Jimmy jam jim. Jim. I Jam. Jimmy jail.

Look, hear me out. Dominic Mysterio wins money in the bank and he cashes in on Seth Rollins and he wins the World Heavyweight Championship. And he should be the first person to beat Seth.

Okay? That's the energy we're bringing into the show today.

I am Luke Owen, D-A-D. I'm joined by the professor, the Truth dan Late, and neither of us managed to capture the gem that championship at the week.

I came this close.

Yeah. As I said on the Night of Champions review, you're a nat's dick away from winning the gym.

Really was. And the real champion didn't even beat me. He didn't. So I'll see you again.

Coward.

That he may. Coward.

But this is the Wrestle Talk podcast review of Monday Night Raw. Please do press the subscribe button if you haven't already. We are on our way to 85,000 subscribers, which is when we're going to be doing our next subscriber goal achievement, which is to do another ten hour live stream watching old wrestling matches, I think.

I reckon you press fast forward on getting everyone to click that subscribe button so that we can do money in the bank.

If we can get it done by July, it seems like a big ask, but if we get we're about like 8000 off.

Impossible.

If we can get done by July, that means we will watch nothing but money the bank matches for 10 hours straight.

Are there enough to cover 10 hours, do you think?

Well, maybe they won't watch all of them.

There you go.

So that sounds like a fun time, doesn't it? If not, then maybe we'll watch the cash ins as well.

Lovely.

So, subscribe. If you haven't already, please do press the thumbs up button on this video because it helps us in the algorithm. And leave a comment down below with what you thought of this episode of Monday Night Raw and whether you're not whether or not you think Dominic Mysterio should win money in the bank. More on that in a second. And if you're watching live, get in your ultra chat to restaurant support. We'll read out all of them above the five US dollar amount now. Daniel.

Yeah, I feel that. Clearly you do, because you've got a lot of feelings to get off your chest.

Okay, so I put this title up and I put this thumbnail up and someone left him, someone left a comment being like, not a newsworthy episode of Raw. Then what was?

I haven't even seen the thumbnail on the title yet.

It is. Should Dominic Mysterio win money in the bank with the thumbnail of Next Champ? I mean, I mean, and it wasn't really a newsworthy episode of Raw. There were like a big talking points coming out of the show either outside some new women's tag champions, but that felt like a foregone conclusion more than anything.

Absolutely.

That and I feel like I said this in my edited review. All of the hotness that was coming out of the Saudi Arabian Show Night of Champions was all the SmackDown stuff. It was like ask her. Winning the raw women's championship. And the bloodline.

I was so excited to say, oh, great, we got to have the Ask Her on. And they're on the other show now.

Exactly. Yeah. I feel like hempiston sat house of.

The Black Rock We've taken away Walter.

Yeah, the monkeys. Poor so all. I think the really exciting stuff is kind of happening over on SmackDown at the moment. So this felt was a very pedestrian episode of Raw. Here are some money in the bank qualifying matches. We got some more of those next week. We got some more coming in a couple of weeks time. And look, Seth is your heavyweight champion. He's in a tag match. Let's show him off.

I'll be honest as well. Coming flying back from the Gulf to here was surprisingly long. Going all the way to Albany, New York, is even longer. It's a long flight. Even though corporate jets and all that stuff, comfort and all that, it's still always travel takes it out of you. So I don't blame them. And it's the first one after a show where we're now setting things up again. A lot of things were finished on the Raw side of things. So we begin a new starting the new chapter.

This is week one. If you're playing my GM mode, this.

Is weeks laying out the chessboard.

You've just finished all your grivories and now you're on week six. So we're starting out the new pieces. So I don't begrudge Raw for being a pedestrian show this week. My point was more, there's some really hot things happening in WWE right now.

They're just all on the show currently.

But this episode, I felt, was setting up some very interesting chess pieces. And then I thought back on it and I was like, oh, I think they've actually been setting these chess pieces emotions for a little while. And that's Dominic mysterio he's had, what, three singles wins on TV in the last four weeks or so, be Xavier Woods twice, then beat Apollo Cruz. And then the opening segment of this episode of Raw was Seth Rollins came out to be like, hello, I'm the new World Heavyweight Champion, and I'm the visionary. I am the revolutionary. And out came AJ Styles. And AJ was like, hey, look, I know I'm a SmackDown guy now, brand split lol, but I'm just here to shake your hand and say that you don't deserve this. And crowd you earn.

He fully Simon Cowell. I don't like it. I love it. He really did.

And the crowd went bay because he has earned this. And this brought out Judgment Day. Balor and Priest and Dominic and Rear came down to the ring and they were like, hey, look, any one of us could win the world heavyweight Championship from you. That's how great the judgment day are as a group. Not only did we beat the undisputed tag team champions a couple of weeks ago, which something that Roman Reigns couldn't do.

Yeah, that was a nice touch.

The bloodline are imploding. So that means that we don't just run raw, we run all of WWE. Hard to do when there's a brand split, but we certainly like it's not.

That hard when Adri Styles is on the SmackDown.

We're the most dominant faction in WWE. And it was like Damien Priest is like, yeah, I could definitely win the world hero Championship. Tim Bow was like, yeah, I could definitely win the world I Championship. Even Dominic Mysterio and the crowd were.

Like, classic Dom he, yeah, but they.

Set this idea up. You know, there's the little thing, what but what if he's the joke option? Surely? And then we got into the main event of the show, which was Seth tagging with AJ Styles brand split lol to take on the judgment day, and they was like all night. Which two members of the judgment team? What judgment days are going to be? Which two members of the team is it going to be? Who? DA DA DA DA DA. And it looked like it was going to be Damien Priest and Dominic Mysterio. But Dominic Mysterio was actually a ruse to allow Finn Ballad to sneak through the back door and get an early attack. It was actually Balor and Priest that were doing the tagging. So Dominic's not in the match. Do you know what happens when Dominic's not in the match? Dominic doesn't lose. Dominic doesn't have to be pinned. Damien Priest instead was the person who was pinned. They protected him in that pin by hit like Seth hit two stomps on him to get the win. This guy that they're sort of pegging apparently onto work wrestling as a future main event, but Dominic crucially.

I don't think it's by accident that Dominic Mysterio was not in this match and therefore Dominic was not pinned because worked wrestling have also said that Dominic is apparently penciled in for money in the bank. They think that he's doing great work at the moment. I don't know. I just felt like there was a lot on the show that was saying they're setting up, that Dom could be the person, and if not if not to win, to be like one of those he's going to get those moments where he's at the top of the ladder and it looks like he's really going to win.

It's a really interesting suggestion. It's a really interesting point.

Thank you.

And I quite like it. And I'll tell you why. Because we talk a lot about the various kinds of heat you get as a wrestler. There was a prime example of go away heat on this show a little bit later on, but the heat Dom has is not like legitimately, we hate you, Dominic Mysterio heat so much as it is. We really enjoy this character, but more specifically, we enjoy booing this character and we enjoy being part of the crowd that booze this character. It's almost like a competition week and week out, who can boo him the hardest, which I really like. When a character is that hot, you want to do something with it, right? And it's like when Stephanie McMahon won the Women's Championship back in 2000, she didn't earn it, she didn't deserve it, she wasn't defending it. We all knew it was hollow, but she would walk around like she did own the thing, right? She's like, I'm the Women's champion, I worked hard for this kind of thing. Imagine Dominic Mysterio getting a little bit bumped around in the Money in the bank ladder match and then on RIA Ripley's shoulders, claims the Money in the bank briefcase.

RIA is key to that.

Yeah.

Like RIA being involved in the finish, I think it plays a huge part into their partnership.

Yeah. What's brilliant about that is you have RIA, who the crowd genuinely quite loves, who is still playing full heel. She's not even entertaining the notion of pandering or whatever like that. And it works into this idea of people simping for rear, you know what I mean? She still disdains everybody. And then you've got Dom, who everyone loves to boo, who is just playing his character to perfection. The in ring stuff is fine, it's broadly fine, but the character work over this past year or so now we're coming up on a year has been so much fun, you want to give him a little bit of spice.

The other thing as well, I don't think a lot of people do agree with me on this. I don't like two world championships, I like just the one boss.

It's bearing fruit at the moment.

But yes, but that's the idea. One of the benefits I would make an argument for two world titles is you can put it on a Dominic Mysterio. If you've just got the Blue Universal Championship, you can't give it to Dom and Don can get the win. Like, it just seems like I would not have Dominic Mysterio pin Roman Reigns in the same way. That one of the problems we had with Austin theory last year was like, well, Boston theory is just not going to cash in success. That's never going to happen because he's not the guy to do that with. Which is why they ended up just doing a little backdoor option of him cashing in on Seth for the US title instead. But now you've got two world titles. You can put it on Dom in the same way that you can put it on Jack Swagger or you can put on CM Punk when CM Punk was not them main event guide. You can do this because you don't have to run bigger risks of taking down your top guy who's like your top merch seller. And this and the other with this.

A risky idea. Kind of like during the Pandemic when New Japan were like, oh, we don't know what to do. Put the belt on the Evil and we'll figure it out after that. And I was like, that was the right choice. But they were like, well, there's no fans and attendance anyway.

We may figure it out.

Well, just we might as well take the risk on it. With two world titles you can totally have dominic mysterio cash in on Seth Rollins and win the World Heavyweight championship.

And imagine the heat from it as well. Imagine the sort of shock when the Miz did it on Randy Orton. You had that Miz girl who remains iconic kind of thing. You'd get a crowd reaction from it. It's worth noting that they did say on this show that you can cash in this belt for any Championship.

They've set that up now, surely with the Seth cash in, but yeah, good.

But also but also with yeah, it was Gunther But. But on top of that, I then went back and we just this lunchtime just gone. Just watched the CM Punk victory in WrestleMania 25 and it says they're any World Championship as well. And that's because you had three brands with any Championship. And I thought that wording was interesting that even back then it was any Championship. So having established one Honda P, this is for any Championship. Dominic Mysterio, imagine this as a worldview, right? Dominic Mysterio holding the money in the bank, teasing cashing in on World Champions the whole time, acting like he could be the one to defeat Roman Reigns, and then in the end just pipping Gunther, do you know what I mean? Would be kind of interesting.

Gunther's a fun shout as well. I think if you want to do this, go full out for it. Because the other way the other thing with Dominic you've then Got is he's the World Champion and Rear is the SmackDown Women's Champion. You've then got and Triple H and Shaw Michaels love to play up on things that they did in the past, right? And you can have Dom as the Hunter of the group, rear as the Stephanie the Power.

It's rear as Hunter and Dom as Stephanie.

But you know what I mean? Yes, I do. The man as the World Champion and the female is the Women's Champion is the power couple of WWE running this show with all their plates of hummus and everything.

And this isn't the joy with running the bank, is it's not something that has to happen right away. So you can continue to sort of play with the idea and flesh out what you might want to do. If you do want to go down that road at some point in the future, it's not a million miles away from a good idea. Do you know what I mean?

I've got two options. My two big brain plans for Money in the bank this year is Dominic Mysterio for all the arguments that I've just laid out there, which going by the live chat is not going down well, or it's Logan Paul.

Wow.

Because Logan, I was saying this at the Night of Champions party when people were asking me like, who do you think could win money in the bank? And I saw, like logan.

Paul.

And then someone I was chatting to was like, I mean, the great thing about that is that every podcast that he does, he'll have the Money in the bank case behind him, which I hadn't even thought of because my big pitch was going to be, he's never.

There, he's never there.

So when he is there, like when his music hits and he comes out, it then becomes a really big deal that Logan Paul has shown up with that Money in the bank briefcase. And what does that mean he's going to do with it? And then again, because you've got two world titles, you may as well put it on Logan Paul. It doesn't harm anyone. And then he's got the world title behind him on all of his podcasts as well.

What's interesting about that idea as well is that Money in the bank as.

A soldier, that's worse.

Tonight's episode of the show is give us your best bad ideas. The interesting thing about Money in the bank is that it's a thing that we all love and we all like the idea of the cash in. But we were having conversations again upstairs because this is what you do when you do a wrestling themed entertainment company. As we have.

You talk about our wrestling, you talk.

A lot about wrestling and you plan, okay, so this is the month that we want to talk a lot about money in the bank. Let's come up with ideas and what things we can talk about. And you come to realize that Money in the bank is such an up and down thing. It's either an amazing cash in awful run, it's a weird winner, it sets up edge for the rest of his career.

I think there are more downs in Money in the bank than there have been ups. If we're Simon Miller and if you.

Especially look at the past couple of years, the women's one kind of is irrelevant, which is unfortunate because they just get it and they cash it in the same night. And that's the thing that's happened again and again and again with the women's one, with the men's one. It's like biggie amazing winner, amazing cash in, does nothing with the title run.

Just gives it back to Brock.

Yeah, exactly. Or like Baron Corbin's run or whatever.

Because he just has it and then just loses it. Jinder Mahold only clean victory.

Exactly. Austin theory. Who no one believes in and then suddenly cashes it in on a secondary championship and loses.

Braun Strowman cashed it in for a match with Roman Reigns that ended in a DQ.

Yeah. So you got to think about what is it that makes Money in the bank special. What is it that makes us care about the idea of money in the bank? And it is that element of surprise. And if you do put money in the bank on someone who's not there very often but is a smamy git and everyone kind of hates it's, that moment of Logan Paul's music hits and he runs down to the ring, you're going to get a reaction and it shows the power of that briefcase. Now, I don't want the world heavyweight championship to be secondary. It unfortunately feels like it is so at the moment, I hate to say.

I told you so, as we saw.

Once famously said, I stand, I hold my hands up. I'm an optimist. I'm a perennial optimist, I always will be. We let it play out. It has played out. At the moment it feels secondary, which wasn't helped on this show by him not really making a deal out of being the world champion. Not like being like I'm going to take on all comers who wants to challenge me, whatever. Or even setting up a potential actual definite you are challenging me at Money in the bank kind of kind of person. So you could do a lot worse than having Logan Paul. But it is that same thing of because it's not Roman, you're still kind of vulnerable. The question of who defeats Seth is not as important or crucial as the.

Question who defeats Roman as a very good point. I mean, someone just pointed out in the chats there they would make the argument that it does hurt the world title. Because then that's two of the three world titles that aren't on the show all the time. Yes, which I actually I had not considered. So that's a really good point well made. Which is why I think then Dom is probably my is my is my preferred of the two options that I.

Am pitching here, I still want Cody, but I don't see that going down at the moment. Yeah, but I want Cody because I want the title on Cody soon.

Maybe we'll come on to this a bit later in the show. When we talk about his promo, I get the impression Cody's not in Money in the bank.

Unless because Brock isn't going to be at Money in the bank. We have to have something for Cody to do. But he's still selling that broken arm. Do you compete in Money in the bank with a broken arm?

Well, not only that, but his promo was very much like, by the way, my next match is yeah.

Didn't even meant and Money in the bank.

Exactly. Yeah. Whereas like Matt Riddle who's got his qualifier in a couple of weeks did say I have got a qualifying match in a couple of weeks. Like, Cody never mentioned that he's got one. That's not to say that he won't.

Yeah. It just wasn't the focus. Of what?

It wasn't the focus, but we'll talk about that maybe when we get to it. I think Mod mother is with us today, so mod mother, she can hear us. I'm just going to get a little taste of the audience.

I can't wait to see this.

Would you like to see Dominic Mysterio win money in the bank?

I can't wait to see how this turns out.

And I also want to say as well, when I say win money, the bank, and in doing so, also wins the world title.

Interesting. Yeah. I do think that the next cash in has to be a particularly powerful cash in victory.

Need one?

I think, actually.

Let'S get into your ultra chat on this topic. Please do. Get them into wrestler.com forward slash support, where we'd add all of them above the five US dollar amount. Usually we have our nice little tablet we do in front of us, but we realized that we left them at the venue.

We did.

From the party on Saturday.

Yeah.

And so I'm not going to collect those until Thursday.

Right.

So they're back for the Dynamite review.

Oh, great. But for now, I'm just going to listen. I mean, audiobook version, we're going to.

Have to just look over this way to my laptop and I'm just going to make this a bit bigger while you do that.

It was a great night, the Night of Champions party. Thank you for everyone who joined us. What a weekend of wrestling.

Wasn't it just?

Yeah. I haven't even seen Battleground yet.

Neither have I. Haven't said that because I was doing dad duty yesterday because my wife was working. I haven't seen Double or Nothing yet either.

I mean, I did my review yesterday, but for me, it's a show that sort of starts kind of dry and then becomes a show that's pretty incredible, which is great.

Yeah, it was funny listening to reviews from the show. So listen to Five Four and I listened to your and Ollie's review and, like, listening to fan feedback, it was like this show had two bad matches, worst show of the year. And I was so interesting. I was like, such a weird way to look at this.

And I think that the thing with Double or Nothing is that fatal four way world title match, which had a build that was kind of rubbish, unsurprisingly was a Match of the Year candidate. It was so good. So you have to sort of seek out. And I love how much I want to tell people about the weekend's wrestling, how much I want to tell people about the reaction that we all had when Oscar won or how cool that moment of the mist was or how Ali being folded around the ring post, or the way Jimmy did that super kick.

I mean, people can literally see my.

Reactions to I love you being in that crowd because I was doing the stream, so you were behind me. I didn't even see. But you're like, what was it like in the crowd?

It was awesome. In particular, that first super kick moment. But when Sammy hit the Haluba kick and pinned, people were legit, like jumping up and down and hugging.

It was unreal.

It was unreal. Yeah. It was such a good time.

Yeah. And I can't wait to do it all again.

Yeah. And we will be more details than that shortly. But Ben Vlerick kicks things off here to say, you know, what if Don wins money in the bank and cashes it in on Rollins, who, wherever else, is the World Heavyweight Champion? Sure, why not? However, if it's Roman Reigns yeah, that's a big fat no for me. But, hey, with a second world title, you could do it. Still, AMA needed to be yeah. La Knight swear to God, if he loses his qualifying match against Ford, I will start a goddamn riot. How charismatic, how over do you have to be before WWE takes notice? Just do something, anything with him already. On a second note, wouldn't it be problematic if a joke character like Dominic Roll Awareness, a joke that's gone too far, wins a new world title, which desperately needs to be taken seriously and properly established, it might tarnish its future legacy?

I don't think it's a joke that's gone too far. You agree about La Knight and I think it's a shame that Ford and Knight cancel each other out. Like, one of them is not going to be in the match. I think the match will suffer as a result of that. But I think that I like the idea of La Knight winning it because I'm a big, I'm high on La Knight like everybody else. I don't think Dom is a joke on too far. I think it's a joke that's a joke. I don't even know if joke is the right word.

No. If anything, I think it's a stick. I think it's reached the right level.

Yes, exactly. I think it's exactly where it's supposed to be in. It's his bit, it's his character work.

Because I think if the joke had gone too far, people would be tired of it and people would and I don't think the booing that's what I.

Said about go away Heat.

That's exactly it. I don't think the Dom Heat that he gets is Go away, heat. It's enjoyable.

We like, I'm buying into this.

It's MJF heat.

Yeah, exactly.

It's the same sort of Heat that MJF gets, which is like, I just love to hate you.

I don't think Dom is as good as MJF. Just before anyone in the chat starts misunderstanding what we're saying.

Stevie Howlin here says RIA with the reverse james Ellsworth to win money the bank for Dominic.

So funny.

I love that.

Yeah, that's a nice idea.

But again, that's the thing. We're all sitting here being like, man, we've had a really bad rough run of years with money in the bank. We need to have a good sense of winner. And here we are being like, RIA Ripley should win it for Dominic Mysterio.

But it's not even so much the winner itself. It's what you do with the winner. Austin theories didn't work, so if you do it right, if you tell a good story with it, it's fine.

There's a one coming up that really made me laugh. But we've unfortunately Streamlabs has lost a username, so please do let our moderators know who says Luke is right about someone in Judgment Day winning, but he's picked the wrong one. Put Dominion money in the bank and have RIA pull down the briefcase like elsewhere did for Mella, but then reveal it's technically her name on the contract. And she beats don't hate that either. This is from Keen Harvey. This is one that made me laugh. I'm going some money in the bank for my first wrestling payperview. Do you think I'll get kicked out if I bring a side that says, dominic is a briefcase wanker?

I love that. Maybe they just don't know they're an American company. That's quite funny. Dominic is a briefcase wanker. Let's put it on a T shirt right now. Right this second.

Yeah, I mean, I love that.

I love that.

Oh, briefcase. Mr. Toff too says, hey, guys, what if Dom wins money in the bank? But then RIA, much, much further down the line, forces coherses him to give her the briefcase, or gives it to Dominic and Finn. And this causes friction inside the judgment date. And finally Dom sees them for what they really are.

Now, I want Dom to continue. I don't want judgment to go anywhere just yet. I think a Dominic Mysterio face turn is the last thing anybody needs right now.

Yeah, I think I agree with on that one. The tribal champ says two time ultra chatter here. If they wanted to turn someone face with money in the bank, example La Knight, they could do Logan versus Seth Too and have Logan win the world title. Then Money in the bank cash in straight after. Oh, right. So La Knight wins money in the bank.

Logan Paul wins the world title, and.

Then La Knight immediately takes it off him.

That's not a bad shout. You get a good oh, no, this is the worst case scenario. Pop. And then the money in the bank is used to get the world that's.

A really good shout. Yeah, because if everyone's like, oh my God, Logan Paul is the champion, and then, yeah, you're like, the savior has arrived.

And then you get shots of the. Person holding that belt aloft with an entire arena losing their mind to set up the belt as something worth it.

That'S your dog, right? Let's get into the rest of Monday Night Raw and see what else happened or didn't happen on this show. So we had the opening segment that we talked about with Rollins, AJ, and Judgment Day, and Adam Pierce was then backstage on the phone to someone. I need to try and make this official. But he's a SmackDown guy.

He said, I know we're trying to make this brand split happen, which was hilarious because you're not where but I don't hate the idea of him having someone higher up who's kind of getting a bit mad about how this is going down. I would like it to be Triple H and not Vince. I'd like Triple H to come in and be like, we need new people taking actual charge of this show because I like an authority figure. But I was intrigued by that as a little story because they never usually show him getting people's permission or talking. Other than that one time they had someone talk to him on the phone a couple of weeks ago about Cody and Triple H showed up.

Yeah, I feel like are we setting.

Up a mysterious figure, an anonymous Raw general manager?

Is there someone who was actually in charge of WWE? I don't know. I saw some posing the question.

Well, Triple H is referred to as the COO. Every time he comes out on screen, he's the on screen.

So is he on the phone to Trips? I would have thought if he was, they would have just said, he's on the phone to Hunter.

Unless it's more of a I mean, this is rare for WWE, but I'd have something implied because logically, Adam Pierce was on the phone last week to someone said, Cody needs to talk into who shows up triple H. I wonder if it is ahhh is the one who's overseeing everything, is in charge of everything. Adam Pierce is the official, and he's struggling to and he's not pleased with him. I don't know. It was just an interesting thing that they made a point of doing it.

We had our first money in the bank qualifier, which was Ricochet versus the Miz. Actually thought it was a very smart move to put the Miz in the first qualifying match here, because the theory, I imagine, is this is the first show after a pay per view, which means you tend to get a lot more new eyes on the product. So with Miz in there, because he was a star, you can tell the story of he has won money in the bank before and cashed it in, and in doing so, got to headline WrestleMania.

And also he's done it twice.

They didn't talk about the second time.

But he's cashed it in twice.

He has. But the point was, well, they just told that first one because that's a good dream. It's a dream scenario to tell. So I actually thought it was very smart to put the Miz in there. Ms also had one of my favorite moments on this whole show, which is that he did a springboard and got a two counter off of it and then shouted, I did a springboard.

Yeah, it was great. I thought he was doing it because it was springboarded. His two count wasn't good enough, and he's like, But I springboarded. Isn't that how you win stuff? Can I just talk about my influence on this podcast? Because that's twice now. Roll the clip. Share the footage that Luke Owen has. Put them as over as a good thing.

Okay, well, I'm about not to I actually wonder luke dad, give us de.

Take it away.

But I do wonder if this is a bit of a character thing for Miss, because he also did a Hurricane Rana. I loved this match. So he did a Hurricane Rana, and he did a springboard cross body, and his reaction of, like, But I springboarded makes it seem like, oh, I'm trying to do the thing that all the flashy wrestlers do, but that's not getting me wins either. So do I need to change up the way that I'm doing things? I don't know if it's, like, a little subtle character thing, but I kind of like the it is. But here's the thing that I thought about. It both his Hurricane Rana and his springboard, only the Miz can do those moves and make them look soft like Hurricane Rana. Hurricane Rana was soft as he did this cross body that was effectively a pillow landing on Ricochet.

Would it kill you to just leave the compliment for the Miz this one time?

But I appreciate that. The Miz is the king of soft style. He's the only wrestler in the world who could do these moves and make them look soft.

I love him. I love him so much, and I like this as a character, and I like that he's trying new things. Good for you, Ms. Keep going.

It's like rice pudding. It's just this soft master. Absolutely hilarious.

But Ricochet got the win, which is the right choice.

Yes, absolutely. It's the right choice because he can go in there, be the human highlight.

Reel in the match, and Kevin Patrick just no. Sold that shooting star press, by the way. He just like, no, I know, but it happened. And there was no reaction of, like, he's going for the COVID or like, Whoa. Well, look at the air he got on that. Just and he got the three count.

Kevin, he basically missed the Kin shaster at the end of the year.

He did.

Yeah. But a kick there says finish your dolt KP nonsense. Up next, we had a video recap of Zoe Stark attacking Becky Lynch at Night of Champions. And then this was a rough segment. Oh, well, Trish did this promo.

I liked the segment.

And it wasn't a city great promo, not helped by the fact that it was piped in crowd noise that wasn't leveled out with what Trish was saying. And because she was not reacting to them. She wasn't reacting to the piped in crowd noise. And you could see people were actively sitting on their hands during this. I don't think this needed piped in crowd noise. And it was just it works because A, you people promo from Trish Stratus works because, like, a lot of her character is but then Zoe Stark comes out and she's just like, I made a statement and I'm just like, this is just control C, control V from every other debut promo we've we've had here. Then Becky came out and they brawled and they laid her out and put a T shirt on her that said, thank you, Trish. And I think that this was not the hot angle to follow up from Night of Champions with because I thought the stuff at Night Champions was excellent. I loved the Zoe Stark appearance. I love Zoe Stark costing Becky the match. I don't think this was the hot follow up angle that it needed.

I know what you're saying, and I do agree. I think that the promos themselves were a little bit wobbly. But when Becky came out, I think I had a moment where I was like, god, Becky's cool, right? She's given it this thing. At the moment, she's not even, like, playing up to anything. She's just sort of staring at you like, I'm going to deck you. I'm going to really take you out. And then when she does get into the ring, I actually thought the brawl segment was pretty be great. And I think that it looked a little bit stiff here and there, which gave it sold it extra. There was the bit where it's like, let's put this T shirt on her. She's like, well, actually sit her up. And then Becky starts to fight back and she gives her a proper I'm going to show you. I do see what you're saying, and I'm inclined to agree. I think Zoe Stark is going to benefit so much from not only having Trish as a mentor absolutely. But also working in a program with Becky, who is so good at doing a promo, getting that time backstage to work on segments together.

If you want to push Zoe Stark and you want to have her develop and I'm high on Zoe Stark, I say this every single week. I think it's going to be a really good run for her. Perhaps the way to do it is have Becky cut a promo and have them come out and attack her and say nothing. But then you don't get time on the mic to learn what doesn't doesn't work, and you don't get that video footage to look back on and go, I can fix that. I can go about you learn by doing so. I was quite into this segment and I liked that final visual of Becky sort of battered, holding a T shirt that said, thank you, Trish. I thought that was cool.

I like the idea in principle, as I said. I just don't think it was the hottest follow up anger. Maybe it was just the promo work that maybe sort of left me a bit cold on it, because it was just, like particularly Zoe Starks was just the generic. I came to Roar and I made.

A statement and there was a couple of stumbles here and there.

Yeah, exactly. And I think Trish had a couple of stumbles now as well, and that the piped in crowd most like, was just it was proper deer in my head. I did hear a pitch, though, that I really like. We've been talking about Lita coming back to be the tag partner for Becky. I had a better pitch. Mickey James. Why? The history between Mickey and Trish.

Yeah, but Lita's got current open ended history.

Yeah, but I'd much rather see Mickey go. I think Mickey would do a better match.

I would love to see it, but I don't want us to forget Lita at any stage. I physically can't.

I feel like we already have, though.

No, but also the idea of, like, let's say Zoe Stark was the one to take out Lita. Like, this has been in the works.

That's a ring of time.

Yeah, I can't take full credit for that. I did hear that somewhere else, but as an idea of it, I think Lita's got a lot to do. I'll never say no to a Mickey James run, don't get me wrong, but, yeah.

Indisha beat the lads in a heatless squash.

I'd like a squash match when I care about the people. I'd like to care about these people more.

Yeah, we're given no reason to care about them either. And that's actually not I don't think that's anything that WWE has done wrong because they've had two squash matches now. They got a video package last week with a promo from I don't even.

Think it's anything that they're doing wrong.

I just don't think this works.

No, but I can't tell why.

No. Well, I think I've said this on a podcast previously. You could probably count on one hand the amount of times just doing squash matches has gotten someone over in the last, like, 1015 years.

You need then Braun, where they have a moment.

Braun is one of them. Yeah, braun got over in doing squash matches. Ryback got over in doing squash matches. But there's, like, a bunch of guys that they've done this. Veer didn't get over a mask, didn't get over into show, which is funny, that's got Veronic isn't getting over. Bronson wasn't getting over like, they'd had to put Bronson into other stuff. That actually is now starting to get.

Him over because I think you want to see a little bit of character work and you want to see a little bit of work in there. Like how their tag team works and what their moves are. Like, what they have to bring to what has becoming quite a stacked division. Yeah, they need a stick.

It just filling time is what it's doing currently. We then got Owens and Zayn coming out for a promo to brag about beating the Bloodline and basically say like, hey, tune in SmackDown bloodline. Implosion, great day. Imperium came out and Kevin Owens lost his mind.

He went full scrappy do.

He did. He lost his mind because like, we didn't even call you out. There's an unwritten rule. You're supposed to wait until we say your name, then your music hits and then you come out. You can't just come out here and just start talking. What is going on here? Am I the only one who gives ness about the rules?

Which I like. I found that quite funny.

I thought it was quite funny as well.

I also liked, by the way, Sammy's line about how Roman, you could have a headline the next five WrestleManias, you could be in the hall of Fame, all this stuff. When you see our faces, we beat you. And I like that because now other people can say that they didn't pin him. They didn't pin him.

But they did beat but they did beat him. Which actually for Kevin Owens twice now because he also beat him in December in the other tag match. Yeah, it's amazing how quickly people forget about that.

When I was New Year, I was.

Doing other things, but Imperium were there to basically say that, to spin the Matt Riddle plate. Essentially what they were there to do in kind of in the same way that earlier in the night, when Judgment Day brought up the fact that they pinned the tag Champions, they were spinning that plate. Which brings me too. This is a good way of doing what I was talking about the other week. You know, when I was talking about how like problem with Night Champions is they're promoting other matches, but actively doing other matches in place of it. So they had booked Gunther versus Ali, but were promoting Gunther versus Matt Riddle and building a story between Gunther and Matt Riddle. This what they're doing here is a completely different kettle of fish. And this works, which is you are setting up Owens and Zane versus Imperium for the tag titles, but keeping the plate spinning of Judgment Day as future contenders to those tag titles. So it doesn't matter that Owens versus Owens and Zane versus Imperium is a predictable outcome because you're spinning this plate over here. You're telling a story of Owens and Zane versus Imperium while also teasing a future thing here.

But you're actively promoting and pushing this.

Story because I suppose this thing over here doesn't actually matter whether or not those two are the tag team champions. So you can still believe the imperium might win. It's just a case of, we did beat them.

We beat the tag champion.

We deserve a shot at some point. Yeah.

Which is more than Imperium can say because Imperium applause to them twice.

Yeah. And this frustrates me because I was so excited for Imperium to come over to Raw and I wanted them to be built as this sort of, like, incredibly dominant force kind of thing. And I think there are ways that you could have done that and not had them lose all the time, not bore them off. That's what gets my nose when you feel like it's just like and that's what I feel has kind of happened with Imperium a little bit. I wish that they'd been built up as a force, not used as a few guys who can take some pins because they take the pins for guns, though. It doesn't work for me.

That's it. Because there are the show after WrestleMania, Owens and Zane beat the draft. It was the draft the first time they beat Imperium. So it was like the first show after the draft, owens and Zane beat Imperium, and then a couple of weeks later, they beat them in a six man tag as well. But now we're supposed to be like, AHA, future contenders. And then on the show imperium beat Alpha Academy. They're like imperium. They're gaining some momentum. But I've seen the champs beat them twice. You got to do a lot more work, I think, to reheat.

It's just consistency. Yeah, it's just consistency.

It's the funny thing with WWE. It's the real Catch 22 they find themselves in, which is that they always tell us wins and losses don't matter until they decide that they do. And they need to have wins before you do something.

Yeah.

But it did lead to Imperial Investors alpha Academy. There was some comedy with them calling Giovanni Vinci baldi.

And that got over the crowd.

It did get over with the crowd as well. Yeah. Being like, look, this guy who never says anything. What's your opinion on all of this?

Which was a funny little line.

Was funny.

And then when later on during the match, they're on commentary, the crowd start chanting Baldi. Apropos nothing. Which really popped Sammy Zane.

And they got interrupted by Alpha Academy with Maxine in Alpha Academy gear.

Yeah.

Sorry. Maximum male models. I guess your group is over now.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they've not even been mentioned anywhere.

They're not even doing the OTT thing anymore. No, we have just dropped all of that and it's now just no. Maxine is now with Otis and Chad Gable.

And I don't hate it.

And I don't hate it either.

I like it because I really like.

The relationship between Chad and Maxine. I love it I love how it's grown over the last couple of weeks. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Probably. Love triangle?

No. Well, kind of, yeah. But they turn on OTIF.

I hadn't even thought of that.

But that's also very good. So, what I loved about the past couple of week is these little bits of storytelling, including, but not limited to, Maxine and Chad. Maxine ran away last week and provided the direction or whatever that helped Chad win the match. Right? And then they had a moment of we did it, we did it. Great. Then we have a stretch of time and then she comes out in full gear in the red with SHOOSH, does a kick. When she did the kick on Valhalla, she turned to Chad and went, I did it, I did a thing.

And they were like, thumbs up.

It was like, I did it, insinuating that Chad had been training Maxine.

Yes.

So I pitch that at some point in the future they break because she still comes out arm in arm with Otis. They break away and they're the sort of unit and they go on a lovely little heel run together. And it's a love triangle that betrays Otis otis. And that sets Chad up for a singles run to eventually become world champion and own the belt for 2000 days.

Because Otis is hugely over as a baby face right now. The second of this match starts we want Otis. We want Otis. We want Otis. And then when Otis got that hot.

Chad which is not to say that nobody cares about Chad because Chad's work is so good, people pop for his work all the time.

So I like the idea of, yes, splitting off Chad and Maxine in their own little thing. I hadn't considered that. But I'd been thinking, I was like, maybe we are like a love triangle thing of like, she is clearly with Otis, but Chad has been like, oh, actually, no, it turns out you're hot.

And I fancy I'm seeing she starts going out with a guy whose literal name is Chad. She starts going out with a Chad. That's so funny. I'm seeing Trish and Christian. You know what I mean? I'm seeing that kind of healed duo. I like it, I want it.

But that was one of the fun spots of this match was they were having it, having this match. And Valhalla appears and she starts, like, scaring down Maxine. But she ducks a Valhallor attack, then gives her this kick and sort of like, rocks. Valhalla a little bit, turns around to Chad, was like, Chad, I kicked it. And Chad was like, yeah, you did. And then Valhalla stands up Maxine's like, and I made a mistake. And off she runs. They sort of like, ScoobyDoo themselves away. And it was very entertaining.

This is delightful lower mid card stuff.

But it wasn't a distraction finish for Imperium. Imperium won this match clean as a whistle. They outsmarted the baby faces here because Otis tagged in. He did his caterpillar and stuff, tagged him back in. Chad Gable, they went to do their finish, but they low bridged Otis, so he went out and hit the Imperium bomb for the win. So it's a clean win for Imperium to set them up as contenders for the tag tiles, even though I've seen the champions pin them twice.

That imperium bomb, though.

It's good, though.

So basically what I'm saying is give me Imperium winning a load of matches over the next couple of weeks and then have a tag team match. Make them win. Make them win.

I enjoyed that. Anyway, we had Kathy Kelly interviewing Raquel Rodriguez and Shotsy, which was lovely. Damage control. Walked in Amelia and say that they are dedicating this match to Dakota Kai. And Raquel said, look, we've already beaten you. Beaten you. I'm so bored of beating you. And tonight we'll win the tag titles. They didn't, but we got a video package for Candace Lorraine in all of this. Awful.

Hated it. Missed it.

First time. Thought you might have hated this.

Oh, so cringe granddad. So that's a joke that comes from my friends and I. And the idea that someday you show your grandchildren the things that you did for work and your grandkids go bit cringe granddad. So that's just that came out my head. I hated every single second of this.

Tell me why.

Because it was just like it was like a trailer for something on CITV. It was a kids show. I'm Candace, the ray who's really good. Like oh, I just like fairies. And I think dreams come true. And it was supposed to be Baby Face, right?

She wears fairy wings because she believes that fairy tales are real. Look at the dream I'm living.

Tell me, tell me this is what she posted.

What dream you live in? You never win on TV.

Barely. Sometimes they're on TV. Tell me that this is a Heel promo. I'm begging you that we get three weeks of this and it turns out she's a really patronizing evil person. Because if this is all supposed to be Baby Face, I just cannot even.

No, I think this was very much a baby face.

So cringe.

Do you know what this needed to be? A video package for the way. Yeah, because where the Way been.

Did you hear a rumor that Tomaso.

Champa was in Albany? Yeah, it was a report that Tomaso Champa was backstage last night. But yeah, we had that one segment with The Way with Indy Hartwell being like, oh, yeah, by the Way, we're a faction now, and being like, cool, yeah, he's coming. Four weeks later, nothing.

I respect you for doing 3 hours of telly. I respect you for doing characters. I respect you for trying to create characters and do the character work. I don't respect you for the character work. You've done. Please stop it.

We could have filmed some backstage segments, we could have done some skits like they did on NXT at the house and stuff, like Indy's injured, so you can't do much with her. I think Johnny's well, he was in that battle, Royals, and no one remembers.

He was turning around and she had little wings on. She was going, I've got wings. Hated it.

I don't think this was this was great.

Awful.

It wasn't great. And also, if you're doing the way, just do the way. Do it with them, because we've had a lot of weeks now since the drafts went. Von Wagner? Like, Apollo Cruz? Like, what's going on? Debut on Role, Raquel Rodriguez and shots he took on Ronda Rousey, and Shayna Basler, who took on Chelsea Green, and Sonia Deville, who took on damage control for the vacant women's tag team titles. Rhonda and Shayna were so excited for Street Fighter Six that they came out dressed as Rio and Ken. Shout out to my video game fans in the chat, the sort of big thing that was trying to push here was the Ronda Rousey Raquel Rodriguez stare down. That really makes me feel that, which is what they were setting up afterwards, that Rhonda and Shane have won the tag titles once live is better, we're going to do Raquel and Live going back, trying to win back their tag titles that they never really lost. And, yeah, Rhonda won by tapping out Shotsy and Corey Grave said, Forecast calls for internet tears tonight.

I found that kind of funny. This was my example of go away heat that we were talking about earlier.

On, which was Rhonda stuff.

A lot of Rhonda reaction was incredibly negative. And one of the thoughts I had when they came out to the ring was, god, imagine thinking when Ronda Rousey debuted in that first run of that year that at some point she'd be in a mid card four way for a vacant title, including Raquel Rodriguez and her third partner of the year. What a comedown. However, to be completely honest with you, I enjoyed this match.

I thought it was a very good.

Match and I enjoyed especially the closing sort of sequence of about four minutes or so where everybody hit something, everyone got something cool. I enjoyed Bailey's elbow drop. I thought Rhonda's takedown on Raquel when she's on her shoulders all the way to the mat was so nice. I wanted to see more of that kind of wrestling. Please. I thought anything Eoskai did was just intense and obscene and I love her. I think EOS guy is the best. And I especially liked the Karens. I especially liked the moment where I thought the Karens were going to win the belt because they kind of tagged in out of nowhere, threw Ronda Rousey into the post, smacked her head into the post, which got an audible gasp from the crowd, and it looked like maybe they were going to take this opportunity and win it. And I wouldn't have been mad at it.

I bought into the Karen's winning.

Yeah, I did. And then so ultimately also loved the moment where Shotsy goes for a lovely move and Rousey just catches her in the arm bar.

She went for her like her scent on from the top and Rousey catched her in the arm. Of course, her in the arm bar.

So smooth and so clean. And I've seen a few matches this week on various shows that haven't been that I think of the Adam Cole Jericho match where there was a lot of open space, a lot of things telegraphed and they didn't quite work out on time. The timing was just off. I think of there was a match I've watched this week from GCW Lifestyle where there was a lot of, I'm going for a move, I've slipped. I'm going for a move, I've slipped. And I think what was really nice was seeing everything in this match work the way it was supposed to. The selling was tight, the action was tight, and that closing sequence was really, really good. So if we have a nice decent run because Rhonda Rousey and Jenna Baeza.

Are good wrestlers and they were destined to win the tag tiles, they won the showcase at WrestleMania. Essentially. We were just waiting for them to come back and win the tag tiles from Raquel and Live anyway because they were always destined to be winning the tag tile.

They won the showcase even though they didn't really show up in the showcase.

Because Ronda was injured, basically. And then I think Shayna also got a little bit hurt, so we then had to sort of delay that. And then Liv gets injured and Dakota Kai gets injured as well. So the bell sort of fell into this limbo pan. But now they're on Rhonda and Shayna. My only thing I could possibly say, if they're not on the shows a lot, which they might not be, because I don't know what Rhonda's schedule is looking like. I think that could hurt the women's tag titles some way, which they do need something.

My argument against that is it's kind of impossible to hurt the tag titles anymore.

That's a good point.

And I think that maybe giving them again, something that I love about NXT is my ability to just tune into an NXT show and see some damn good wrestling and go away and not really care. And I wonder whether or not just giving us some good matches with these belts makes the belts feel worthy. Like, it doesn't have to be storylines all time. The promo that they cut afterwards, I thought was broadly fine until Rhonda made a D's nuts joke.

D's nuts joke.

I was like, they kind of make we don't really care about what the fans think. And you know what? We're here to win stuff. We belts and it was a good promo. And then she said, D's nuts. So just maybe if you stop Rhonda being Rhonda for a second and just let her be Ronda Rousey.

How do we unrend this?

Yeah. Make her Ronda Rousey again. Just have a look a bit because Shane is a good promo. Have them just batter people. Yeah, I'm into it.

Yeah, I'm really glad we called up Katana Shantz and the other one because great deal.

No, because they like to party.

I actually would really like to see Rhonda and Shayna as now the tag champions can float between both shows, go to SmackDown and just destroy Ela Dawn and Alba Fire and win the NXT ones I would like together.

Yeah, I'd like to see the merchant belts, but I'd like to see them have a match with it. Well, also I know, because I bet they got all because they're both Scottish and we're going to be in London.

That's what I was about to say. You do that match at Money in the bank, the Unification match, and make.

It a good one. Kaylee Ray and Rhonda Rousey. Are you joking?

The crowd will be so behind Kaylee Ray and Tyler Dawn to retain and win the tag titles that Rhonda and Shayna just battering them and winning will be even sweeter.

To counter your point, familiar about whether or not Rhonda's schedule allows allows for time on the roster. A month isn't too bad.

Not at all.

Have them have the match and have them win.

And as I said, if she's on TV every week, then my point is completely irrelevant.

I'm thinking have Ila and Alba winning the bank.

No, I think we're setting up a Liv and Raquel to win the two of them back.

But imagine a star making performance that you get money in the bank. I want that. Okay, book it.

We got a video package of Rollins winning the world heavyweight championship. And then we got Dolph Sigler versus JD. Mcdanough, which was supposed to take place last week before it got canceled at the last minute. It was quite heatless and the referee called the match off with a double count out, which got the thing that did get heat from the crowd. But I will say that JD's. Beat down of Dolph afterwards, did get a little bit of heat from the audience.

It was a double count out loss, which is sort of a nothing thing when they haven't even really started the match.

But JD. Wasn't looking to win. This was very much like and I quite liked that from JD. It was like, well, I don't even care about beating you, I just wanted to embarrass you.

It's just giving us a character early days, it's better than squashes. It's giving us an element of brutality.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it was uneventful, but not the worst thing by a country mile.

So Cody came out for his promo said that he lost at Night of Champions due to ref stoppage. But, hey, Brock, you satisfied with this being done because you couldn't tap me out? And he lays out an open challenge for Brock Lesnar. Let's finish this. I've got one win. You've got one win. Let's have a match. I don't care where it is. It could be anytime, any date. And he lists off, like, here are my upcoming appearances. Here are the shows that I'm doing coming up. I'll be at all of those. If you want to face me at any of those shows, be my guest. I really do. You want to fight you with my broken arm and everything. And he told about how you were beast enough to end the Undertaker's streak, but you weren't man enough to make Cody Rhodes tap out. I was like, no, but he did make you pass out from pain, which is basically the same thing. And my kind of point I made earlier was like, this felt like Cody was doing nothing in the same way that he wasn't really promoting the World Heavyweight Championship either, but was still involved.

Yes. And he was then taken out by Brock Lesnar. There is every chance that he has a qualifying match, but it's taken out by Brock Lesnar, which I thought might happen.

Yeah.

Or he's in the ladder match, but it's taken out by Brock Lesnar. Along those lines, but yeah. Apparently Dave Meltzer was saying on wrestling was over radio, though, that's the direction here is it's Cody versus Brock, whether that happens at Money in the bank or it happens at SummerSlam, but it's not like there's no conversations about Cody being involved in the world title picture. Correct.

The other thing that the I mean, of course, money in the bank, you can go for Roman, so it's not necessarily world title if Cody were to be in that match. But the other thing I think Meltzer said was that Brock doesn't take two losses in a row, so it was sort of inevitable this was going to end up in a three way rubber match. I saw a lot of the reaction to Cody and Brock at Night of Champions. It was quite interesting because a lot of people were like, I personally was fine with it. I am a Cody Stan, guilty as charged. And I saw people kind of my response to it was like, he's passed out from the pain. He's given it a go.

He never gave up.

He never gave up. And he's just so good. He's just so good. The other side of that was this is the kind of stuff that got Cody in trouble, in AW with the fans, because it was this relentless desperation for being the most baby face of all baby face. Right. Which I do understand as a criticism, and I think it would be a crying shame if WWE went too far with that before taking advantage of Cody's star status and giving him the belt. So I'm just hoping that we're a little bit careful and a little bit cautious with the direction we take Cody in to not make him turn by accident.

Yeah, I mean, I saw someone leave a comment. I might have been on the Russet News Channel, or it might have been here on the podcast channel, but it's something I did agree with. This was a promo to me that felt like, he has taken himself out of the world title picture, just like he did in AEW, and was like and I'm now on my own little separate I'm in Cody verse, right? This felt like a Cody verse promo of just like, here, I'm in my little bubble over here, and I'm not interacting with anything else that's going on. So I'm not involved in the what area Chambers picture. I'm not involved in Money in the bank. I'm only involved in my little island project with Brock Lesnar. Yeah, but I don't know. But I just thought it was very interesting that Matt Riddle, which was the next segment here, was promoting specifically, I have got a Money in the bank qualifier in two weeks time. Yeah, but Cody was there was no mention of money in the bank whatsoever. And I don't think that's not on purpose.

My mileage with this is with Cody is quite far. I'll be honest. I'm saying that to be cautious of it. I'm not at that point yet. And I do think there is something in this program about saying, like, Brock, we're not done. All right? We're not done. I've got a broken arm. And then in a couple of weeks time, maybe he does have a qualifying match for money in the bank. I think that this was broken arm. This is the problem with giving someone a broken arm in storyline, but it's a problem with giving Cody Rose any injury because he's now had a legitimate injury that he fought through and a pretend injury that he fought through.

Look, I'm a Cody fan. I said this on last week's show with the whole, like, too cheesy question. I love it. Yeah, I love it. When we were in The Night of Champions, I said this on the podcast, the podcast review, but I'll repeat it here if anyone didn't get to chance to check that out. But someone in the crowd at our Night of Champions party at one point just turned around with the biggest smile on his face and said, this is so stupid, and I love it.

Yeah.

And that's what we're there for. That's what you bring Cody in for. That's the storylines you put Cody in, because you do storylines with Cody that are very silly, but I love them.

And again, to try and speak your language for a second, one of the things I loved at Double or Nothing was the Jeff Jarrett match because there was an element of absolute stupidity. Sports Entertainment with Jeff Jarrett.

And that's why I like a Jarrett match. I know people are down on Team TNA being in the tagal picture, but they always put on really fun entertainment, memphis style nonsense of interference guitar shots and nonsense things that it's just really fun to watch.

And it's nice to have all of these things within the umbrella. You have the cinema of the bloodline, and you have the legitimate athletic competition of Bianca and ask her. And you have Gunther, and you have Cody, and you have all of these things under one roof. I think it still works for me, but I think because it works for me because I love Cody so much, I don't want the group think Internet narrative to become we hate Cody. Yeah.

And then that I don't think the show I don't think that will happen. Kathy interviews Matt Riddle backstage, which we spoke about. We said, Where he's going to be in a money the bank qualifier in a couple weeks time. Gunther walks in and says, look, hi, Gunther. I hope that you do win, because I hope that you try and cash in on me and I can embarrass you. Cool.

Yeah.

Didn't mind that at all.

Yeah. Liked it a lot.

And then we had the Ronda Rousey Shane Abaser interview that you spoke about earlier where they said Dees not it.

Was such a good interview. And then she said, Dee's not.

Shinsky Nakamura qualified for money in the bank by beating Bronson Reed. So I thought that was nice. We had, like, Matt Real talking about a qualifier and then a qualifying match. I thought that was a nice little I thought the money in the bank was a really good driving for through this episode of Raw. And I really liked this match. I really liked the start of this, when Nakamura tries to do his sliding German, but Reed was too big and too strong. I like the fact that I felt that the crowd were way into this more than they are usual Bronson Reed matches, which I think is working. The Bronson Reed thing is starting to work. We did have some pretty naft stuff in January, but then they did the elimination chamber in February. And we thought, okay, that's the point. Like, actually, this isn't really working again either. But I think just like, time and time and time again, the God was that was February. That was ages ago. Exactly. Yeah. We remember people kept saying he was like, oh, this will be the start of the I told you it wouldn't be. But now I feel like the crowd are getting into his matches.

And I think that's good. That's because they've had him in storylines and big showcase matches, like the triple threat of backlash as opposed to just boring squash matches.

And I'm going to say that's why this is a shame, because I think this is the SmackDown. We have Ford and Knight here. We have Nakamura and bronson reed. I would have been quite happy to see both of these people in this match. And I would actually have preferred to see Bronson Reed in this match coming up, because I think it's a great opportunity for you to see if you haven't seen NXT stuff. If Corey said it on the promo, he thrives in that kind of big money match. That kind of big, high octane, high risk match. So I wish Rob Brunson Reed had won that.

I just went to the w.com website, so I was trying to see how many people were in the match because they had the graphic line.

They usually do six. Yeah.

Which would be three from role three from role three. And I was trying to remember if there was, like, eight silhouettes on the graphic with two. And I think, yeah, four from roll, four from smack down. And I think because they've only got the one men's and one women's this year across two brands with two four world titles. Both men's and women's. Five world titles. Then you kind of do need to have four from one and four from the other.

Yes, I think so, but, yeah, I.

Agree with you as well. I thought some people were talking about this with the La Knight matches. Like, look, I'd love to see Montez Ford in the money in the bank match, but no, this does need to be La Knight. So it's a shame that it can't be both of them.

Yeah.

And I agree with that here. But I really did enjoy this. And I thought Nakamura I thought Nakamura's performance was really, really great. He hit two kin shassas, and Reed rolled to the outside, and they were, like, telling story that he might get counted out. He gets back in and runs straight into another Kin Shassa. So three Kin Shastas to take down Brunson Reed. I really enjoyed this.

Yeah.

Got a recap of Natalia's loss at Night of Champions, and then they announced that she's in a money to bank qualify next week. Cool. Saxon also interviewed judgment day. I've written JD. And I thought it was JD.

McDonald.

I was like, God, I remember this berea sort of about destroying Natalia. So next week, it's Becky versus Sonya and Natty versus Zoe in money in the bank qualifiers.

So I want Becky and Zoe in that match. So I want them to have a moment in the match where they cancel each other.

That's what I was thinking. Or do they cancel each other on the qualifiers? And that means that it's Sonya and Natty that are going into the money in the bank, because I feel that's not great.

I don't want that.

I think you're better off having Becky.

And Zoe in the match because I don't think Becky should win money in the bank. I also don't think Zoe should win money in the bank. So having the pair of them be in the match and the opportunity for them to sort of have a clash and continue the story again, I've got one eye on the development. That's why I wanted Bronson Reed in it, because he's already on the sort of trajectory. The idea that he continues that trajectory, saying thing for Zoe, great opportunity for her to learn in this kind of scenario, in this kind of high profile match, I think it should be both of them.

I agree. Which actually was the last thing to talk about because then it's the main event of AJ and Seth Rollins defeating Judgment Day, which I thought was a good match.

A good match, yeah.

But it was very good. And that was the episode of Raw. As I said at the start, I thought it was quite a pedestrian episode of Raw, but I don't mind that. I thought it was just nice building blocks here. Just put some piece in place for money in the bank and some future storylines. My whole thing was like it felt like the last few weeks of Raw was like, we just need to get through Night of Champions. We just need to get through Backlash, we just need to get through the draft. We just need to get through Night of Champions. And we've now done those three things. So we now can put some pieces in place for some exciting stuff.

Yeah, I enjoyed the show. I thought it was good. I had a nice time. I don't think it was anything to write home about. I don't think it's something where I'm like, oh, yeah, I can't watch that set again. But there's a difference, I think, between, like, it's a slog to get through this show and just did that passed quite pleasantly.

When the main event came up, I was like, wow, Brad put that in the middle of the show. No, it was the main event of the third hour. So I don't know. It did a good job of sort of making this feel like it flew.

By a little bit. I would say three stars.

That's what I gave it. A solid three out of five show.

And three stars is a positive review. Of course, there are some people who think that's not no, it is.

We have got a poll. Please do go and vote in that to let us know what you thought of the show. We don't have any Patreon Shoutouts to do because we've done them all. Lovely. But please head on over to Patreon. There's no podcast tomorrow because this is a five week month. The next week will be a brand new month where there'll be the Mailbag, there'll be After Dark, there'll be Restaurant behind the Scenes, and a brand new episode of Rust Talk Extra. So going over there right now because there's, like, hours upon hours upon hours of content for just $5, and that includes, like, 30 OD classic pay per views that Ollie Davis and I have done, like, loads of months and months and months and months and months of afterdog where we get drunk and have a few chats and stuff. Restaurant behind the scenes, there's uncut versions of survival series. You get how Adam would book early access get early access to Monday Night War and the Monday Night War booking podcast. There's a whole host of things on there, including, most recently, our review of TNA Sacrifice 2009. She had a fatal fourway of Mick Foley versus Sting versus Kadangle versus Jeff Jarrett.

And I loved it.

Luke Owens. Happy hour. The name of that podcast.

A great time you did. It was so, so stupid and I love but let's get into your remaining ultra chats. We've got the result of the poll. Would you like to see Don win money in the bank and the world title? Yes. 63%.

That's a two thirds majority. The eyes have it.

The eyes have that. Thank you very much. You are all quite two thirds. Near enough. It's as close as damage. Shaq here says if Logan wins money in the bank, rollins keeps hold of the Championship, cashes in at Royal Rumble and wins the title and makes a big fuss about his challenger, beats Rollins at elimination Chamber. And the chamber match sets up Cody versus Logan at WrestleMania 40 to steal the show.

That period of time is the time when that kind of part timer is in the show. If the leader mainly they're always there, so that's not a bad time to do it.

Cody versus Logan. Someone mentioned this in the chat earlier, which caught my eye. Cody's whole, like, finish the story thing now that he's on Raw is the World Heavyweight Championship, doesn't really feel like he's finishing that story. If Cody wins the world title, and this is what we talked about when they introduced the new belt, does that feel like a satisfying no conclusion?

No, certainly not.

Now it doesn't for me either.

No.

But I also mentioned this on Night of Champions on the podcast review there. I'm so much more interested now in the bloodline stuff that's not involving Cody. So I'm kind of not that bothered about Cody beating Roman, which is why.

Cody should have beat Roman at their SMA.

I know, but we can't have that now. I know we can't reverse time. And I'm now like, I'm not bothered about Cody beating Roman so he can.

Finish the story elsewhere. Cody's thing with Roman was never about Cody and Roman. Like, it wasn't about Roman himself. It was about Cody wanting the belt. That's why he was saying he would take off. Sammy Zane, he was like, I hope you win. He didn't care necessarily who he took it off. That's what's good about that. One of the things I like so much about it was that it was all of the stories converging at once. Cody wanted to do a thing, and.

So him winning the World Hero Championship wouldn't be him.

No, he wants to go for the one his dad never won, which is WWE. I just don't think he needs to take it off, but doesn't take it off. Gun.

But it doesn't really feel like Roman could. Sammy, it doesn't feel like Roman has that belt either because he's got the blue Universal Championship and he's the undisputed.

Universal Champion, but he's got the big WWE. We all know. We all know. I mean, yes, I agree with what you're saying, but I still think of Roman's belt as the one that matters. Unfortunately. Let's say Sammy does win it and then Cody can take it off. Sammy at WrestleMania. I don't know. I'm still into it.

Noah says, you know that feeling when your favorite wrestler wins, you disregard all the bad booking, embrace the magic of wrestling. That was me with Nakamura today. massly invested in his redemption and jumped off my seat when he won. One step closer.

Yeah.

Ket says, I think it's safe to say that the draft was done for a short term ratings bump. Just look at the last one and the one before that. Why can't they just stick to a hard brand split? So confusing to me. Vince. Will be Vince, I guess.

Yeah. There was reports of him being more involved on a remote basis, which I quite like the idea of triple HP, like, sorry, that message didn't come through. That would explain why a lot of what I have perceived from the past few weeks and months of booking is we have a compromise show. We have a show that Triple H is writing with a few concessions. Yeah.

I think that's fair. Yeah, I would agree.

Just consistency is all I'm after in my life.

I would agree with you on that. The draft thing, I kind of sort of made fun of myself on the Night of Champions review, being like, I'm the only one around here who keeps saying, you can't do that because of the draft.

Yeah.

Cody cash in a roman. I was like, but they're on different brands. And it's like, well, you can do this, but they're on different brands. But that's it. And then I was like, it doesn't matter. Why do we do this then? Why do we bother having the draft and the brand split if three weeks later it's like, we don't care?

Ratings bump.

Yeah. It's just a ratings.

And I even think that you win the money in the bank and you can take it on the opposing brand. I just think that just be smart to do it.

But I said this to Audio. I was like, but does that mean Cody the Moose crosses SmackDown? Because then you but then you got a raw without Cody Rhodes.

Okay, so you build up your other stuff. But the problem is that's not how they're thinking. Of course it's not.

So John here. You know what effort give Don money the bank had given the world title. Let him cash in on Raw. When was the last time we had a major world title change on that show?

Probably when big e biggie cash in a roar.

Yeah, biggie cash in a roar.

That'll be it.

And have Dom claim that he's the greatest latino wrestler of all time. That's a delightful sweater, Dan.

Thanks very much.

Tesco john Wick. One GM says ms won the WWE title twice. Why can't Dom plus I love complete opposite in both companies where MGF gets the most heat and can wrestle. Dom gets all the heat and can't. Timothy said if RIA does win money, the bank and Solo is in the match, then I may finally get my most anticipated match in WWE right now. Reimbursement, Solo, remember the stare downs in the judgment day bloodline segments. I'm begging for that match. Thanks for you do jam.

That jam. I would like to see it.

We have a lost username here. Please do let our moderators know. It's a streamlabs issue. Says I don't have high hopes for Cody in the long run. I feel like the cheesy stories and the overbooking will eventually ruin him like it did before if he's going to go the Cena route. We hated and booed Cena for a reason. It's starting to seem the same to me.

That reason was that Cena's matches weren't very good.

That's what I was going to say. I think one of the reasons why Cena got so heavily, heavily booed is because the crowd looked him and said like, he ain't the guy and that guy is beating all of our faves. And Cody isn't doing that at the moment because Cody does feel like the guy. And Cody doesn't have the worst worst punches in all of professional wrestling and is having good matches and isn't pulling goofy facial expressions does his little stompy feet, but he is like if he puts on a submission move, it actually looks like it does. I don't think Cena is not just the super SCENAR that people are sick of. It was also the super SCENAR matches sucked.

The counter to my counter is Bianca can also wrestle and she was having a little bit of that, which is why I think that I think one.

Night in Puerto Rico wasn't one night.

People were starting to get, I will.

Say anard night of champions watch party. That audience there did not want to see Bianca win. It was amazing. There's like every single person there did not want to see Bianca win.

This is a personal plea to you all from me, please don't let this happen to Cody. We know Cody. We like Cody. Cody is really, really good. Please let's not punish Cody for bad decisions by a man with a pencil mustache. Please, let's keep behind Cody. Let's be there to support him and allow him to finish his story. Whether it be against Roman Reigns, whether it be against Gunther, whether it be against Sammy Zayn, whether he beats La Knight or Dominic Mysterio for the WWE Blue Diversal Championship because it's got the big W on it, and that's the one. His dad never won a WrestleMania 40. Please, let's not let Cody get booed. I'm begging you. For me to you, just this is all I want for Christmas. Okay, let's keep him going.

We mentioned a lot the Night of Champions party, and if you saw what happened at the Night of Champions party, you saw what a fun atmosphere it was, and you thought, I'd like to be a part of that. I hope they do another one. Well, we are. We are doing another Watch long party for money in the bank at the Long Arm Pub and Brewery in Shortage. Tickets go on sale this Friday, Friday at 01:00 P.m.. Tickets will be going on sale for that, and the people that are in attendance that signed up will be in 24 hours. Early access on those tickets. So you want to make sure you get those tickets fast when they go on sale this Friday at 01:00 P.m..

Let me tell you this, the food delicious.

It was, wasn't it?

So good. Oh, man, so good. The atmosphere electric. It was a great time to a man. And when a woman and everyone in between, it was such a good energy, such a great way to watch the show, to the point where I was like, how good was that show? Do I need to go back and watch the show again to make sure it was actually quite good.

It was a very good show.

Very good show. All made all the better by being with a group full of people having the best time. You know what? We're all a bunch of dorks. It's great to be dorks together. Yeah.

Come be dorks along with us. It's a great time. Charles Berg says an idea for Cody's character Adversity. He continues to have his limbs broken until he's got two broken arms and legs. But his spirit isn't broken. He sets up an elaborate rig that will hold him up by strings, which Brandy will operate. And he continues to wrestle a cash. If Dom is to win money in the bank, then I feel he should win it by doing a repeat of Ellsworth and Carmel in 2017. Same with RIA. Maybe getting a rip tied on someone who's about to win. Getting the briefcase while Dom's completely out of it, that's like the third or.

Fourth said that, and I love it's. Fun visual.

Will Campbell says, hi, guys. I'm not sure what it is about Cody and his promos, but there's always some aspect of him that manages to pop me. You weren't man enough to get me to tap out. Got a big KAfour. In a good way. Cody Terminator Moody says, not sure if my last ultra chat went through, but I'll try again. Anyway, I don't want to retype it here, but I tagged you in a post on Twitter of my fantasy booking of Roman versus the Usos at SummerSlam. Yes, I know there's more logical booking, but have a good day. Thank you very much, Coach. Sending that across. I will have a read of that afterwards. Duo XM says sorry for a not related ultra chat. Not wrestling related ultra chat. I just watched the latest Patreon Clock Tower game and I wanted to say I see you, dan.

It was a good one. It was a good one.

I was not on the most recent one because that was the one where we play with Ivan from the Traitors.

Right.

So there's a new one.

There was another one. I don't know which one has gone out on the Patreon. I'm assuming it is the one with Cleopatra. There's a homebrew.

Oh, that means I've got something to watch this evening. Oh, I'm so excited because me and my wife are like, we need, like some my wife and I need some comfort viewing tonight and I think that's what we're going to do.

I'm biased.

It's a good it's a gooden excellent. I cannot wait. Cody, I have got your I've accidentally added that tweet to my BOOKMARKS as well, so I wonder if that's actually a bit of new Twitter functionality there, because I clicked the link and it automatically added it to my bookmark.

Interesting.

But, yes, I'll have a read of that. Thank you very much. And Bubba here says, I have an interview tomorrow for a job to do with my degree at last. So sharing the love with rest Talk, who helped me so much through my university years. Well, best of luck. Here's my big bit of advice for interviews. If the interviewer says, how do you handle under pressure? You respond to them terribly. But I do a very good Bohemian Rhapsody.

Nice. Yeah. Here's my advice. Don't do this. Don't let them hire you and then reveal your sense of humor.

And if that doesn't work, if you tell that joke, it goes down. Just say, like, yeah, YouTuber told me to say that.

And then they'll be like, oh, we get it.

Or leave the room and go, girl power.

Girl power.

Girl power. Right, well, that's everything. We're going to end the poll and see what you thought of this episode of Raw. Very split here, by the looks of things. With mid winning outscoring, 48% with 45 gigabits and a thumbs up, only 5% thumbs down. That is a heavily positive thumbs up show. Yeah, very heavily positive, but I like to see that. But thank you all so much for all of your generous ultra chats. Thank you so much for your generous time as well. Please do press the subscribe button to this channel because we'll be going live again on Thursday with the AEW Dynamites review. And then it's all the usual good stuff on Saturday with SmackDown as we are gearing up to adding in our fourth show of the week because we'll be doing live collision reviews every Monday from mid June.

Mondays.

Yes, we're reviewing them on Mondays. I ain't working Sundays. If we work Sunday. We basically sat there and we were looking. I was like, if two of us have to work Sunday, that just messes human everything else that we have to try and do in a week. So I scrap that idea. Let's not review it on Sunday. We'll just review it on we'll do it on Mondays instead. So please do subscribe because we'll be adding collision reviews to this channel. Thank you all so much for watching. We'll see you next time. I've been Lee Cohen D-A-D that has been the professor. Dan Layton. Gemma Gem Jam.