Jet pack together. Jet pack together. Is La Knight, brackets, yeah, the next guy? The fans in London certainly seem.

To think so. Yeah, I think there's a one word answer you can give here. It might be some, I don't know, catchphrase or something. Probably. Perhaps. Perhaps. I'm just glad the same ring does it. No.

Maybe Jamie Zane and Kevin Owens at one point will commandeer his catchphrase and just do it the yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, like that. Anyway, this is a smackdown podcast here on the Russell Talk podcast channel. I am your host, The Mountie. Happy Canada Day, everybody. I'm drowning in gimmicks today.

So many gimmicks. One, two, three, four.

Yes, of course. Today is Money in the Bank Day. Please tune into our live reactions later today because L IW holds all the gold. And by L IW, I mean me.

L IW holds all the gold.

I am L IW and I hold all the gold.

Well, we are and we hold all the gold.

That works. I am the intangible.

You are the only intangible. You're going to be telling Roman Reigns, aren't you? Yeah. Oh, God.

I am your Quizzle Mania Champion. Once again, I am your Jam That Champion. I will defend this title today at Money in the Bank. You will. So tune in to our live event event, live reactions for Money in the Bank. Very exciting this afternoon for you Americans and Canadians over there. And this evening for us, hurray, a normal.

Start time. And also you said to defend the belt. It's not quite a challenge for it because I am your jam that champion. Absolutely not. You're just refusing to give the belt back.

To me. Semantics, anyway, we're going to get into our smackdown review here, but let us know what you thought of the show in the comments down below. Make sure that you like this video, subscribe and enable notifications to always on so you never miss a podcast just like it. But we're going to get into our first topic, that being LA Night. Because hot diggity dog. There were some things that could have been very newsworthy on this show, but for the most part, the title matches didn't amount to a whole lot. There was some good wrestling, but the biggest takeaway I had on this show watching it... Sorry, the gimmicks are falling off. The biggest takeaway I had was goddamn, LA Knight has made himself undeniable. And it is incredible to have seen because this is a guy who has gotten himself over organically with out much help from DwyE.

It's insane because he has not been in a story that I can pinpoint at all.

He was in the Bray Wyatt feud.

And.

He was not the focus of of that feud by any means. It wasn't good. No, it was not good. It was not the feud that you would expect to get somebody over, much less the guy who's getting beat in that feud. But as my lovely usual co host, Sat E. Niangy, I miss you, Sat, it'll be a few weeks before I see you again, sweet angel. He was always beating the drum that LA Night was going to come out ahead of that feud. And again, I must reiterate, Wwe did not do a lot to make that happen, besides giving LA Knight time on the mic every week to be himself. And granted, that's more than they do for a lot of people because LA Night took that ball and ran with it. And now he goes into smackdown in London in the02 and is, I don't want to say the biggest star on the show because no one's as big as star as Roman Reigns on this show. But in terms of just getting the call and response reaction from the audience, he was top two most over guys on this show. With not a lot of wins to speak of as of late, he beat Rey Mysterio last week, which we talked about extensively on last week's podcast is like a huge step forward for him.

But man, I don't know if he's going to win Money in the Bank, and that's not really the point of this exact discussion. But even if he does or doesn't, you got to go with this guy.

You really do because I think you don't get these opportunities that often where you can push someone that you think is good and give them big stories and give them big views and stuff, and they can get over that way if they are worthy of that spot on the card. People can respond to, Oh, this guy is getting pushed and we like him. Great. When you get somebody's over as this who you're not pushing and people get behind them anyway, you need to listen to that and react and change your plans and go, Okay, the crowd have told us this is what they want. We need to give it to them. Whether that is through money in the bank or other means, it looks like through the course of the show, which we'll talk about in a minute, Illinois and Logan Paul program appears to be quite possible, I think, coming out of money in the bank. So whatever that means going forward, I think is a big step up for night from having nothing to feud in with Logan Paul is very good. So it seems already going in that direction and they've stopped piping in the booze.

So that's also another good sign. I think they are already taking the first steps to start pushing LA Night, but you need to really strap the rocket to this guy because people just want to see him.

Yeah. And the possibility of a feud with Logan Paul is a significant vote of confidence for LA Night to be the guy that goes in there with the celebrity incoming guy who's very good but still inexperienced and you need a ring general to lead a match like that. That's a big vote of confidence. Not only be given the trust to do that in the ring, but also having the confidence to be the star in the ring with that guy. It's a very good look for a guy like LA Night. And if LA Night was to win Money in the Bank and this is a match for Summer Slam, that's pretty good. Like LA Knight, Mr. Money in the Bank versus Logan Paul at Summer Slam.

For the briefcase. Why not?

Maybe because that I think limits who can win, although maybe not, but I'd rather not see LA Night win the briefcase then lose the briefcase or something like that. But either way, that is a pretty big Marquee match at that point because as we saw in this segment, get to the actual review portion of this show, Logan Paul was the guest on the Grayson Waller effect, and it's becoming a bit of a trend that I feel like Grayson Waller is always the third most important person in each of these segments.

I think he might have been fifth.

Yeah, it's.

Quite something.

Yeah, which is probably not what you want from the host of one of these shows. Maybe it is, but regardless, he's a new guy.

I don't get the point of the Grace and the Wall of River Effect.

It's happy talk.

Full stop. Yeah, it is. It's Miss TV.

Yeah, it's A. A. Austin Theory Live.

Oh, God. I forgot about that one.

Yeah, they're all the same. Regardless, Logan Paul is the guest on this show. It's he comes out and he says that he's going to win Money in the Bank, and he says that he is going to take that briefcase and he's going to finish what he started. Maybe he's going to go and take the World Title off of Seth Rollins. Maybe he's going to finish what he started with the Tribal Chief. Or maybe he's just going to take that briefcase and beat LA Knight to death with it.

Which is good because the generic thing for anyone who's in the Money in the Bank match is like, I could cash in on this champion. I could cash in on this champion. But then he specifically namedrops LA Knight afterwards. So I'm like, Okay, this is where the feud is actually heading.

Yeah, it's a link that is immediately followed up on because LA Knight comes out. A gain, the ovation this man gets is superb.

It's.

Massive. Absolutely colossal. He comes out and he starts doing his usual spiel. He says his name, the people chant with him, and he will do just the LA Night and they will say yeah, as opposed to him doing the whole thing. So it's a real call and response wants rock style sing along type catchphrase at this point. It's really good. He gets in the ring and he says that he's the megastar. Logan Paul asks him what he's a megastar of because he was just supposed to be a manager when he showed up after having a 20 year uneventful career, which I thought was a good line. Very good line. Because at the very least, that's something that's... The 20 year thing, that's heel shtick. But the supposed to be a manager, that's something that's coming from a place of truth and reality. So that's a fun thing to play off of because obviously there were people at the top that didn't see anything in LA Night and what fool's they were. But he then says, What were you a megastar of? And LA Night basically just gets the entire stadium of people to just do his catchphrase again.

And it's like, okay, well, yeah, fair enough. And then Logan Paul says some poor follow up line that I can't even remember because it was so nothing. But then Santos Escobar joins them and he comes out and he says, if they're not careful, you're going to get a Mr and Mrs Money in the Bank, which I still think is funny because it makes it sound like he and Zalina are married, which is not the case. Zalina is married to Malakai Black.

And their nicknames are Money in the Bank. I'm going to legally change my name to Mr Money in the Bank.

I do think it's funny that we haven't had a couple win Money in the Bank before. I remember people somehow... I think going into the match, I think the going theory, funny, last year was that Seth Rollins and Beckie Lynch might both win Money in the Bank, and you could have done that then.

They both won the Rumble, didn't they, in the same year. Yeah, they did. So they don't have a couple's Rumble. They just haven't done the couple's Money in the Bank yet.

Regardless, this then brought out Butch, who got a big response, of course, and he ran down and immediately jumped Logan Paul.

I quite like this. Just him sprinting will always get me. There was no pause. It was sprinting to the ring, sprint through Logan Paul, which was quite good.

But this then led to our triple threat match between... Not Logan Paul, Goddamn it. I could have said any name and I.

Said the wrong one. Any of the name and not Logan Paul.

Between Santos Escobar, LA Knight and Butch. And this was a very good match. I thought this was like Nxt from 2021, which at the time I was like, yeah, you know, Nxt is pretty good show. It's not what it once was. But I was probably complaining a lot about Dexter Lewis and stuff every week.

Kind of confirm. I was there.

Yeah. I mean, it was still better than like, smackdown was at that time. But my God, little did we know what was coming just around the corner, and I would have given anything for those days back. But especially these three guys in particular were the stars of that era. It was like when the undisputed era was on their way out, the very tail end of Nxt. And you had the midcard of Nxt being filled with Santos Escobar, cruiserweight champion, Pete Dunne, who was challenging for the Nxt title at Vengeance Day in 2021, and LA Knight, who had that really fun rivalry with Cameron Grimes over the Million Dollar Championship. So getting to see these three guys have a triple threat match on smackdown, I was like, oh, developmental did work in this case. It's nice to see stuff like that paying off on the main roster. But they had a really fun match and Logan Paul gets wiped out near the end of the match. And this allowed Butch to hit the bitter end on Santos's Escobar and get the win. Nice English boy wins the match in England type moment. And it made me believe thoroughly that he is not winning money in the bank.

I wasn't really thinking he would anyway. Still hoping that he'll come out at the pay per view tonight and be like, here's the here's Pete Dunn. Everyone go, yeah. Because that would be really cool. But he then produced a ladder and there was a bit of a skirmish over who was going to climb the ladder and pose with the briefcase. Butch was the one who eventually unhooked the briefcase and held it up. And it was like, Yeah, that's his moment for being home.

What I really like about the factor of LA Night as part of this as well is that he's so over but not at the detriment of other people because we've seen it sometimes where one person is over and therefore they hate everybody else.

We saw it on this show later with Bayly and Shotzi.

Totally. Whereas when Butch won, everyone was like, Hey, Butch wins. Amazing. It wasn't like, Oh, boo. La Knight didn't win. Boo. So it was nice to see that the crowd were just into a lot of people on this show. And across the whole show with Kevin Owens and Samy Zane and Roman Reigns and the whole Bloodline stuff and then Knight and Butch and loads of people across Bayley, obviously, across the show, people are into so many different people and the crowd was so hot for so many different parts that one didn't eat into another one, which is really cool. Just a nice moment because I've seen that go awry before.

Indeed. I mean, it t's not a shocker, but when you have crowds like this, which are just not your American markets that get run every four months, basically. Corvus Cor Lafayette, Louisiana, stuff like that. There are crowds in the US where... And I don't want to blame them necessarily because, you know, smackdown is not the most exciting show every single week, by any means. But getting to go out and about and have... Ute nabut. Ute nabut. It is Canada Day after all. And getting to do smackdown from Montreal and getting that response for a guy like Samy saying. Getting to do smackdown from London, getting to go to different markets that don't necessarily get the TV show every single week. I think it's just a really smart thing that is also working very well for Wwe with their premium live events this year, where the only ones that have been in the continental United States have been the big four pay per views. Every other one has been Elimination Chamber in Montreal, Crazy Good Crowd, Backlash in Puerto Rico, good crowd. The Saudi Arabia Thing, which may be not necessarily as good a crowd, but it's definitely different.

And a great show, regardless.

Great show, regardless. Money in the Bank now in London. And it won't be until Payback that we see a B show in the United States. And it just makes all of these other shows that much more meaningful and makes that show that we will eventually get more meaningful as well because these markets aren't being oversaturated with pay per view after pay per view after pay per view. Philadelphia and Chicago and all these different shows getting a pay per view every single year. They just blend together at that point.

I think that is a really easy and obvious way that I don't think we've thought about before to cover for B shows not being A shows is have them with some gimmick. That gimmick being, go do an international show because then the crowd becomes the story of the show.

Yeah, the crowd becomes the.

Gimmick of it. Exactly. And that's how you cover for it not being a Royal Rumble or wrestle mania or whatever. Summer Slam, for example. So it feels like it's just a home run thing to do. Just keep taking it to international audiences. International audiences are going to love it because they get to finally go to a Wwe show. Audiences are going to love it because they get to see really hot crowns in, like you said, location that they haven't mined too much and everybody wins. Everybody wins.

Everybody wins.

So just do it more. That's what.

I'd say. And LA.

Night should win. And LA Night should win. Can't remember what show I mentioned this on. Think it might have been maybe a prediction show for Money in the Bank. When I was saying, like, Wwe have done on a crazy good run for premium live events this year.

They are on. There hasn't been.

A bad one. There hasn't been a bad one this year. And I think the shape of this card tonight is looking real good. I think we're not going to start Sounds is going to be pretty good just with the potential stories that can come out of money in the bank. If they've got payback lined up, there's history with payback. That's where Roman won his belt. There's a lot of options for things this year. We could be looking at one of the best years of Wwe pay per view premium live events in ages.

Regardless of what happens on the TV shows and everything, I think when you have a year of really strong pay per views or premium live events or whatever, it makes people remember the year that much more fondly. And I think if they continue this streak that they're on right now, people will look back at 2022, regardless of whatever decisions were made of Cody losing or Vince coming back, selling the company and whatnot. And they'll think of it as a strong wrong year for Wwe just in terms of the quality of the content just because of the pay per views. And good on them because...

2023, by the way, you said 2022.

I don't know what year it is. It's 2016 in my brain.

That's so true. We're going.

To get into the rest of our smackdown review here.

As.

We kicked off this show with the undisputed tag team championship match between Kevin Owens and Samy Zane and pretty deadly. I don't know why this wasn't on the pay per view.

Not 100 % sure. I mean, if this was the match they were going to do on pay per view. I get it, put it on TV because it wasn't amazing. It was good.

But I think you could have done more on a pay per view is the point. There's that too. Because I can understand Triple H has kept his pay per views to a very limited amount of matches, typically. Good.

That's a good thing. Which is much better.

Don't get me wrong. And I would prefer that over loading the card up with 10 plus matches every time. That being said, this feels like a match that would have meant more had it been on pay per view. It would have had a higher potential to be great if it was on pay per view. Whereas here it did just feel like most other TV title defenses. T hat's not saying it was bad by any means, but it did just feel a little standard, simply good as opposed to having the potential for being great because there were some fun things in this match, don't get me wrong. One thing that I particularly enjoyed was when they tried to use, pretty deadly that is, they tried to use the ring skirt to cover their face, basically do twin magic, but with a ring skirt and just hiding their faces. And this was a spot that they did a few weeks ago that led to the finish, very good. And then they brought it back here, tried to trick Samy Zane when one of them raked the eyes, and then put the ring skirt over their head as they swapped out.

And the legal man went and rolled Samy Zane up for a near fall, but he kicked out, of course. Not the finish this time, which was a nice little tidbit for those paying attention. I really like callbacks to that. I don't know if I preferred it, but I thought that Samy Zane was going to be like, I've seen them do this before. I'm not going to fall for this and catch them in the act or something like that. But it doesn't matter. Basically, what it was is just a call back to a match and a nod to those paying attention to matches, which is good because you want their fans to pay attention to the matches. But ultimately, Samy Zane hit the all of a kick and won. Yeah, with.

Owens hitting the stunner as well. Very, very decisive victory. I thought this was a solid, fun match. It was elevated by the crowd. I think if this had been on a non London show, this would have been all right. But with that crowd, it elevated it to pretty good. Yeah, had good fun. I really like pretty deadly. I think they're so much fun. I get a massive kick out of their act. I saw them years and years and years ago. When they made their entrance, I was like, They've got something. They've got something to them. I'm really happy that they're getting to showcase that on Swag Down now. I think it's pretty cool. I wouldn't have expected them to have this big blowaway amazing thing. I have no idea of their ceiling right now in terms of ingrained capability because I don't know how much experience they've had because their stint in Nxt wasn't that long, all things considered.

From last summer, wasn't it? Something like that. Because it was when Nxt UK folded and everybody came over.

Of course. Yeah. But yeah, but regardless, though, fun little opener. I'm really glad that the London crowd were very into Samy Zane and Kevin Ows because that makes me very happy when I hear the Let's go. I always get such a kick. Dan Leighton was at a smackdown last night and he sent me a video of the Samy Zane entrance. I was like, Oh, he's good.

Yeah. I mean, you basically covered everything. This was a solid little opener. I am thankful every day that Samy Zane has his music back.

Got you.

There's a lot of other people that I would like to see that happen, too, as well. Backstage. Walter. Walter. That's a big one. I really want that song back. Adam Pierce's backstage when the Brawling Broods were upset about solo Sakura attacking Ridge Holland last week. And pierce wouldn't book a match between Ridge and solo. Why?

I assume because Solow was busy today because they'd already booked the Blood.

Line segment. But he just stood there.

Yeah, he did.

It just, to me, feels like every so often Adam pierce is like, Well, I can't do that. And no reason is ever given as to why. Like, Bianca goes in there and it's like, I want a rematch. He's like, Well, I can't do that. For what reason can you not give her a title match? None of this is ever established. But anyway, he says that he will give Ridge Holland a match with Austin Theory instead, with the implication being if Ridge Holland wins, he gets a shot at the US title. Then we had this match. Now, I don't know. It wasn't necessarily too much that happened on this show, but I think this was just the straw that broke the Campbell's back for me because, Holy Jesus, God Almighty Christ, can I not stand Austin Theory on this show? It's really strange because we were having a conversation on our way over here before we started the podcast. We were talking about how Awesome Theory, mechanically, I would say is a good wrestler. On the mic, I would say he is a good talker. But holy Christ, is he the most mediocre wrestler I think I've ever seen.

I don't get it. The package is just nothing. I hear people every day, people in the office will just be like, What do you think about Austin Theory? And Adam or Sullivan or you or whoever will just be like, I like Austin Theory. And that's it. And every time we bring this up, not to have a you people promo on the comments section, by any means, but there's always people who are just like, I don't get it. What the hate is for Austin Theory. He's going to be great. He's going to do this. I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of waiting because this man someone brought this up. I forget what show this was on. We got an alter chat in about it. Might have been on the AEW podcast last week. But Austin Theory and MJF, granted, one is a midcard title and the other is a world title. But MJF and Austin Theory won their titles at the same time last November. And you would think that these are two dickish heels and their reins could not be more different. And you just think about that amount of time really is the comparison I want to make.

Not because they're the same because they're not. Obviously, they're on different levels and everything, and they're being booked incredibly differently. But you think about the amount of time that has passed when it comes to MJIs F as a world champion in AEW because he has been on a very good run, having very good matches, cutting very good promos, having good stories. Brian Danielson, now with Adam Cole, everything. Then you think about Austin Theory. And what the dick has he done with this US title?

It's so strange to me. It was saying before, I don't get why the bits that are good don't combine well. This thing is lost in translation. Something isn't working, and I don't get what it is. Because I think you can even draw more comparisons to MGS title already. This is going to be a reach and comments are going to be upset about this one. Mgs has beaten Legend now in Hiroshima, T anahashi. Sure. Austin Theory beat John Sina in wrestle. Yep. Mgf has defended the title in a big multi man match, the Fatal 4 way. Austin Theory defend his belt in the Elimination Chamber match. And yet it still doesn't feel like big enough. Did you remember that he beat Cina? Because I forgot until I started bringing up these comparisons.

Well, I remember because they never stopped talking about it on these shows.

But that's the thing. It's like the one thing that people talk about when it comes to this reign and that match sucked.

That match was not good. And also, it didn't mean anything. Theory is exactly the same before and after that match. There's no change in Austin Theory before or after. It was very silly. That win means absolutely nothing.

It was just something that they had on paper that they wanted to do for a year. What moment? It's just John Sina versus Austin Theory. And they brought John Sina in, buried Austin Theory on the mic, then had a crap match with him in the opening of wrestle mania. Then he went on his way and Austin Theory has not benefit it from it at all. Crazy. I'm sorry, but this match sucked.

It wasn't great.

It sucked. Ridge Holland is not somebody who has been showcased in a lot of singles matches. I don't know what his finish is, for example. It might be the running power slam, for all I know. He went for a running power slam. I assumed it was a tribute to the British Bulldog in this match, but the crowd wasn't into it. He got a mild, Welcome home pop because Britain.

But Austin.

Theory just got thrown around a few times and then hit Ridge Holland in the throat and then hit his rolling into the ring drop kick for the finish. And all I've seen on Twitter today is just like, What are we doing? Because it's a week match, it's a week finish, and I don't think it's necessarily fair. And maybe it is. Maybe I'm just trying to save face with the guy. I don't know if it's fair or not. To say that the reason that smackdown is significantly worse after the draft is because we traded Austin Theory for Walter. And granted, one of those guys is having the Wwe superstar of the year run this year. Best thing on every show, if he has a match, it's the best one on the show. But oh, my God.

I think there was something there because solo did the Swamp and Spike to Ridge last week. And then in this match, he hits him in the throat, he drags him across the ropes on the throat. And then I think he does his rolling drop kick, supposedly to his throat.

You can't do a drop kick to the throat.

Like that. He tried because Ridge sold it like he'd been kicked in the throat. So I think.

That was the idea.

I think this is what they wanted to do. Don't think it worked. To play devil's advocate, I think that's what they wanted to do, which I think is fine in theory. It just didn't work.

I've seen people on Twitter saying that this is the worst midcard title rating they've ever seen.

It's not great.

I think that's a little strong. That is strong.

Because I've.

Seen Santino Morella defending this title with a snake on his puppet, a sock on his hand. I've seen some pretty heinous crap. But the point stands that this is appalling to people now. And I saw this and just went, What are we doing anymore? What is the point? He's got no stories. He's got nothing. There are no running threads with this title reign. There's nothing to look forward to with the US title. Can we have... I don't even care if it's Bobby Lashley because Lord knows we've seen that a lot over the last year. But can we just have someone beat this guy for the title? And then sure, do a trio with him in pretty deadly and just have them in fun segments together, being dicks. I don't care. It just can't be the same thing we've gotten for the last nine months.

I think you should have Butch Win.

Yeah. Give Butch his title. Yeah, why not? Anyway, I had a real bitch fit about this one. I just can't anymore. I'm not feeling it.

I'm.

Really not feeling it. Not many people are. But we'll move on because Karrion Kross is backstage and he once again cut a spooky promo on AJ styles. It was like, I beat you with three moves last week. And now we're going to wrestle again. And I still don't know why these two are feuding.

It's a spooky feud, but this time about chess.

I've blown my load on this episode of smackdown. I've got nothing left in me to complain about Karrion Kross. But I don't.

Give a damn. Whatever.

But then we had some fun because Bayley came out and London loves them some Bayley. Bayley defeated Shotzi in order to remain in the money in the bank match. I was slightly worried that shots he was going to win this match. Same. Because I don't know, she was in the Money in the Bank match last year. Seems something plausible that Wwe could do.

But More dissension between Bayley and EO. Exactly. The cost of the match, things like that.

Instead, the crowd sang the Hey Bayly, Hoo Ha, I Want to Know, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, if you'll be my girl song for the entire match. There was like maybe one minute, and it probably wasn't even one minute, it was probably 30 seconds where people just fated it out, had to catch their breath, and then one guy did it again. They were like, Hey, right back to it. It did basically mean that Shotzi was the heel in this match.

Pretty much, yeah.

Not in the psychology of the match because Eoskai still put Bayley's foot on the ropes and kept Bayley from losing the match, which then led to Shotzi grabbing her by the hair, pulling her onto the top rope, and then getting can hit with the rose plant. Rose plant? Rose plant. Rose plant. And getting pinned. So she wasn't playing the role of the heel, but she was the one who was not the baby face because she wasn't getting cheered here because everybody loves Bayly. So I do like the storyline thread that EO and Bayley can't get on the same page. But EO is still trying her best.

Yes. Eo is still competent as a second in these matches, whereas a lot of the time it doesn't necessarily go that way on the other side. Backstage right after this match, I thought was hilarious because Shotzi just comes in and is like, I'm not finished with you. And she throws one punch and then just gets beaten to hell. They just gang up on her and go, Okay, you want some of this? They just beat her down, suplex her on what I believe is the makeup table, and then grab a pair of scissors and cut off a big chunk of Shotzi's hair. And I get being overcome by rage. But what was Shotzi's.

Plan here? I don't know.

Did she think this was going to go well.

For her? I think as well, if you're going to be overcome by rage, maybe you don't come in and start verbally accosting people. Maybe you just come in and start punching. Maybe that would have sold it a little bit more.

But whatever. I just don't feel a lot of sympathy towards this person that's just had her hair cut off because it's a stupid baby face.

Yeah, it's a stupid baby face. Would you like to know a fun fact, Tempest? I would. There's apparently reports that the Men's Money in the bank match is going to be opening the show, which means that the Women's Money in the Bank, according to our predictions, it's going to be on our live reaction stream later for the Jam in the Jar briefcase, that's going to be the Women's Money in the Bank is going to be one that determines the winner of that, if that is true, and the Men's Money the Bank match opens. Do you want to know who's got Bayley? Who? Two time Jam in the Jar holder, Luke Owen. Do you think.

There's a chance? I think there's a good chance.

There's a good chance, I think. Bayley could win and I think she could screw over in the process. I really want to see it. If Luke wins again, we need to put down some rules for some.

He's not allowed to pull the names anymore.

Because we can't have two gamble winners, two back to back years and three jam in the Jar winners being the same person. That's not okay.

We're built on some satanic ground that's putting some witch magic on here. Not to throw shade at witches. Dating a witch, of course.

Anyway. Almost got yourself in the doghouse there, mate.

Jesus. Anywho. Can't can't badmouth the good name of witchcraft. But yes, anywho, we move on because Oscar defended the Wwe Women's Championship against Charlotte Flair.

But not before AJ Starz did a return promo to the ring. That's across where he said, Hey, Scarlett was mean, but don't worry, M iah Yim's here. And everyone went.

Yeah, we know. She was in the match last week. What are we building to, Pete? They just did the intergender match. The mixed tag. Why does he have me in his backup? She was his backup last week, Pete. I can't handle this show.

I thought you'd pull your load already. Goodness, it's me.

I got it back anyway.

Now it's.

Blown again. Yeah. So Charlotte and Nasca, as soon as this wasn't the main event of the show, I was like, Well, we're getting some shenanigans, which, again, was pretty clear over the last few weeks of Bianca Belair being like, I'm going to be at ringside. And then Adam pierce was like, Don't you do that? And she went, I don't trust you. And then sure enough, Bianca Belair caused the DQ in this match after very clunky work, I must say.

Yeah, it wasn't very good. Yeah. It wasn't wasn't great this match. They didn't quite seem to be on the same page. And we know that these two are both independently very good wrestlers, and they've worked well together before.

Yeah, wrestle mania.

Just think that was a bit of miscommunication or something in this match. They just weren't quite clicking.

At one point, this would have been considered by some to be the greatest women's wrestle mania match of all time. I think it has since been surpassed. I agree. And topped, especially this year. But yeah, they just weren't really on the same page. They were a step off from one another. And this match ended in disqualification.

It.

Did. So triple threat incoming, possibly at Summer Slam. Nothing's been announced for today's show. So I was hoping they would run it back and have a really good championship match on this show. Another thing to look forward to for our lovely live event. But Summer Slam, just around the corner, also suitable, I suppose. It is a big match. And I would very much like to see Bianca and Charlotte wrestle because they've not really done that with each other very much.

Yeah, for sure. My notes for this match are, where's Bianca? There she is. And that was it. Then just, Bianca interferes and stands tall. And she hits KOD onto the announce table on both of them, which is very cool.

Good closing spot of an angle, but that was the point of all this. Not the championship match that had been advertised for three weeks. But we move on to our main event segment because it was, of course, the Bloodline, Roman Reigns only family either opens or closes these shows. And Roman Reigns comes down to the ring and says that he is the one. They are weirdo ones, but he is the one. The only one. The only one. And people are chanting Roman Sucks. And he says that, you know what sucks is people stabbing you in the back, family stabbing you in the back. He says that he's been like a father to these children. He's been the one that needs to give them chance after chance after chance because that's what you do as a father. This is what you do as a tribal chief. And he wants the Usos to come out and be bow down, acknowledge him, and we can get past this. So the Usos come out and they're amped up. They're duking it down. Classic Usos. Classic Usos. They come down to the ring. Well, not to the ring yet. They're they make it down through the entrance way, which was not the usual smackdown entrance way, of course.

Very cool set.

Up, by the way. It's a very cool set. I love anytime they just have a varied set. It's not even a cool set. It's just different.

Which makes.

It good. You just have the curved entrance.

It's like the.

Rumble entrance way. It was like the Rumble, yeah. I think it was this year where they had the Rumble set. And literally, it's just because all the W W sets are the same now. So you see something different and you're like, Oh, I like it. Or they just had different sets. Anyway, they come down to the ring and the Usos say, We don't want back into the Bloodline. No. We don't want to be tribal chief. I'm good off that. But when was the last time Roman Reigns was pinned? And they say three years ago, and it was actually longer than that. It was almost four now. It was December 2019. It was the last time he was pinned. And he comes down and Jimmy says, I don't want to be tribal chief. J, I don't want to be tribal Chief. But we know that when you get pinned at money in the bank, you won't be the tribal chief anymore. Which doesn't fill me with confidence about the Usos winning this match. Live reaction, live predictions. But they say that they know someone who would have their vote because he says, The family's talking and I've been waiting for the family to play into this storyline more.

We thought that there was going to be a congregation of Rikishi, the Wild Samoans, whoever was going to be there for Roman Reign's 1,000 Day celebration. That just didn't happen. Fair enough. But I've been waiting for that to play into this story. They said that the people are talking and they said that the Usos have a vote as to who would be the next tribal chief. They heavily imply. They look at Solosikola and Roman Reign's bursts out laughing, doing a pantomime, like, ho ho ho ho ho ho, laugh. Then he notices that Solakau is like, he was stood like this with his arms crossed, and then his arms go down to his side. He tences up and Roman Reigns all of a sudden stops. Stops laughing and he's like, Whoa.

Oh, he's serious.

That's not good. And then he's like, enough of this, enough of this. Cut this crap out. This one's loyal. And he, Roman, and he, J, get up on the... One gets on the apron and the others in the ring. And they're yelling at each other off mic. And J's starting to look like he's going to that place where he's like, He's been abused. He's shutting down. He's getting yelled at by Roman and everything. And finally, J puts his hand in Roman's face and pie faces him. And Roman does a full 180, full 360, turns back around, gets super kicked by Jimmy. They all brawl because immediately Solowhen runs and attacks Jimmy. J mounds Roman and starts doing a ground and pound beatdown, which was great. People really came alive for that because that was like, the aggressions now being let out. It's not just like a kick. You hit the super kick, you hit your move, but now it's like you letting it out. And this braw continues. Security comes out to try and break this up. Super kicks, throwing security guys around. It continues. And finally, I think it was J hits a dive over the top rope, and the show ends.

So this is your lead in two money in the bank tonight over who's going to win. At least now it feels like there is a little bit of stakes to this where it's like, Well, Roman, if you lose, you're not going to have the confidence of the family and everything. I don't know if that's going to happen. I have no idea what this finish is going to but it does add some intrigue into this.

Because I think there's also the chance that they pin Solosicola.

I think there.

Is a distinct chance of that. Not Roman Reigns. I think they could even play that into the match where things aren't looking too good for him. Roman looks like he might even be about to be pinned, might do a close near for whatever. Roman just leaves and leaves Solosicola. T hat's further distension between Solo and Roman with all of this stuff that's being teased. A lso, Roman's like, Well, I can't be pinned. And he can climb the like, Well, I didn't get pinned. I'm still the tribal chief. You haven't pinned me. T hat can lead to, hopefully, J versus Roman and J wins. Please, thanks.

Well, I don't think J is going to win.

This tribe. I don't really.

Want to try to win.

I want J to win. I want J to beat him. I have one other note from this show, and that's that Wade Barrett said that he went on a pub crawl the night before and visited every pub in London. Every pub in London.

I need to see someone create a map of what the most express route would be to systematically hit every pub in London. Because that is statistically like a possible.

You can't do it in a day. You just can't.

Could you even do it if you literally just went there, walked in and walked out? Didn't order.

A drink. I don't know if you could. London is quite big, you know, and there are quite a few quite a lot of pubs.

So I'm told.

Yeah. So I don't think you could. No. No.

What a.

Liar, Wade Barrett.

You're.

A big stinky liar. I'm afraid I've got some bad news.

I see what you did there. Anywho, that will bring our review of smackdown to a close. It was a good show. Good show. I really like the LA Night stuff. I like the Bloodline stuff at the end. I did not like Austin Theory. The Women's Match was whatever. The Bayley stuff was fun. I like Bayley and a good opening tag to start the show. I gave this in my edited review a three out of five, but it was like a high three, a respectable three.

I agree with that. It was pretty good, pretty solid.

And that is about to bring our review of smackdown to a close. But before we get out of here, make sure, of course, that you tune in later today for our live reactions. Live from the Long Arms Pub & Brewery as we and a bunch of our fans watch Money in the Bank live. It's going to be at a regular time for us. Yippie, I get to go home and sleep and I go to Canada the next day. Oh, Canada. I'm very excited for that. I'm going to retain this here championship.

Nope, because I'm the champion. I'll be defending it and successfully retain.

No, no, no. Anyway, also make sure, of course, that you check out our new show on parts fun known airing today. That, of course, is the AEW Fight Forever Road to the Elite Mode, starring Pete Quesenel, Luke Owen, and Laurie Blake. I don't know where my hands go when I'm doing these plugs. That, of course, is sponsored by THQ Nordic, so we thank them very much for that sponsorship. It's a very fun show. I've seen the first episode. It's very fun. It's a very fun little game. Luke Owen likes it very much, even if he didn't get to play as Aubrey Edwards. But that will do it for today. I'm gone for two shows after this. Yeah, you are. Thank God.

It's going to be me next week. Me and Sat. Yeah. Next Saturday, Sat E Day.

Sat E Day.

Very excited for that.

Well, have a lot of fun doing that. I hope you all enjoyed this podcast. Make sure, of course, that you've liked this video. Subscribe if you haven't already, and catch us back in a few hours for Money in the Bank. I'm defending this championship. Not correct. I don't care what this man says. It's L IW for life. L IW holds all the gold. Yes, we do. I am L IW. Goodbye and good night for Life Bank. Candle at the jam. Jam, not jam. Jam, not jam. You.