Jimmy. Jam. Jim. Jim. I jam Shima jail.

The Bloodline crumbling again, but this time it's crumbling between the Usos. We haven't seen that bit yet. Interesting. I'm Tempest, host of the WrestleTalk Podcast SmackDown review. Here, alongside my lovely and wonderful house of the blackmast brother sat e Niangi. What time is it?

It is etime on Sat e day, my sinuses are blocked. So if it sounds like someone's holding my nostril, that is because I'm getting decreased oxygen into the nozzle.

Okay.

Into the nozzle. Yeah, into the nozzle. Right here. So, yeah, please bear with me if I sound like I'm pinching my nostrils. I'm trying to get through it. I left my nasal spray at home. Tempest, you're the only person that's making me live right now because I can't do this and talk at the same time. What are we talking about?

We talking about the bloodline.

Yes.

It's Saturday. We always have the Bloodline to talk about the Bloodline to keep us company because there was a lot that happened on this show regarding the Bloodline. I still have this belt, by the.

Way, because it's yours. He's a rightful jam, that champion.

I'm the acting jam. That jam.

No, he is the official. He defended it. It's called here. Finders keepers. It's on his shoulder. It's his. If you want the title, if you want it back, you fight him for it. Fisticuffs or quiz, that is your option. You're the champion. He's my champion. House of the Black Mask. We're only up. The house wins. There's no losers in the group, and I refuse to jump to anyone. That's why I don't do any of the shows.

You're the champion. I need to carry this man around with me. He's a pretty good hype man. But this show, this SmackDown show kicks off with the Bloodline with Paul Heyman and Sol Sakoa already in the ring. And before they could even get a word out of their mouth, jay USO comes down to the ring, and he tells Solo Sakoa, hey, man, you turned on your big brother. You don't do that. You don't do that. That's not what we do in the Bloodline. And this is about where Paul Heyman says, all right, Solo, you could step back. It's okay. There will be no violence here today.

No.

And he starts talking to Jay. And he said, jay, at Night of Champions, jimmy decided for both of you, he made the decision for both of you to turn on the Tribal chief to kick Roman Reigns in the face. And you know why he did that? It's because Jimmy knows what everybody else in the Bloodline knows. Jimmy's always resented you because you main event. J USO have always been Roman Reigns hand picked successor, the right hand man and the next Tribal chief. And as soon as he starts saying this, jay is kind of like, oh, damn. I actually like the sound of that. That's pretty good. Sounds enticing sounds enticing. And Paul Heyman says, you need to stop worrying about this. We have gotten you a United States Championship match, singles champion Jay USO here on the horizon. How does that sound? All we need is your allegiance. We need you to make this decision. Where do you stand? And Jay USO just kind of says, like, all right, I'll take that US title match. The rest of it, I'll let you know.

That was funny.

So I thought this was a very good segment, a very good opening segment for a number of reasons. First, Jay goes out there to confront Solo Sakoa and say, you don't turn on your brother like that. But then as soon as something enticing is kind of thrown his way, jay is kind of like, oh, but you know, actually, though, that sounds pretty good. That sounds pretty good, though.

He's no fool.

No, he's not. He's not. But even still, he can be tempted. He can be tempted by this other side. So that's one thing. Number two is I really like that we come on this podcast often and say that when Roman Reigns isn't here, it doesn't feel like anything happens in the Bloodline story. True. Because the main character is not there. And a lot of the times it's just people spinning their wheels. This was an opportunity for them to advance this story without Roman Reigns there. And Paul Heyman, as the voice of Roman Reigns, was still able to be, like, exactly as manipulative as Roman is by trying to entice Jay. So this could have been a 10th as subtle in just the presentation of this opening segment. And I thought it probably still would have been very good, but this, I thought, was just great.

You're saying that it had a potential to be a throwaway segment or throwaway show, and it didn't.

Yeah.

And like you said at the beginning of the show, you were alluding to, this is probably like the millionth time that the Bloodline has been crumbling, and it's been the millionth time that Jay had to choose between his brother Jimmy and Roman Reigns. But only this time, they did something they haven't done in a while. Because back before Jimmy came back, jay USA was enjoying somewhat of a Solo success. So I guess it was kind of like Paul Heyman had to go to his bag of tricks. It's like, what was it that made Jay, like, being in the Bloodline, which was being called the Right hand man and being called Main Event Jay USO? So he hasn't been Main Event Jay USO in a while, or even the.

Right hand man in a while, because.

Solo actually is now the right hand man, but they won't say out loud because that's part of the manipulation. What I find is fascinating was the whole big brother line question. Tempest. If you had a twin brother that was older than you by, like, a few minutes. Would you call that twin brother? Your older brother?

I feel like that would be something where someone would say it to me to rile me up. Because it's like, you're twins. You're practically equal. You were born just minutes apart. If that it's like, Nah, that's your older brother. I'd be like, man, shut up. Right?

Yeah, you had the same teacher. Because I just find it fascinating, like our older brother. And I'm like, there's only a few minutes between you and Jimmy. You've seen life as much as he has. You've experienced the same milestones because you got the same birthday. But I find it fascinating. And I went to ask someone, tempest, is that considered normal in the twin community? I don't know. For me, I was like, it's a bit wild. But besides that, I appreciate they'll do something different because it came to a point where we've been making fun of the Bloodline storyline since WrestleMania. We're saying that Roman doesn't need to be champion. I still agree with that because most of the feud has not been around the title. But at the same time, I understand that Roman's motivations, it involves being champion. And without it, it's kind of like he can't call himself the tribal chief, but we can still tell the storyline without the title. But in this instance, it still doesn't throw away the fact that Jay didn't come up with an answer because it felt like the way they alluded last week is like, this was the week that Jay needed to answer and Roman was going to be there and Roman's not there as just Jay and Jimmy and Solo.

And then they used a clever way of enticing a title match. And I hate the fact that they did that because we're going to talk about the results later. I wanted the outcome that we ultimately didn't get.

Yeah. So that was how they opened the show. And now there were a few segments throughout the show that built to the main event, which was this United States Championship match. And the first one that we got was Jay USO backstage, and who comes and finds him, but Sammy Zayn, basically, just to be like the same thing that we've heard a million times. It's the same segment.

I'm going to do the bit I'll do. It's going to be every week. But you don't watch Raw. But I watch bits of raw There was a segment where Kevin Owens and Sammy Zayn gleefully gloated in a ring. The Bloodline situation is behind our back. It's got nothing to do with us, actually. It was a backstage before imperium came in, actually. Yeah, it's got nothing to do with them. They got asked that. They're like, well, it happened unless I told you so. But whatever. It's got to do with us, we moved on. And that's when the period came in. Yeah, of course you moved on. But you got another issue with us. Blah, blah. That was Monday, but they go back to Friday. Sammy's back again doing the same speech he's done a thousand times. You'd think this man didn't kick him in the face multiple times? You'd think they didn't have a match at WrestleMania, a blood feud? You'd think they didn't have a match at Backlash? You'd think they still in horrible terms? It's bizarre. What they've done to Sami Zania is almost almost taken away the goodwill that he's built with the fans because it makes him come across naive, if anything.

That when Kevin Owens ultimately turns on Sammy Zane. You'd be like, you know what? This is one of the rare times where I agree with Kevin, because no matter how much that man with his blood pressure is trying to move on Sammy to the point Sammy's kind of dragging him in. I have to go check on him. He doesn't need you. He has his family. His name is Jimmy. Let Jimmy pick up the piece. Sammy, sammy, look after your brother. His name is Kevin. So this whole scene for me, it made Sammy Zane seem kind of like I don't want to say the word naive, but a busy body. It's got nothing to do with you. Don't get involved. Don't get involved. It might trick you. This could be another trick for the tag titles, and it might suck a kick you in a ring. Think about that. Sammy, stay away.

Very well said. Because the segment after this was Jay USO getting ready in the locker room, and Paul Heyman comes up and says, like, oh, it's real good TV. You left me hanging there at the handshake. It's a cliffhanger. I get it. I built all my career off of cliffhangers. I understand, but I need your passport, which is interesting. You need to give me your passport because you are going to be flying to Money in the bank right here in London, England, with Roman Reigns. You'd be flying there next week. Roman Reigns is going to be on SmackDown. He wants to have a celebration, a ceremony of some sort, and he wants to acknowledge three things. He wants to acknowledge the Tribal chief, he wants to acknowledge the new United States Champion, and he wants to publicly acknowledge Jay USO as the next Tribal chief. This led to Jay again being like, it sounds pretty good. He's jovial. He's in a good mood, and he's like, I don't know why you're so happy, though, Paul. Because if I'm in the bloodline, you're not in the bloodline. So a real ultimatum here, which it's pretty big.

It's either jay USO's in the bloodline or paul. Heyman, is And Paul Heyman's been there since the start of this whole shindig. I don't know which way that's going to go next week if I was.

Jay USO has a bad game plan to tell Paul Heyman you're going to kick him out because Paul Heyman is like a rat it's like a vermin. He finds way to survive. And let's just say Jay USO did go back to the bloodline. That would make Paul Heyman super paranoid to the point where he would start dripping poison in Roman Reigns is, and we all know the Roman Reigns is a paranoid individual. It doesn't take much to convince him someone's trying to usurp him in the bloodline. So I enjoyed it for what it was. It telegraphed to the crowd, to us that Jay USO is leaning towards being a baby faced or tween or wherever he is at the moment. And that the moment when it comes, poor Hayman is going to get a double super kick.

That'll be very interesting. I don't know if that's going to be next week, but maybe not considering how this show ended, because we had a backstage promo with Austin Theory who says if Paul Heyman's looking for a client after next week, maybe he should watch Austin Theory live. And I don't think that's going to happen. But Austin Theory cut his little promo saying he's going to retain the US title just like he did a WrestleMania against John Cena. We go to the main event. The main event segment on this show was the United States championship match between Jay USO and Austin Theory. Now, they had a fine little match, but the actual match portion of all this was fairly short in comparison. At least they hit their moves. Austin Theory hit his, like, roll into the ring, jump up, drop kick thing, and Jay USO hit a splash. But the referee was knocked out of the ring. And he gets a visual pin on Austin Theory. And as soon as he got a visual pin, I was like, oh, he's not winning. There's his little victory. But I really wanted this man to win the title.

I did, too. Even though I don't know about you. If he had won, do you think it would have made Destroy even more interesting?

I think so.

The allegiance would go because you'd be like, he got the title right.

So here's the thing. Yeah. I'll go through the finish very quickly because it breaks down real hard. Jay USO is stood in the ring and the referee has been knocked down, as I said, and Pretty Deadly come in pretty Deadly. We wondered last week if Pretty Deadly were going to be like actually aligned with Austin Theory, or if that was just like a six man tag for a week, whatever. They seem to be backing him up now. They seem to actually be helping with his invested interests. He then lost my train of thought. Pretty deadly show up. They get run off by Jimmy. USO saves the day. This is the first time we've seen Jimmy on this show. And then solo runs in. Solo stops Jimmy, grabs him, is about to hit another Samoan spike. And then Jay USO stops him. So he holds onto the arm, and he kind of pulls him away. Solo shoves him into the ropes. He bounces back. Jimmy goes for a super kick. Solo moves. Jimmy nails Jay with a super kick, and he's like, oh, no. I've ruined the day. And then Jimmy and Solo kind of brawl.

They fall to the outside, and this is when the referee regains consciousness. And Austin theory slides into the ring and pins him, retains the title. No title change here on SmackDown. And that's the end of the match, the end of the main event. And as Jimmy is helping Jay up, Jay is all he's crabby. He's upset because he wanted to win this match. And Jimmy, his brother, has cost him this. It was an accident, but he cost him the match. And Paul Heyman and Solo Sako are on the ramp, and they're looking at him just like, I don't know where the allegiance is lying here, man. And Jay walks out of the ring, and he walks past them, walks up the ramp. And as the show is ending, paul Heyman just whispers into his phone call, roman so that's how we left things here. Now, obviously, the story going into next week is Jay is upset with Jimmy for having cost him this match. It was an accident. But will he see it that way? Will he be able to put that aside and then make a decision? I don't think that would have been as interesting as what we could have gotten, which was if Jay USO won the United States Championship here, because you're not doing anything with this run with Austin theory, maybe they will at some point, but as of this moment in time, they're not.

But Jay USO winning the US. Title and being shown like, hey, if you align with the bloodline, these are the benefits that you will get. That's how you win someone over. You don't want him to be making that decision because he's angry at the other side and at your side. But today he just happens to be angrier at Jimmy than he is at Roman or Solo. You want him to be thinking, yeah, this is why I was in the bloodline. Like, I was in the bloodline because it was getting me titles. It was getting me that. Andre the giant battle royal trophy. We were getting records. We were running this place. And if you give him a little bit more of a taste of that, I think that's a much more subtle story that you could tell. Just win him over with results, show him why he should be in the bloodline as opposed to what we've kind of gotten, which is more just I don't know, a bit more standard, I think.

To add to your point, what was Solo thinking? Yeah, if you break it down, because when you're doing the match breakdown, I realize it solo came out, so Jimmy was the first one to arrive at the scene. So Solo was a bit late, but Solo was a bit like tunnel vision. Okay, jimmy's there. I'm going to attack Jimmy when he should have been in a weird way. Let's put a beef to one side and help Jay win the title.

Yeah, it was a little strange because.

You can argue because I know the super kick. What we all saw, what was the most impactful of that scene was the super kick. But if you break it down, both men are culpable for what happened. Because Jimmy came out with honest intentions to save his brother, but Solo came out with ill intentions to attack his older brother. I could argue Solo is the one that made a mess of things because he went for the Simone spike. Jay had to interfere. By interfering, it put Jay in harm's way. Jay would have been a harm's way if Solo did not create that whole scenario. If he just helped his brother to get rid of pretty deadly and then let Jay win, then attack him. Cool. So I hope that Jay watches back the clip or whatever and see that's how the whole thing broke down. But you're right, solo could have done that. Could have been poor Hamer's. Objective solo. Make sure Jay wins. But we didn't see any of that. It's kind of like one of those things that got lost in the source. That should have been Solo's objective, which is to help Jay win, to convince Jay to join the Bloodline again.

And that didn't happen. So it's a shame. And like you're saying, Austin Fury's title reign has been quite dormant since he's gone to SmackDown. In the beginning, he had Bobby Lashley and Seamus challenging him, but it seems like at this current time, he has no one on the horizon to challenge him. This is why later on we talk about Cameron Graham. So that's going to be one of my grab. I'm going to mention there should be a lot of more people on that show challenging him. Heck Grayson Waller, just give him just give it to Gray. Even at both heels. Let's just find a way. Let's do what used to do back in the days, old fashioned 20 man battle royal to win against the United States title. Let's just do that because no offense to Austin Fury, he's at that point where because of how much opportunities has that's been given to him, this title race should have elevated him because once he loses it, he should be main event. Kind of like Gunter right now as Intercontinental champion. No doubt once he loses that title, he's got straight for the main heavyweight championship with Austin Fury.

You look at me like I can see you adding a few more IC or United States title reigns to your belt because you're not quite there yet. Because it seemed like they were starting to use them. Right? Austin theory. But he's kind of regressed since Mania. So that's a whole different straight for another time. But in terms of the Bloodline storyline, I was pleased. But Jay should have won. That would have been more interesting. The United States of J.

The US of J.

The USJ. Yeah, that would have been great because it would have given us something different. Like you say in the United States title right now, nothing's happening. That would have been a shot in the arm. Even if it's just a month title reign or a couple of weeks title reign, it would have been better than what we have right now.

Yeah. I'll let you all in on a little behind the scenes tea here in the offices. There are discussions about like, oh, I wonder what topic Tempest is going to pick for the next Survival Series. And this and that. That is a common topic. And make sure you go and check out the latest one. Money in the bank winners over on parts of Unknown. But when everyone sits down, they always kind of have been saying for a day or so beforehand, boy, I hope it's not United States Champions because nobody can figure out anything that's happened with his belt lately. Because it so much has not mattered. It so much feels like just go down the list of priorities on WWE's list at the moment.

That's fascinating. You said that you should definitely go United States. I think now that you said that, that's like the shameless. It's got a title figure now. Actually. You should withhold no, don't do it. He should withhold it for the longest time. I want fans to start flooding their Twitter accounts, the YouTube channel, and say, we want US. Survival series. Trivia we want survival series. Trivia. We want United States. We want it. They should do that. You should do that down the line. I love the idea. You should do it. It is a great idea. When you said, I was like, why haven't you done it?

Because it's hard.

Exactly.

It's real hard.

This comes with someone I refuse to jub.

Yeah, but we'll see. I think the Jay should have won. I still think that the job done on this show in terms of the Bloodline was very good, especially for an episode that did not feature Roman Reigns. I think they progressed the story. I think they did a very good job with that. I just would have liked that to have gone a different way in the main event. But let us know what you thought about this whole episode of SmackDown, the developments in the Bloodline should Jay USO have won the United States Championship? Would you like to see that topic on an episode of Survival Series? Let us know all of the above in the comments.

Flood the twitter below. Flood the YouTube channel. Flood the twitters. Flood the patreon and demand it. And we're going to withhold it until you guys can't take it anymore. And then maybe as a Christmas present, boom.

Don't you book my show. I got plans for Christmas anyway.

December. December.

Yeah. Please make sure to like this video. Subscribe to the Wrestle Talk podcast channel if you haven't already. For the time being, we're going to get into the rest of SmackDown because there were also a lot of qualifying matches and championship implications on this show because we had our first match of the night, which was a Money in the bank qualifying match between Santos Escobar and Mustafa Ali. Now, this was a really fun match. It was a sprint. Like, it wasn't that long, but.

You.

Get a guy like Mustafali who will absolutely make the most out of like a six minute TV match. Yeah, it's not surprising. He's fantastic. I've been a big fan of Mustafali forever. Took a picture of him a few years ago at SummerSlam at Toronto. Good guy. This guy is someone I would have liked to have seen in Money in the bank. And we've been saying that about a lot of the different money in the bank qualifying matches, at least on the men's side, whether it be Montez Ford and La Knight. And I think that does, again, speak to the quality of WWE's roster right now. But in this match, it was Santos Escobar who got the win. There were a lot of really good highlights in this match. They did a Hurricane Ron into the floor, a Poison Ron in the ring topaz suicide dives. Mustafal Lee had a Tornado DDT in the ring and eventually it took an Avalanche phantom driver from Santos Escobar in order to get the win. La Knight was on commentary for this match. He didn't add a whole lot, but he's better on commentary than most WWE stars are.

And after the match, the rest of the LWO came down to ringside and they all celebrated together. Baby face win.

I liked it when you mentioned Mustaf Ali. I didn't become a fan of his until probably when he came to SmackDown and when he turned heel because I hated his feud with Cedric Alexander. Heart, soul. Show me your soul. Yeah. No offense, Mustafali. With a bodysuit. I wasn't a fan. Musafali, when he started wearing tights and his hair grew longer and he started cutting promos. Fan of that guy. Although he did have that bonehead moment when he didn't get the briefcase. How fast is Brock Lesnar? I don't know.

Not that fast.

But he was fast enough to prevent Mustafa Ali from getting the briefcase. There's been like moments where they've dropped the ball with him and he's one of those guys that he's really, really talented. Who knows, maybe because his contract is running up, he may be able to show it the true Mustafa Ali with the chains broken, but in this instance, because he's been in Money in the bank before. I can forgive why he lost because we've been saying on this channel for a while that LWL and Santos Escobar need signature victories. And this is the kind of output trajectory that we were hoping for. And I'm happy that Santos won. Who knows? Ali could potentially win the Last Chance Battle royal wherever they're going to do for the final spot for the money in the bank. But it was a good sprint of a match. It goes to show you, if you give these guys 20 minutes on a PLA, they're going to kill it. But I'm happy that it seemed like the Book of LWO since they've moved them away from Judgment Day has been increasingly better. Since Bad Bunny sprinkled his star power on the group, they've been on upward trajectory.

Who knows? Maybe Joaquin and Mendoza. Maybe. Is it Cruise de Toro? I think that's a trivia question.

Yeah.

Cruise de toro. Maybe they can go for the tag titles because it seemed like everyone in LWO, including Zelena, don't want to up with Trajectory, so yay.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. And as far as these two guys go, I would definitely have gone with Santos Escobar to be in the match over Mustafali, but I would still like to see both. Why not both? Very good match, though. Very good opener. Here we had the backstage bit with Jay USO and Sammy Zane that we've already talked about. And then we had a very interesting segment where Caleb Braxton brought out ayla dawn and Alba fire.

Unholy union.

Sure. She called them the NXT women's champion. And then Michael Cole was immediately, like, the NXT women's tag team champion.

What's the difference?

They are women's champion, it's true. But they come out and they don't get a chance to really say anything either until Ronda Rousey and Shayna Basler come out and they come all the way down to the ring. And I asked this in my edited review and obviously that hasn't gone out at the time that we're recording this, but I do not know the answer. Maybe you can tell me because Shayna Basler is like, I'll tell you some history about those titles. I'm the reason those titles even exist. And I for the life of me, cannot understand what the hell kind of point she was trying to make.

I don't even listen. I was trying to think when she said that, I was like, yeah, because at that time, when the title was invented, you were on the main roster. Yeah, that makes sense. Or was there a time that was she tag team champions when it was invented?

Her and naya. Because this is like going into no, wait a minute.

Exactly. Because I remember yeah, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Why was it created? No, but why was it created? You guys couldn't be fighting champions on different shows. Is she taking credit for the laziness? Yeah, that did stop me as well, because I was trying to figure out why. Because. In my head. You've never been NXT tag champions. The title was created when you're on the main roster. But was she Tag team champions when that happened?

I think she might have been. I think it was her and Naya because it was like just prior to WrestleMania 37, wasn't it?

But I feel like the champion at a time we were excited about them defending on different shows. You don't sound like the title to be excited about NYO defending tag titles. Yeah, we have to go back and find out the footage because it wasn't specified why we should fake Shayna Basila because for a lot of people that was a bad decision. Although I do feel like there was more useful tag teams than NXT because of it. Because Katana Chance and Kaden Carter put in a great tag match against Rhonda and Shayna this past Monday. By the way, it was a good match. It was a great introduction for that tag team. So for me, I'm quite excited to see what Shayna and Rhonda would do with the Unholy Union.

Well, anyway, this match or this line, that still is very questionable aside, they said that there is not enough teams in the division for all of them. And ain't that the truth? Because this then led to Isladon and Alba Fire accepting a unification match.

Who would do that?

I don't know. I don't know why, but sure, I'll roll with you because I am on board with this decision. Because this then broke down into a little brawl and it didn't last very long and they pulled apart and then they went their separate ways. So we're going to get a title unification. I reckon Ronda Rousey and Shana Bayesler will probably win that match and just be the undisputed women's tag Team Champion.

I have a question. Will they defend this undisputed tag titles on NXT? If yes, then yeah, I'm with that. If not, no.

I can't imagine Rhonda doing it.

It's weird to say this, but I feel like NXT have done well with their tag division. Better than the main roster tag division, actually. The title is ill advised, but I feel like since then you had more influx of tag team and there's been more focus on NXT of multiple female feuds. That's part of the reason why I'm happy with this feud, because it's more than Oscar's title, is more than just Bianca wants a rematch. It's more than the person we're going to talk about later that's made a return. There's more storylines going out. That for me, is the reason why I was happy initially with Shane and Ron to become a tag team because now the tag team have a storyline. Yay for women's wrestling. Give us more.

Agreed. I think we've pretty much covered it, though. Yeah, probably a good decision, but we'll see how it plays out. We had a very nice tribute package for the life of the Iron Chic rest in peace, Baba.

I'll make you humble.

Yeah. And after that, we got the next money in the bank qualifying match, that being EO Sky versus no, wait, sorry. It was Bailey versus Meachin. That one was later in the show, bailey versus Meachin. And this match was again, very short. Bailey goes to the outside. AJ Styles was on commentary this time, and Bailey was going up to him and being like, whoa, like this. And honestly, I remember virtually nothing from the match because it was basically a distraction for AJ Styles to have Scarlett blow red dust in his face.

It was Paprika.

Yeah, it was cinnamon. Got him to do the cinnamon challenge.

Yeah, that's what it was. Cinnamon, paprika mixed into his face.

And carrying cross choked AJ Styles out over the guardrail. And in that ensuing distraction, bailey was able to pin Meachin before Meechin kind of ran Scarlet off a little bit. And this was not in any way something monumental on this show. And it's just going to lead to, like, a mixed tag, and it'll probably hopefully be done there.

It was announced later on in the show it's going to be mixed tag.

Yeah, but hopefully that's then the end of this. But why do we still go in here? My tolerance for Carrie and Cross appears to be waning by the week. And you have been the one the one sat you've been the guy who has been trying to be Mr. Positivity when it comes to carrying cross.

I am.

And if we just got a few goddamn weeks of good TV with the guy, I would try and be positive, too. But like, oh, my God, I'm at my wits end about this guy.

Question.

Yeah.

So Carrion and Scarlett are more established as a duo. So on paper, should they win the match, he needs something. All right, remember, it's a mixed tag match. You can even have Scarlett pin Meachin, which itself sounds blasphemous, too, but he needs something because he's now verging on what people used to hate about Bray White's initial run, which is spooky, spooky, spooky, doesn't back it up. Spooky, spooky, spooky, doesn't back it up. So it's kind of like the next guy he feuds with, they should burst out laughing like, you're after me, show, bro. Come to the ring. Let's wrestle you're easy business. You never beat anyone. He needs signature victories, which he doesn't have. And unfortunately, he's almost becoming WWE's version of Chris Jericho, where people grow in the irof. He feuds with one of their favorites, right.

The carrying cross vortex.

Yeah.

I'm hoping this one doesn't go on too much longer. Next up, we had Bianca Bella backstage, and she's talking with Adam Pierce. And she's upset. Still, like, getting a little bit more of that NXT attitude, I've noticed. And that might just be because she's upset with her current situation, but maybe it's something more than that. It's something to keep an eye on nonetheless. And Adam Pierce has Oscar's championship presentation coming up after this, so needs Bianca to just not get involved. And he's like, oh, we'll get you a rematch. And she's like, all right, cool. Works for me.

Isn't it fascinating when someone's been champion for a long time and then they've been accused of kind stale because it's been the same thing day in and day out? The moment she loses the title, they've given her brand new motivation, which has conjured up emotions we haven't seen in her in a while. Because you've been used to Bianca coming out, thanking the fans and being all positive and happy. But now she lost the title, we've seen a side of her we haven't seen in a long time. And I'm really loving and appreciating it, making fans who's forgotten why they liked her in the first place. It's more relatable. She lost the title. And also, it's kind of reminded me of how they screwed up. They screwed over Bret Hart in 96 and 97 where they made him promises, and later on, those promises are not being kept. So I like that she's got valid motivations for why she's got a chip on her shoulder.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. Also reminds me of Christian when he lost the world heavyweight title and he was like, hey, defend the title against Randy Orton tonight on zero notice. And then a month later, he gets screwed over at the pay per view. And then he's like, Teddy, give me a rematch. And he's like, well, Christian, I can't do that.

I know. Why not?

Why can you not?

Anyway, I hate the hole in the logic when it comes to resting, you have to suspend your disbelief.

Yeah, you sure do. Especially when it comes with honor authority figures. Because next up, we did indeed have Oscar's title championship presentation. So Adam Pierce is in the ring. Oscar doesn't get Triple H. Oscar gets Adam Pierce.

Adam Pierce say that.

I'm just saying, one's the COO and one is whatever Adam Pierce's job title is. Oscar comes out with the Raw Women's Championship, and she hands it over. And Adam Pierce says, all right, I'm here to present you with the new WWE Women's Championship, and I'll give you three guesses as to what it looked like. Fans three, two, one. Yeah, you got it. First try. It is the WWE Women's Championship. The Raw Women's Championship. The SmackDown Women's Championship. Except instead of red or blue, it's gold. Just like the men's belt with white straps. With a white strap, it's just so lazy.

It is. But in terms of a lazy job, it's quite a nice looking lazy.

I think the gold on the belt looks better with the white strap than the men's one does. I've seen a few different mockups of various belts where if you literally just kind of tweak the colors and everything of it, it looks a lot better it makes it pop. But my God, you know when people were talking like a week ago about like, oh, we've seen like eight different belt reveals of the same belt over the last ten years. I said, add another one onto the list. It's the same sign for no.

Okay, so to make sense out of nonsense inventor's mind, you've got to get the W. That's the brand. They're pushing the brand. It used to be back in the days, it used to be subtle. The logo insignia used to be on the top. Right. And nowadays it's like, it's the main thing. It's in your face. It's the branding.

Can I counter this point?

Go ahead.

And I'll try and use corporate douchebaggery think, oh, yeah, because of course, look who we're dealing with. You want the branding? Sure. What about selling these belts to kids and everything? Like, think about the merchandising. I'm sure there are people who still have done it, but I have to imagine that these belts have taken a hit in merchandise sales since they made them all look the same. Like, if each of these belts looked completely different, the WWE Universal, the new one, the Undisputed, whatever, both the women's, they all look totally different. Would fans not be more inclined to buy all of them if you're one of those fans who buys all the belts and stuff, now that you said.

It, imagine someone's whole mantle. They got all the current.

It's just the same belt, like different colors.

You know what that is? Quite because you did say that hasn't taken a dip. I would like to actually look do research into it or fans in the comment section. Can you please do the research and put down the comments? If the belt merchandising has taken a dip in terms of sales, because all the belts look the same. The tag titles are next, by the way. They're next for rebranding. But I'm going to get excited next. I was getting excited because we're going to get a new design. We're just probably going to get the same penny, but gold.

Okay. Now that I've got that out of my system, I want to be positive for a second, because we have been talking since the draft about what they're going to do with this women's championship situation. Considering the belts were color coded and on the wrong shows, and we were sat there going like, are they going to fix this problem? They haven't fixed this problem yet. And it's been a little while and now both the well, RIA hadn't lost the title, but Bianca had. And you could have swapped the belts if you wanted to do that. I wouldn't have recommended it. What we got, title design aside, the solution that they came up with is by far the best possible solution they could have had.

Everyone suggested that as well. Yes.

Everybody at the time was talking about, you need to just stop color coding the belts, give them a non brand specific name, and that's the problem dealt with. And I will give them full credit. That is exactly what they did.

Bravo.

Well done. Now, to get to the actual point of this segment, because it is not the belt and everything, oh, no. Who makes her return to SmackDown. But Charlotte flair.

First time since WrestleMania.

First time since WrestleMania. And she comes out and she goes to the ring, and Adam Pierce says, no, Charlotte, you can't just cut in line. You have to wait in line. Charlote says, I don't wait in line. I am the line. I started the line.

That's a baby face.

I am the opportunity.

Yeah, and she is the line and the opportunity.

So Oscar and Charlotte go back and forth and Oscar says, like, no one respects you more than me. You know, that boils down to I want a title shot. I want a shot at your championship. And Oscar speaks in Japanese and then she spits missed at Charlotte. But I made the same joke on the edited review. She missed.

I love it. Soak that in. That's a great pun. I love that joke.

Charlotte bounced Oscar's head off in a little presentation podium thing, and then she rolled to the outside and it was announced because she accepted the championship match in her Japanese. She may have said it in English in the middle of it, I can't remember. But the bottom line is she accepted the title match and they are having a championship match the night before Money in the bank, which seemed very OD, makes me believe that they'll do like a three way at the pay per view with Bianca, maybe, because otherwise, why is that not just the pay per view match?

Right now, let's also talk about the other elephant in the room. Charlotte always wins.

There is this.

For me, what makes me laugh about the whole segment is I actually predicted this back, a Night of Champions. I said that if Oscar wins against Bianca, she'll lose to Charlotte Flair. Albeit I didn't think it'll be this early that Charlote will come back and challenge for the title. But now that she has, I'm cautiously optimistic because I feel like they're playing on the trope of Charlotte always wins. Because the whole point of is to create that sense of doubt. I mean, we can't always predict who's going to win. They're going to feed into the fact that Oscar never has beaten Charlotte one on one as a hook for us to watch the show to see if it happens. But obviously we've got someone that's a bit disgruntled don't want the title back. And I think that person may play a hand in what's going to happen. And I think it might be starva's storyline going into SummerSlam, what's going to happen.

Yeah, I think that is also likely. Thinking about it more, I think it's also possible that you could see like a DQ or something like that in the SmackDown match, and then that leads to some sort of rematch, possibly triple threat, whatever at money in the bank. I don't know. I do think you're completely right in that Charlotte has that kind of feeling about her that John Cena used to have, where it's just like you go into a match, and the matches that I always cared the most about were the ones where I really wanted to see someone beat John Cena. Because there's always the possibility, regardless of if it's the right booking decision or not, that Cena would win anyway. Charlotte's very much the same way. I think that Charlotte versus Oscar could could be a very good match. I would bet that it would be. I don't want to see the title in Charlotte's hands anytime soon.

What I want, by the way, is Oscar to be better defined, her character, because at the moment, because we love her, she's already done bad things to Bianca. I want to see her. The issue with Ask on the main roster is we've never got her motivations.

Yes, I completely agree. And this is what I was saying earlier.

She's been a walking title holder. That's what she does. It could work if they made her definite how? Every week. I think that's what got her over, the fact that she was a fighting champion. So you didn't really know her motivation. It's just you're next. No one's ready. You're next. No one's ready. You're next. That's been her type of story. But on the main roster, where they pride more storytelling, more complex or layered storytelling, they haven't evolved her character, and there's a great time to do that. Don't use the whole language barrier thing. There's ways you can go around it. I'm happy they're letting EO and Oscar speak in a native language because they're more comfortable in it. You can see it in a presentation of delivery, and you should go more with that. It doesn't matter if you want to use subtitles or whatever you want to use in order for us to understand. And I don't care if I don't understand it. I just love how passionate they are when they speak it because I can kind of tell where it's going. It sounds negative. So she's saying something negative. It sounds happy.

So she's saying something happy. I don't mind. But there's more you can do with Oscar for being champion. It can't be, oh, well, we don't have to book her. Blah, blah. No, you can book her as Champion. We need to know her motivation. It would be interesting if this title run is the defining title run for her.

Amen to that. I fully agree.

Corporate. I don't know if you can tell because I'm trying not to do the sniffles. Because I can tell. It might sound bad in the microphone if I do sniffles. So I'm legit trying to not.

ASMR disgusting ASMR we had the backstage segment with Jay, USO and Paul Heyman after that. And then also backstage, bianca Beller is pissed because she was going to get a title shot. And then we saw what just happened there and Adam Pierce was like, I'll handle it.

No, what happened was he was bragging on the phone. It wasn't like he was sorry. He was like, this is great. I couldn't plant him better myself. Asking Charlote Flair. And they're like, oh, all right. He wasn't even sorry about it. He got caught cloating on the phone saying it's a box of his match and he's so happy. And then you go, oh, yeah. See, Chelsea Green's onto something. M. Pierce, you sometimes are not good at your job.

You don't say. Anywho, we then had our next money in the bank qualifying match between Butch and Baron Corbin. Another very short match. A lot of the matches on the.

Show were very short, very attitude eraesque.

Yeah, this was definitely a show for segments and angles as opposed to matches. And I saw it still a good one. But this next match, butch and Baron Corbin had Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams in the front row at ringside from NXT. Carmelo Hayes, the NXT champion. They are engaged in an NXT feud with Baron Corbin. And I find it hilarious that Baron Corbin can't buy a win on the main roster, but he's supposedly feuding with the NXT champion down there. But what have you? I'll roll with it. And Baron Corbin cuts another promo before the match saying that I'm a knock you guys down again if you send you back to NXT and such after I qualify so I can win money in the bank again. I try and forget that Baron Corbin won money in the bank the first time.

I actually forgot that, too. Yeah, but he had a different look back in the day.

He sure did. He sure did. And this match again, very short. Butch ran at him, took him down, focused on the hand, did joint manipulation. Baron Corbin hit him with a back breaker at one point, and that was really all of the offense that he managed to get in. And Butch snapped his fingers and Baron Corbin got back in the ring, went for a choke slam. Butch rolled through into kind of like a cross arm breaker looking juji, and instead just like, rolled him up and hooked a leg. And Corbin could have kicked out, but it's fine. It's nitpicky. And Butch wins. That's good. I like that. It is the proper decision because Man's coming home to England and I don't think he's going to win, but I think if he's going to come out as Pete Dunn, that would be a really cool time to do it.

I was going to ask you, if you ask when they're going to announce pete done the ovation and the cheering.

Do you imagine he comes out to his old music.

The saddest thing is, okay, I can't say he won't because Sammy Zayn has proven that you could still go CFOs. His CFO's theme is elite. I love it. That music just pulsates. And then you feel that sense of dread and he does that thing to his cheeks when his music's blaring. Oh, chills. The other one he had I'm like, what makeshift song? Who made that? You know what, it's not time for SATS rants because I can't breathe. Yeah, go back to original.

So after this match, of course, baron Corbin goes over and he punches trick Williams, gets punched by Carmelo Hayes, and then they get pulled apart by referees and security and everything. You go backstage and Butch is very happy, said I'm going to go home where every night is fight night. And he's with the brawling brutes and they're chanting and Baron Corbin walks there, he's like, no, that wasn't fair. Wow. And then Cameron Grimes walks up behind him, taps him on the shoulder, punches and puts him into the shutter doors and then leaves him laying. Because last week, Cameron Grimes said that the next time he sees baron Corbin on SmackDown, he's going to drop him.

That's a weird motivation. Cameron Grimes. You've beaten, Baron Corbin. You know you should do challenge Austin Fury. Challenge Austin Fury, by the way, come on, you have to admit, right? I know you don't want to admit. I don't want foolishness to admit. Baron Corbin is good in his row.

No, baron Corbin in these small doses I think is fine. See, here's the thing, baron Corbin as someone to come out here and lose a qualifying match against somebody he's not in a feud with and go backstage and be whiny and complainy and then get laid out again, I think is totally fine. My issue then comes with when that guy is the first feud for someone like Cameron Grimes, because it makes Cameron Grimes feel like why are you kind of wasting your time with this guy who you just beat in 8 seconds? I know Baron Corbin attacked him from behind out a week after that, I get it. But you get caught in the Baron Corbin vortex and it's just been so many guys first feud after being called up from NXT and it just makes me feel like they are unimportant by association.

I think Baron Corbin is good in ring performer for men of his size. He could be a lot worse in a ring. And he's decent on a microphone. And when given, I feel like booking has been the reason why in the beginning it was because his social media posts would get him in trouble, hence why he didn't win past money in the bank. But I feel like he has matured as a person and I'm hoping a man of that size, he's six foot six, legit, with proper fine tuning, he can be a monster Hill again. I feel like he's got it in him. You could have a lot worse people on the main roster. That's what I'm saying. That's the reason why I'm caping for it. Because he's not as bad as the Internet make him out to be. He's actually kind of underrated and selfless as well. To be put in that kind of like, whose neck did he break to be punished like that?

Listen, I think no matter what happens, I don't think I can ever forgive him for Happy Talk.

Really?

Doing my SmackDown reviews and having to listen to Happy Talk every single week for like six and nine months or whatever. I couldn't do it.

Interesting. If it was me, if it was a question, why do you think Tempest does not like Baron Corbyn? I would have said GM run or he beat Karango.

I mean, those are also good reasons. That Happy Talk show that he had with Madcap Moss, where Madcap was just telling annoying ass jokes.

It's madcap you don't like?

I also don't like madcap. I didn't like either of them. Madcap, they're on every show.

Madcap dragged him down. He's good by himself. Corbin. Corbin. When he comes to London corbin, you're going to get a chance for me, Corbin.

Not for me. We had another Money in the bank qualifying match. However, the last one on this show as EO Sky faced Shotsy. And this was a really funny match because again, short Shotsy was just being pestered by Bailey the entire time. The bell rings and Bailey reaches for Shotsy's foot in the corner reaches for it. And they go back and forth a little bit and they end up on the top rope. And Bailey's trying to grab at Shotsy again. And she kind of gets kicked away. And it looks like EO is going to hit her with a superplex. But EO gets dropped into the ring and the referee goes to check on her. And that's when Bailey hops up onto the apron and pulls Shotsy's leg out. So she falls and lands. And then EO hits the moonsault and wins. Now that's the right decision. EO sky should be in money in the bank. Absolutely. I would like to see her maybe even win money in the bank. Maybe.

Well, the funny thing is, yeah, I want EO to win. But as a part of me think Bailey could potentially win, I think either.

Of them would be very good choices. Yeah, but holy hell, where is Shotsy's backup in this situation? She's a Raw show is so stupid. I can't stand this draft stuff, to be honest.

Right. You know what? Yeah, I know you're getting that. Yeah. Tegan Knox.

Sure.

Right? That could be a great time for her to come back.

Is she not on Raw, too?

I don't know who's on Raw?

It doesn't matter.

I don't know. Dana is Dana brooke.

Point is they came out just like a few weeks ago and said that Raquel was Shotsy's new partner. Why would they do that if they were going to be on different brands? So they could just be a team.

For one tag match anyway. I think that's what they didn't say, that print was the fine print tag team for only one match in the case. If they lose, in case they win, she would go. I'm assuming we're filling in the blanks that we shouldn't fill in, right?

Yeah, I'm trying my best here and it's like people go through stretches where they hate damage control and they're all like, no, we must take down damage control. We must be united. And then matches like this happen where damage control is running amok and then no one comes to save Shots. And it's a small thing, I guess.

But as of right now, do you think damage control could be saved?

Not really, because it's been a while since they did. I think there could be something fun between Bailey and EO. I think there's still something on the table to do there in terms of.

Match teaming up, image a team that.

Breaks up, what have you. There's a story to be told between Bailey and Eosky, for sure. And I think adding money in the bank into the mix there would be great fun. Maybe Bailey beats RIA Ripley and then EO cashes in on her or vice versa. I think there's loads that you could do with I'll Sing.

They might go with a Sandal Cody route of like Bailey betrays a partner and takes the briefcase and then EO win, too. We can win the briefcase off Bailey and then go and cash it in.

On whoever does EO beat Oscar and then Bailey cash in on EO.

That's another option, but it's kind of like, how would EO have to win the number one contender if she loses money in the bank? Yeah, that could be an option. There's many options, but I'm excited. If anything, it should be EO that defronts Oscar, but Oscar at least give it a title to, I don't know, Survivor Series or something, if you're itching that hard. Or Royal Rumble. You know what, I just want Oscar to win at WrestleMania, for goodness sake. Sort of worst streak going.

Yeah.

Bloody heck.

Yeah. So the last thing on the show that we haven't talked about because we had Austin theory's, backstage promo was a backstage interaction between all of the tag teams in the world. And it was a bizarre little segment, very funny staging because it was Kevin Owens and Sammy Zayn who were there and they were just talking about whatever Sammy stuff, upset about the bloodline, as per usual, and they get interrupted by pretty deadly. And then you just keep adding tag teams to this mix. You had the OC, you had the LWO, you had the Brawling Brutes, you had street profits. Street profits. And Adam Pierce like, Pops. Out of nowhere.

What's going on here?

What's going on? And Kevin Owens is like, no, stop it. I can't take anymore because I love Kevin Owens gimmick of, like, just hating wrestling. Tropes. It's fantastic. And Adam Pierce announces that all of those teams will compete in a gauntlet match for a shot at the tag team titles, I believe, next week.

And everyone went, hooray, legit hooray.

And that was SmackDown. All in all, I think it was a pretty good show. Like, it wasn't a wrestling heavy edition of SmackDown. The opening match, I thought, was by far the best match on the show. Really fun, that, but all the matches had stakes. I liked that a lot. We had important things happening on the show, which is not always the case with Roman Reigns not present, whether that be the bloodline stuff or in this case, a new belt being presented and Charlotte flair's return and a title unification match set for further down the line. So a pretty monumental SmackDown. I'd probably give this SmackDown like a four out of five.

You're never bored with SmackDown. Because I feel like it kept going. It's not like a lot of filler. I feel like everything was set even to the point where they announced a lot of match for next week as well, which is quite exciting. So I liked it. Even though SmackDown tends to be the wrestling show, for a show that didn't feature a lot of wrestling, it featured a lot of things that are set up for next week. So hopefully next week will be a more wrestling heavy show. But, yeah, I really enjoyed it, and I can't wait to see what Roman Reigns thinks about all of this. It's J. I realize we didn't do a fusion. Do you want to do a fusion?

It's never too late.

Give me that strength. I need it.

Very good. I'll give you my strength. So that wraps up our SmackDown review. But before we go, of course, we have some very special people to thank, those being our $25 and above pledgehammers over@patreon.com WrestleTalk, where if you subscribe to the $25 and above tier, you can get your own custom wrestling nickname read out on a show just like this one, such as He Brings the Fear. Amir Jones.

Yeah.

Andrew Gifford.

The big red dog. Yeah.

The Shrock. Master Austin Shrock.

Yeah. Bob the Ninja goldfish. Yeah.

Sean Michael's. Biggest Fan. Bret Guy.

Yeah. The eco warrior Brian. Yeah.

Chris hellfire, brimstone.

Yeah. Infinite crisis. Chris Jenkins. Yeah.

Chris the secret sensation petru.

Yeah. The turtleneck tyrant. Christian Cooper. Yeah.

All star. Chuck Turner.

Yeah.

Cody the terminator moody. Yeah.

And shout out to Cody The Terminator Moody. He's one of the people that got a cameo from me this week. I'm on cameo now, so make sure you check out tempest on cameo. If you want a cameo, I'll do a cameo for you.

If you want us to hug on Cameo, I'll do it as well. Yeah, just send in the cameo on Saturdays while I'm here, and you'll get content of me hugging him or a high five. You want a hot tag?

Hell, yeah. So make sure of course, subscribe to all the channels like this video. If you haven't, leave the comments down below. Who do you think is going to win money in the bank? What did you think of the bloodline segments on this show? What do you think of the new belt? What do you think Charlotte's going to do now that she's back? Let us know the answers to all of the above. Make sure that you give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe. Pardon me? If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to all the other Wrestle Talk and Wrestle Talk adjacent channels and we will see you next time.

The house always wins.

Jim, I jam. Jim jam. Jim I jam. Jim I jam. You dunstoor's Double Savers makes midweek meals simple and affordable. Step one cook your Dunstor's Penny pasta just 70 cent. Step two dice and roast an obergine and a courgette, just 49 cent each. Step three add cherry tomatoes and some €1.09 cent Greek feta cheese. Step four enjoy a delicious pasta dish for just four euro. 25. Then savor the till with our five of 25 grocery vouchers. Double Save grizz from dumb stores. Always better value terms and conditions apply that you can be used on. Next instore grocery shop of 25 euro or more.