check me out, check out the New Japan Pride podcast. I'm trying to keep up to date. And it might be tough next week because they've got three shows in the middle of the week and I work. So I might have to do a bunch of couple of them together.

2:18:00 But I've been keeping up.

2:18:02 So follow me on that and all the stuff that Sean Radican is doing on PWTours.com also.

2:18:10 Yeah, yeah. Great stuff.

2:18:11 Thank you, Javier.

2:18:11 Appreciate it. Yeah, and pwtorch.com. Yeah, have a good night, man. Appreciate you calling, as always. pwtorch.com slash govip to check out the New Japan Pride podcast. And Javier has been timely and just thoughtful with all analysis concerning the G1 from the very beginning. So the 9-11 stuff just went up for VIP members. So if you want your fix on the G1, New Japan Pride Podcast, PWTorch.com slash GoVIP.

2:18:44 Alex, we've gone long. Going through my notes here, I think we've covered everything.

2:18:49 Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on concerning SmackDown tonight before we put a bow on this thing?

2:18:55 Unless you want to go with a list of people we're going to miss from SmackDown.

2:18:59 No, I'm good.

2:19:00 Okay.

2:19:01 Yeah, maybe another time. Maybe another time.

2:19:05 All right.

2:19:06 Appreciate it, Alex. Thanks, uh, to you for joining.

2:19:10 It's been a great work with you tonight, but take a minute here and, uh, just tell everybody about all that you do for PW tours.com and how they can check out more of your, your work and where to follow you on, on social media.

2:19:23 Well, I don't have any social media, so we'll knock that out of the way first.

2:19:25 Okay.

2:19:26 Um, I am the alt perspective reporter for SmackDown on Friday nights. I am here every single Friday, uh, covering SmackDown for the Torch. And I'm on the post shows every now and again, hoping to do that more and more.

2:19:42 Very good.

2:19:43 Yeah.

2:19:43 PWTorch.com on Fridays. Alex's report right there on the main page, right next to Wade's. And you can go back and forth and see what Wade has to say and what Alex has to say. usually catch different things and have different analysis on the show. So check that out on Fridays, PWTorch.com. Again, Wade is going to be on the VIP side of things, running down tonight's show on the Wade Keller Hotline. So you can go VIP and check that out, PWTorch.com slash go VIP. I'm PWTorch assistant editor, Zach Haydorn, and you can...

2:20:14 Go VIP and check out my weekly audio show. It's called On the Canvas, and it's a show that focuses on the art of wrestling. So a lot of the nuance and promo style that we kind of articulated and discussed here in regards to Paul Heyman. Think, you know, 50 to 60 minutes of that type of of that type of show called On the Canvas usually drops Thursday or Fridays this week. I am taking a look at the G1, not show by show by show like Javier does with the New Japan Pride podcast, but like an overarching look at the art of the tournament so far.

2:20:47 So you can go VIP and check that out. It would be much appreciated. Also, PWTorch.com. Make that your one-stop shop for all your pro wrestling needs. We've got news going up on a regular basis. We've got show reports on all the major shows throughout the week there for you. in a timely fashion, editorial columns, and just a vast array of work from a vast array of different very talented contributors. So make PWTorch.com a part of your day.

2:21:17 I think you'll be happy that you do. And follow me on social media, at ZHadornTorch on Twitter. That's at ZHadornTorch on Twitter. Thanks to our callers. Thanks to our emailers. Thanks to our on-site correspondent, Richard. For Alex, I'm Zach, and we'll catch you next time.

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