The Cycle of Wrestling Fandom

Hello and welcome to the WrestleTour podcast here every Tuesday and Thursday and by God next week , Monday as well. And this Wednesday and Wednesday because there are too many shows , not so many shows , too many shows, too many shows. You're not gonna get in the club with that many shows in the line with you. Go out, find some normal TV episodes. Maybe we'll let you in. Yeah, and no before you ask, we're not doing slam anniversary predictions. What? Well, I don't think TNA know either . Is anyone even there anymore ? So this weekend there are in chronological order probably some CML stuff , probably something AAA and then the big ones TNA's anniversary where they have teased an ex WWE TITLE HOLDER WOW. NOT Champion. Nope, that screams twenty four seven it screams twenty ten TMH Then we've got then we've got not crown jewel. It's called WWE Night of Champions . That's because crown jewel is when they face each other, the champions for the ring. The ring. We remember that. Then it is a ring? No, different kind of ring. Then on Sunday it is NXT Great American Bash . Then on Sunday night it's AEW forbidden door. Correct . So on Monday , you and Dan Layton are going to review the AW E show? Yes, because crucially, you missed a really important event that's happening in within all of that, which is that you're getting married and I'm going to be there on the Saturday. And Dan? And Dan as well, which means on Sunday we will not be doing a review of W WE and it's a crown jewel Night King of the Ring Yes Nighting Champions . Not gonna do that on the Sunday. There won't be an edited review on the Sunday either . Instead, we're going to do it on the Monday and that will be a dual review, edited review of Night of Champions and Forbidden Doll, which means I've got to watch both shows on Monday morning. You could watch one of them. You can watch Night of Champions on Sunday, hungover. Yeah, well, Dan and I was talking about this yesterday. I was like, I might watch Night of Champions on Sunday evening . I just yeah, I guess I can watch you've got to do it that way. There's no way you'll be able to cope otherwise. I get up at three AM to watch it. Well , while a Forbidden Door is still on, I'll watch Night of Champions and then by the time that Forbidden Door is finished, I can tune in to watch the replay of Forbidden Do. But again, then there'll be the podcast review will also be Night of Champions and Forbidden Do . And for the sake of anyone being like, Where's your bias at? You know, which one are you gonna do first? I'm gonna flip a coin. Oh , are you not just going to jump between do a couple of AW matches one WWE match? No because that is trying to please everyone and you'll please no one. So I'm going to flip a coin pass the buck and then whichever one it lands will be the one I review first on the video . If you thought a Dan and Luke podcast couldn't get any longer , try putting two paper views in it. One of which is an AEW show as well, which is going to have like, I don't know, five hundred matches on it. So it could be a three hour show It certainly is going to be pushing two . I don't think it'll get to three, but I think we can certainly I mean, actually yeah, Dan, 'cause I think if Down was here, we would get an hour and a half out of just night of champions . You gotta cut that guy off Don't let him go on any little tangents about baking and don't talk about any drives you've recently had which is fun because I haven't been on one. Good. Although I was actually on the M twenty five. Okay, let's move past that. Yes, so I think on Monday, probably looking at a plus two hour episode where we review both of those paper views in full , but not TNANIVERSY and NOT NXT Great American Bash. I'm not reviewing shows no one's watching. The yeah, because I will be on my honeymoon for the next two weeks. I'll make my return mid July when I'm then off for a week when you're off for a week and then we reunite on the road to Summer Slam like a proper WWE promotion where they just fudge all the star power in the final two weeks the rating bous backnced up , we can take credit for it. Everyone will forget about the terrible six weeks of build and just focus on my God, it's been a great final two, hasn't it? And then what we were going to do live reactions for SummerSam, weren't we? We still are. Yeah, great. So yeah, it'll be a fun time at the end of July. But yes, I'm Ollie Davis. I'm joined by Luca in DAD. If you haven't already, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast from on YouTube, on Apple podcasts, on Spotify , this episode is brought to you by Do the Hustle oo the Hustle. That's right, hustle in heaven is this Friday. Get your tickets in the link in the video description down below. It's our local promotion. It's our favorite promotion to go and see shows out. Don't tell all the others, but it's my favorite show to go to and I'm super stoked. I'm gusted I can't go to this show again because of the wedding. Yeah, yeah, I will be literally getting married . That's the only reason why we're not there. Yeah, I tried to I tried to push the wedding back so I could go to this. They said you can't do that a week before the wedding. Yeah, we tried to call Tony Carne and ask him to push back for bit of door a week as well. He didn't return our calls though Yeah Yeah., I won't I won't tell a story . We almost spoke to Tony Khan. Yeah. Oh, I am telling the story. Yeah. We did get offered an interview with Tony K han to promote all in and they gave us a list of topics to discuss and we all thought we thought all of those were pretty boring topics to discuss. So we thought it would be really funny if we just asked him to why did you count a program Ollie's wedding? Yeah . And then I was I had sign off from my fiance to invite him to the wedding . Evening guest, of course. But that's the sort of thing he might just show up . Yeah, he might do. Unless there was a collision on Saturday, I don't know if they were pre taping it. There could be a footners no fulham game as the World Cup but he could have just shown up , made my day and then gone to Forbidden Door? Yeah. They actually did give Fulham as the reason why the interview did not go ahead. Apparently, he was busy with Fulham related duties . But yeah, we're going to ask him about why he had to programmed your wedding and what does Shane McMahon smell like? Yeah, what do you think he smells like? Shay McMahon. Yeah . I too much cologne. Yes, but which cologne? Jupe ? Invictus. Invict what's Invictus? The one that looks like the Damon Runny Fell. It looks like a little trolley. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think he smells like that, but too much of it. Yeah. Like you probably need like two sprays then walk into it. He's like on the wrists, on the neck, then the spray walk through and then a couple of little extra ones just in case that will make Daddy love me . What do you think Shayne McMahon smells like money Money cars? Yeah, let us know in the comments. While we find stuff to talk about for this episode of Raw. I mean, I'll say go by the patron comments. People really like this episode. Yeah, going by the online reaction in general, I thought this was a bang average episod e of Raw with a lackluster British crowd. Really surprisingly lackluster British crowd and I thought maybe it's just how it came across on TV. It was like huge during the main event when they were chanting for CM Punk. I was like, Huh , this crowd did not seem all that into the vision possibly losing the tag titles or the straight profit possibly winning the tag titles. Maybe it's just how it's coming across on TV. So I text Dan Layton because he was there last night and he was like, No, it was a weird, a weird vibe. And it kind of reflects what I said about WW E last year, which is that once the entrances are over , the wrestling fancy was to stop beingped interested in the show. Yeah, they like entrances, they like finishes generally, they like interference. They like angles , they like in ring segments, but I don't know if you've watched this video some guy made last week. They're not into the wrestling. Not really. And that's because WWE hasn't prioritized the wrestling, so it doesn't feel special. Well, case in point, apparently during the Jimmy Usso LA nightmatch, when they went through to the commercial break, the wrestling was so boring because they were in a commercial break because they weren't doing any wrestling really, that the fans entertained themselves by doing football chants. And tonight's SmackDown taping that's in the O two is really being advertised more as a get together to watch the football than it is to come and watch SmackDown. In fairness to them though, I've got I watch SmackDown on a weekly basis. I've got no interest to go and see SmackDown at the z twoero tonight . Zero interesting. It's literally down the road and I could not want to go see it less . But sticking around to watch the football afterwards, I bet you that would be well fun. Yeah on a big screen with everyone there. Yeah, well he Mr Brightside in a half time? sixty quid a ticket? It's thirty quid for smackdown thirty quid for the football. Is it? Well, no man. I would say because the tickets are going for sixty quids. Oh , so I would say you could probably split that in half of like I'm paying thirty quid for SmackDown thirty quid for the football. Isn't that wonderful market correction of prices? Oh, no one's buying our tickets to our substandard product at these astronomical fees . I guess we got to bring the prices down. Yeah , but I'm not going to that either. I actually did bump into a couple of fans on the train yesterday who was like, oh, thank you so much for the shows. Really love your videos and everything . And they said, Are you going to Raw because they were literally on the train going to North Greenwich? And I was like, No . No, I'm not. No, I'm going home to be with my child . And also, I'll be honest with you, I did forget the Raw was in London this week. Yeah , it is a, I don't know how we come across sometimes because when people ask us that we do go for No . Well, you don't but it's a dream, right? To cover wrestling all the time. Yeah, but we've been to a lot of WWE shows . Last year's was awesome. Because of the John Cena stuff . But yeah, it's not an enjoyable experience live to watch a TV thing. No, I would say that when we went last year it was way better than when we went in twenty seventeen. That was diabolic that was so bad it put us off ever going ever again. Yeah, but we've been to some raw tapings after us that have been okay, but it's just like I'm not desperate to go and see them. Like I'm not like laying down a lot of money to go and see it. Well, two things of note definitely happened here of what we would call actual storyline advancement because after fifteen months certainly fourteen, fifteen months, yeah. So this is going back to WrestleMania forty one where there's the whole Bailey Lyra Becky thing. Actually was that was last that was last year . Yeah. And then Bailey disappeared for a bit. She came back, had a split personality , which was a thing for a period. Then it was dropped . Lyre of Alkiri, their friends, they have these on off tag team push es. I think they're very good as a tag team and actually weirdly, Lyra through this relationship with Bailey and some spectacularly wooden acting . I've fallen in love with her. Yeah, I really find her endearing. I think she's I've always thought she's great in the ring but I didn't like quite get the character appeal. Weirdly now sincerely like her, not even ironically like her. I really like Lyri ofar Valkyria. They haven't really been telling a breakup story. It's just like every now and then Lyre will go Oh I've got to win this title ahead of this tag title match they had against Paige and Bribella Pa page she's from here . Well, she's from close to here, yeah. She's from the country. She's from the country. She's from Michael God is like, she's from Norwich, which isn't actually that far from London. Yeah. So they're defending their tag titles and as soon as they had, not for Paige, not like a video profile on page or a promo from Page, it's great to be back here in show the Knight family, all two hundred of them at Ringside. Look, there they are. There's my family. You know, rather than put the focus of British wrestling. The focus on the Knight family and Page . Maybe is Ricky still with AW? I can't remember. Blue's clue, actually. They had this back stage interview with Bailey and Lyra Valkyria. And as soon as Lyra was like, We need to win this title, I thought, Oh, Lyra's turning heel at the end of this match. It felt like they were on a storyline path about Bailey getting a match at WrestleMania because she lost that chance at WrestleMania forty one and that's why she was like really kind of trying to latch onto this Lyra of Alberia thing so she can get this WrestleMania match that she was denied the year previous. It felt like they just stopped telling that story. They definitely stopped telling the split personality thing they were doing with Bailey and now they've just been there and now they've split up. And it's weird because that's the one that feels like it's actually st ory progression because a thing has happened within it. And I guess I got kind of frustrated a little bit with the I quite liked the Alfred Academy segment got later on it was definitely one of the better things on this show . But I was kind of frustrated last week and I am again this week of like, well just can we move this Austin Theory story forward at the same time because you've been doing this now for like three months and you've not moved to the first beat of the or past the first beat of the story. So they've actually moved to the next beat of this Bailey Lyria thing, but it is kind of within these sort of muddy waters of not quite sure what the story was, but they have actually moved something forward. Do you remember at the end of last year and the women's tag division was one of the best things in all of wrestling . Yeah . But then the ticket sales for WrestleMania were low. So I'm just saying remember, I just like remembering things that were good . Not even that long ago. So they have a match. Like with a lot of Page's matches, I don't feel like she does particularly much and they're quite short . I don't know if they're protecting both Paige and Bree here or whatever. There's a really interesting bit of patreon feedback we'll get to later around page Lyra for her part was really focused like she attacked Bri, I think right as the bell rang and Brie had her back turn. So Lyra's like I'm in this to win this and Michael Cole is putting over so much man, they they've got a lot riding on this. They're putting too much pressure on themselves. Yeah, I get it . They're going to one of them's going to break up with the other and then it's Lyra who takes the pin from Paige and the Rampage . There was a light hey bailey chant in all of this. So from what Dan said is that because he said that was one of his examples of it didn't feel like a UK crowd in , you know, to paraphrase what he was saying. And this is like one of the points of it because usually if Bailey wrestles , there is a loud hey Bailey chart. But it's quite light here and from what I can gather at least going to Dan, it's because there were two sides that were trying to get it started, but they weren't quite in sync with each other , so it never really caught fire. So they tried a chance but it just didn't catch on which I think is the story of most of the chance of leaving is that someone a pocket tried to get it started but none of them caught fire . So about five minutes of TV time when you take out the commercial break. Bailey helps Lyra to her feet and they hug , but then Lyra turns on Bailey, beats her up . Again, didn't really get a reaction. Yeah, it was like a we're booing because it's a heel turn and that's what we're supposed to do, but it's not like a verocious genuine heat towards Lyra. There's been no real story or recent emotional investment into these two characters together. Yeah. So you can't just they're kind of like a cold act , they don't really have a storyline and you've made one turn on the other. Yeah. And now we're emotionally affected by the characters are I should say the crowd probably are not. But they'll have a good match at SamumusmerSl. It's Sunday night's main event. I hope I don't know that goes to DQ. I hope this means something for Lyra. I think A Lyra and Bailey series will be very good in ring and I hope Lyra comes out as I don't know how she'll perform as a heel . No, I don't know either, but A Liv needs some people to go up against. When there was a chat to those guys on the train yesterday, you know, they were making the point of like it's ridiculous that lives within this tournament. And I was like, yeah, it's there to set up the Year sky match in the year competitor into the finals and then they can set up the match for SummerSlam. The most damning thing is though is that that's the best you had. Stephanie Vacher got injured and you're like, Oh, we've tried nothing. We're all out of ideas. What she needs are some challenges. My hope is that this Lyra can try and advance her up the card somewhere and try and create some challenges for Liv Morgan who was just bereft of them at the moment because everyone just feels like they're in the same they're all at the same level and that same level is Sol Ruckers Intercontinental Championship unless EO beats Liv for the title and Lyra can be EO's first challenger because Lyra beats Bailey in their feud. Yeah, as long as we are setting up some more main event feeling stars within the women's division, then I'm all for that Well, the show began, that was sort of the opening match, but the show's opening segment one of the better things on the show. It was Ober Femi coming out. He does the walk, everyone's going crazy for it. The crowd want to do the long thing where Ober just stands there for five minutes, soaking in the Ober chance and if it was Roman or if it was Seth they would do and it would be ten minutes before anyone did anything . But Ober fricking love this guy just went, all right enough for the title. I'm gonna win King of the Ring . Yes . And then Jayuso's music hit because he was like, The only question is, should I cash in my shot on the world heavyweight or the WWE title and Jay comes out I thought of you because he ran it back. Well yeah, it's what is his character who are who is Jay Uso Michael Cole was said a more focused Jayuso, not the usual fun loving Jay Uso that we're used to seeing. And then in the middle of the ring is this goofy doing the thing and then running it back. I'm like, okay , what I what is he then? Are you super serious ? JUSO right hand man or are he the guy that does the entrance? Because you can't be both and then I mean I like it when he does the entrance because then you get the gas promos, which are always hilarious. He's so bad at it to give like Jay the benefit of the doubts. When he came out for the entrance , everyone was doing the the yeast and he was more he was doing some ye ating, but not as much eating as normal. He was more doing a sort of badass arms out pose . And when he did the run it back thing, Obel was like, Don't you dare run it back? So it was kind of a mark of disrespect to Ober because they're going to be fighting in the King of the Ring Final. The version he did last week was much better where he teased like he was going to do it then didn't do it so I mean I didn't like it. I was just trying to justify I could see a justification there. Still got gas on it. But that's the problem . If you do that and you're all badass and you run it back and you get an Oba's head, then don't sound out of breath Ober the ring because I think you're gonna lose very quickly in the match . I don't even get gassed. He lost himself at the start of his program. Oh my god it's so bad at it. It's crazy that Oba's hearing here six months on the main roster or however you want to frame it and Ober just looks so confident and at home on the mic, he is instantly just there in charisma and performance . And here's Jay who's been on the main roster for a hundred years . He's had this main roster push for two years now and he can he can't even get through do you remember when he first won the Incontinental title? Yeah, and he came out and he did that promo and he was out of breath and he lost his way and everyone was like that's endearing and I was like I didn't find it that endearing and I thought it was a bit sloppy. But I guess, you know, like it'll just be this week . No But how's he not got better? Well, yeah, it's unreal, right? That's what they kept saying, his cardio is ter rible. Poor LA Knight . He does a few timing issues. He sucks. Sell some t shirts, you're a big moron . And so Oberhill was excellent . He said that Jay Jay said some stuff was out of breath. The problem with his gas promos and him losing his way is that he then doesn't have the big line to end off with, but he sounds like he ends it off with a big line, but it gets no reaction. So then thankfully Oba's there to pick up the pieces. It's like, you take your shots and take them across to your cousin. Yeah, because Jay said he's gonna win, he's going to choose Cody Rhodes's WWE title. I thought he should have at least given lip service to the fact that it could be Gunther or Sami Zayn , which actually made me think Cody's not coming out of this weekend as champion. Yeah, you got a big theory about this, which we'll go into that on the prediction show . I mean, it's on the news episode if you want to hear it there as well, but in discussion format, let's talk about it on the prediction show tomorrow . But Ober said it's not you're not the family member I'm worried about. All these bullets you've got, give them to your cousin s I'm going to win King of the Ring and I'm going to beat him. So it was really like really exciting stuff from Ober, I thought. And I mean, am I looking forward to the match because I've just got a lot of trepidation behind the results. It's kind of like the Brock Match Imagia, right? That's what everyone had with that, which is I'm really looking forward to the match, but also because I just want Ober to win and we had the same thing at the Italy match as well. You know, Brock's then just getting in the series of being like, oh no, I don't want this match. I guess it's probably the same thing with the J match. I still think Ober's winning. Yeah. Do you? I've still spoiled my prediction tomorrow. I have got Obertwinking of the Ring. The best thing they can do is have Oberwinking of the Ring , have Oberbeat Brock on night one and then have Oberbeat Roman on night two. My pitch for the last couple of weeks? Yeah, exactly what I think they should do. I looked into it and I was like I was like, how old was the rock when he first won his duck? I was like, wait a second, how old was Brock Lesnar? Because he won it at Summer Slam from the Rock in two thousand two, he was twenty five years old. And had been on the main roster for like three months. Yeah, at that point because he came up after mania. This is the story to tell. You've got the blueprint already. Oberfemi is twenty eight. It's sure you've got time . There's age inflation, twenty eight's the new twenty five . Do it now . Don't wait till Mania next year, but unfortunately, as you'll see in my predictions tomorrow, I think they will wait because that's what they always do. Yeah. Bet on triple H being complacent and you'll usually make your money back. It's not what I want. I'm trying to predict what I think will happen . Backstage, Ella Knight confronts Adam Pierce talking about Jacob Fatu and how he should be fired after what he did. Jimmy Usay walks in, he talks about how he was trying to help Knight last week and Pierce put them both in a match. Good stuff . I like that. Then we got the women's tag match. Jackie tried to speak to Lyra afterwards, but Lyra just stormed past her . Chad Gable came out his new music is pony and he just got a really nice promo about how he's lost his self respect over the last year, his dignity and some friends too. And he invites Alfred Academy. Where the hell are the Creeds ? They left in Mexico. What were their names? The other American . Yeah, but oh my god, what were their names? It's not Rio and Bravo. Is it Julio? Yeah . Julio and Brutico . Americanos . And he invites the Alpha Academy down to the ring and Chad does a really nice set. He's so good on the mic. He's got such a motion as does Otis Nakira. Yeah, Maxine's actually they're all four of them. I thought Maxine was awesome in this segment. All four of them are terrific because Maxim did Chad apologizes to Akira, he apologizes to Otis, and he apologizes to Maxine. He says, I'm sorry. And then Maxine Otis is just about to like immigration Chad again, Chad spoke about how we were friends for twenty years. I miss you. I felt that. I felt it too. That was so good. Maxine stands in front of Otis before he can , you know, have a reunion . And Maxine said like, look, I don't believe you. And everything she said was totally understandable and justified. There's no reason that they should trust Chad because of this recent change of heart and she won a title without Chad's help, something Chad's never been able to do in a singles title capacity . And her performance was so hard to do because she had to she had to play it meme. She was the heel here, but within a justified context. I thought she walked that tightrope perfectly. I thought she was so good here. I thought Otis was great here. This feels like we're trying to recapture that magic of two years ago when Otis was doing the turn against or when Chad Gable was telling against Otis, which by the way, just a reminder, we never got a payoff to they just stopped doing that storyline despite how over it was, but it felt like we were getting back to that Otis, that level of Otis. And I thought Chad was great. Yeah, Maxine was so good. And the point she made of, this isn't about Otis. This isn't about Alfred Academy. This is about you as it always has been. It's always about you and what's best for Chad Gable. This apology tour is so you can feel better about yourself. Even when he was talking about Otis, he was talking about himself really was like, you held on to my kids. I mean , it was a lot of me, me, me . I thought this was a really, really great segment. And the magazine leads them out and Otis just, he lingers, doesn't he? Looks back to Chad. Yeah. Chad looks like a puppy. This is exactly what Otis was doing when Chad was the one who was ordering him around. I love it. I cannot wait for the reunion. I hope it happens quickly. Yeah. The worriers it's going to lead to vision matches . And Judgment Day as well. Well, I think Judgment Day is the steppestone because ultimately this Austin theory thing has to pay off at some point with Maxine Dupree. That's it. So Maxine turns on the Afric Academy and joins the vision and that can lead to Otis and Chad versus Logan Paul and Austin Theory and they can have their little tag viewed. That's quite a nice that I can I can imagine Chad being finally getting that IC title match and Maxine's the one who costs it for him. So you delay that title win and Maxine's got the motivation of you can't win a single it is my mission to stop you winning a singles title because if you win a singles title that means you're as good as me. I can't have that. I love your idea. I love your optimism. This is a tag team thing. The titles they are going to win are the tag team titles Ray Dragonlee and Penter are backstage talking about Ethan Page and how he disrespect s Luther. This went into Ethan Page versus Dragonlee. No entrance for Paige, which is shame. I really think you should devote time, TV time, not ad break time to these new guys' entrances. I thought it was a good match Dragony's so good. Yeah, unfortunately the crowd weren't really reacting, but dragony is excellent. That dive outside was amazing . And Paige is just love watching his matches. Yeah. He's the he's such a perfect mid card heel. He's someone who has slothed himself into the main roster . So in the way that Soul Rooker has not , Ethan Paige has. Yeah, just feels so at home . That confidence like Oberfemi, they feel like they belong at the where they've they've come in at Ultimately though Paige low blow finished to win somewhere he got his eye busted open. Didn't know which spot from. Could have been a bit longer for me, but thought it was good stuff. Yeah, enjoyed it. Then we get Jackie interviewing the vision backstage . They look so lame, Brombreaker looks completely muted. There's no Pamul Heyan there . Just it's like what is the point of you guys being together? This is the first time I thought , yeah, drop the belts tonight. Yeah, I mean I figured they were going to be dropping the belts anyway because it could be on going into the match with Seth of the Weekends. But Bron look like he wants to be anywhere else. I think Bron is Austin Theory is holding onto this because this is, you know, his fifth push in as many years . Bron is like, this is a lame doug. He looks like he knows. He knows that this is bad. I feel like WWE no because they staged him. They blocked him to be a whole person width from away Logan Ethere . And like I felt like Brom was conveying with his facials . Oh, these guys . I don't know if that's just a shoot or he's been told look, you know, you this faction is not for long. Yeah We get Soul Rooker and a video package talk about how hey guys I'm a thrill seeker, radical latitude long the tudin' all dude or dude. She came off lame, but who's not lame? Jason Statham in the crowd. Oh yeah, it's the stath . It's a megalodon. It's a megalodon . It's a megalodon . Look that . I love both of them make another one. Ask him a third time Eo sky then comes out to talk to Jackie in the ring, just very short promo saying how she's going to become Queen of the Ring. Of course this brings out Liv Morgan. There was some question marks over Liv over the weekend where Soul Rooker have you seen the spots ? I've never seen it no . Sol Rooker does a sort of springboard off the ropes into Liv for me, the way I look at it, it looks like Liv's out of position because you can't really do much when you've got your back to the other person, you know ? And So Rooka lands on Liv's foot ankle and Liv falls to the ground. But then the referee's like she's okay . They carry on the match and Liv limps out . But then I think, you know, it's like the Liv Army hounded Soul Rooker so much? Soul Rooker has blacked out her social media get a life I know you know this I won't get into it. I just think we should all get off it. There's a new phone I discovered over the weekend made by the people who used made the Commodore sixty four and its whole purpose is that it blocks social media. Like you cannot install social media apps onto it. And I really do think that everyone should have this phone. I think all wrestling fans should have this phone. Think we should all we're all so much better off. Like I didn't know about this live news because I'm not I'm not on social media anymore. So like I don't see these things . So I didn't see all of that. So that's one side of it. Like okay, bad. I didn't see the news. It's good. I didn't see the reaction to the news. And I think that stuff just needs we need to just collectively take a breath, take a pause and have a look at ourselves. What the thing is, you know, Liv Morgan, those questions marks, will she be injured? Is this going to be the promo where they sort of call off queen of the or like make a change for who EO's opponents going to be is a Rocksan or a Raquel or whoever was in the who's Liv Beat? Shallotte Flair . Yes, of course . But Liv was fine. Like she got physical in this angle, she was in the highest of high heels doing the angle. Like maybe it's better to just see what happens rather than just make up a story ? I saw Hangman Page's tweet from long, long, long ago, and he said, Don't stand me . I know how that story ends. people do forget it's not a positive song about fandom Then yeah, so EO says how's the crown going to fit on your head if it's so big massive head and the crowd went crazy. It was great. Eo was fantastic. Liff punches her Eo stands tall. No mention or like any telltale signs of an injury but you know it could be hiding something we don't know . Uso's talking backstage and then Jacob Fatu walks in. Jay's like, Where have you been? And Fatou says, Let's just sit and wait about Solo Secura. Yeah, it's like I went there because Roman sent me. You didn't know about that. I mean, and I love it when Jay's like, What if Son is on his way now? And Jake is like, well, if he is, you won't like what he finds . , interesting. Then we cut to Dan Hausen's layer and Dominic a and JD walk in and say, hey, we gave you a hundred thousand dollars last week to curse Oberfemi and Oberfemi beat both of us. We want our money back. Dan Hausen says, I've spent it already. It's on these two things. One's like a old pecking dug thing that they use in Simpsons . And this box of just scrap and JD's furious. He's like, That was our money. Dan Hausen curses JD. JD says, I'm uncursable and he put his hand on the box of things . And there was this really lame electrocution effect. Yeah, Vince McMahon S backstage angle this was. You see that they've trademark human money's As they should they want to make a merch thing out of it? It feels like they found the one thing that Dan Hausen hadn't trademarked himself You idiot. We'll have that one. This is now your character, human money. That's the one that we own. I think that Dan Hausen's stuff is really funny. I love him as a character and performer now. I think Dom and JD were good in this. They did the best they could . This was bad material. Really bad material. Feels like, you know, I don't know what to say they do, but they're currently watching our two thousand one series and they lap by the chest. No, that Perry Saturn stuff was funny. Wasn't it? Maybe we should give the Perry Saturn stuff to one of our characters JD. Let's give it to JD that would be funny because he was just doing peri Saturn style, you're a welcome comedy for the rest of this show. Yeah, we'll see that in a bit. Ellie Knight took on Jimmy Uso, the Thinkyman's Jay Uso of course . I thought it was decent stuff. I really like their storyline, so I'm invested in the characters, but the finish was terrific where they're up for a superplex for LA Knight LA Knight is pushed off, the referee weirdly just checks on LA Knight back completely to Jimmy Uso when you think that Jimmy's about to hit a top rope move of his own a counter , Solo appears in the front row and he spikes Jimmy Uso. The referee annoyed like it is stupid. The referee does not see this, but Knight sees everything . A bloodline family member interfered to help LA Knight win and Knight took advantage, won the match. I love I loved it. I thought that'd so fun . I agree. Didn't we just do this with Drew a couple like a year or so ago? Of being the hypocritical babyface who hates the bloodline but will take advantage of bloodline interference to benefit them? Yes. Yeah, I don't think it's a done story. I think you can do a new version. I think if this leads to Knight joining Solo Seco, that's very funny. You can do a new version of it. I don't think they are doing a new version, I think they're doing the same version of it. I think if you get a solo LA night tag team together or an act. Well, we'll see. I enjoyed it. But Jacob Fedu was nowhere to be seen , interesting based on what he said earlier and contributing to a massive lack of star power on the show . Street, then we had just this they did this last week, just this run of backstage bits that's quite draining to watch. Yeah. So this jacket into the Street Profits and them announcing the tag title matches up next was at one hour, forty five minutes and fifty six seconds into the broadcast. By the time the bell rang, it was two hours and five minutes and thirty seven seconds. twenty minutes. So I brought this up to Dan. I was like, I mean, I'm not surprised the crowd were a little bit burnt out. There was twenty minutes with it. And he said, honestly, it did not feel like it was twenty minutes where you were standing around with nothing happening because there were so many videos. There were so many backstage and he thought the Danhausen stuff was fun . So because there was so much, it didn't feel like twenty minutes. However , during the Jimmy LA nightmatch when there was wrestling, that is when the crowd got bored. Yeah, because yeah, it's not a wrestling show anymore. So Street Profits promo, Jackie talks to Bailey, Bailey just walks off. There's some judgment Day, tension again where Liv Morgan walks in and JD selling the curse of facts. He keeps on trying to introduce himself to people. Hi, I'm JD You're welcome . And Liv says Raquel, you're the next IC champion, Raquel looks bit miffed by that, Rock Sends like, What am I gonna do? And they've says, We got to get JD to hospital. So they're trying to avoid all that, blah, blah, blah, who cares? Corey has a sit down interview with Seth the risks of a steel cage, you know, every steel cage promo you've ever seen. He said I'm going to take care of Bron and put the vision behind me, which is what he'd said a couple of weeks back and they're still feuding. Adam Pierce is talking to Chad about getting an IC title shot. Judgement Day Walk in, JD tries to introduce himself again and Dom says I want an IC title shot first. You know, you disrespected my culture with the Luuffcia and st Chad's like, You're the guy who sent me down there . So I think actually a Chad Dominic feud and a little bit of oh I need some help to take on the judgment day Alfred Academy's right there is a good little mini three week thing to get the alpha academy back together. Actually then being a number one contender's match Chad versus Dom for the IC title and then I can spin off into Dom versus Penter for the IC belt. He is champion, right? Penter,, yeah yes Then the vision that took on the street profits in the main event. I actually quite enjoyed this match. I'm just it's still novel to me to get a substantial wrestling match in the main event of raw. Yeah, even though there was a twenty minute gap between them saying the match was happening and the match happening. At least there was then a twenty minute match that came after twenty minutes worth of TV time remaining. Yeah, it was a tag title match. The tag titles changed hands, felt like it felt like good booking as well just didn't match layout. The crowd didn't really get into it as much as I again thought a better crowd would have yeah apart from the Joe Hendry random appearance. Apparently from what Dan said, when the crowd started chung CM punk that was a protest chant against the people who were charting for Seth Rollins during the match. Okay, that makes sense. So that's again says that they're not into this match because that's not for any of the guys that are in the match . So we get Logan Paul put in Theory's leg on the ropes, Logan's ejected to the back , some decent like twists and turns, good near falls. Then Logan sneaks in with the brass knuckles even though he's been ejected. He goes to hand them to Theory . But Joe Henry appears, the camera misses his trademark turnaround. That got a good pop, the crowd sung his song. Hendry chases Logan Paul off . And then Seth's music hit, he came through the crowd. The refere e does not think to look anywhere for Seth. Despite Seth's music playing, Seth gets the brass knuckles that were left behind. Deck exhaust in theory with them. Street profits win. Yeah, Bron chased after Seth. I'm a big dumb id iot and that meant that he was too late to get back to break up the pinfall. Yeah, get him as far away from anything to do with Austin theory and losses as possible . So yeah, street profits, new tag team champions happy for them. I think it should have happened at Saturday night's main event. Yeah, you delay it. Whatever. It's the tag titles on Raw They're not a it's Bamon factor. There's not there's no division for them to be defending them in this division had them for, I don't know, two hundred odd days or whatever it was and barely defended it. They're nothing belts. They'll just be on the street profits now and I don't know, they'll feud with someone else . Get the creeds back in. Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah. Yeah And that's it. That's the that's the episode of Raw. I thought it was three out of five. You know, enjoy. It was nice to get some progress ion. I like the Chad Gable stuff, like the Ober stuff. I just feel like it's a I feel like we're on a bit of a march towards disappointment. I describe. I think we're on a march for disappointment, but at the moment it, just feels like we're on a treadmill . Like we are just killing time until we get to Summer Slam. Yeah . But it feels like we are progressing because we've set up the King of the Rain Tournament to set up SummerSlam. It feels like things are being done. It's just that it's not I would say it's not exciting television. It's not can't miss TV Before we get into our pledgehammer thoughts, let's give a big shout out to our wonderful pledgehammers on Patreon patreon. com forward slash wrestletalk, where you can watch the brand new episode of it. Of Monday Night War. That's right, yeah. I kind of we're on now like week twelve twenty. I think it's like week twelve or thirteen. I think we're on. There's so many weeks left , but we have just finished recording it yesterday in fact and it 's the whole season is such a roller coaster of emotions and I'm the people who are watching at the moment are loving this series. And I've been it was so much fun to do. Yeah it was, one of the more fun things we've done, I think. And yeah, that will conclude in March or February next year. Yeah, February next year it'll end. But yes , sign up now. You can watch it week to week and enjoy it. It's better than raw, for sure. But thank you, the man with the scoops, Sean. The big boss man, security James. Hear me roar, Siratu Lion. The pharaoh, Steven Masafaro. The incredible Tarzo Darby's inspiration, the crazy Allen. Keep rolling, rolling, the Rick Peck. The candlestick, Rick Wilkinson. The Iron Zeke and lastly for this Hall of Fame class on Tuesday, the twenty third of june twenty twenty six, he ran Aaron Hanrahan . Let's get into your patreon feedback for the episode. Oak Slaney kicks us off here an actually enjoyable episode of Raw. Maybe that was just because I got to watch it in the evening because it was in London, but a lot happened that excited me. Lyra's heel turn was good and needed, but felt overdue, loved the Gable segment, Maxine attitude there makes sense given her new affiliation with Theory, and a very enjoyable main event that hopefully gives the Tag Division some new life and simultaneously gave Seth and Bronze Match more stakes thumbs up from me Brandon , I'll just say it I want Livers Double Champion The late latest Judgement Day Backstage is one of those stands . The latest Judgement Judgment Day Backstage segment makes me think there will be some interference on Saturday costing her out of spite, either them or a returning Lra Pomera, but love or hate the self proclaimed greatest woman of U You cannot deny the character work that Liv is putting in, worthy of knocking off Rear in my opinion. But do I trust Triple H to Booker with two belts when he can't even handle her with one ? I do think Liv Morgan is a good character and she performs that character very well . I don't think she should be double champion even if you book the storyline well, Mr. Grimes, I really haven't cared about Roy these past few weeks, but I'm here for this Lyra Healturn. I think Laura is fantastic and I think he ael turn is certainly an interesting direction to take her. Nevertheless nonetheless hoping it will inspire me to start watching WWE again. PS hope the upcoming wedding is awesome Ollie, congratulations in advance. Thank you . Charlie, this was the most I've enjoyed Raw in ages. It's amazing how much better the show gets when they decide to actually progress storylines. Really interested in seeing the Lyra heel turn, women's IC division could be withzo Lomyra Du, Pree, and Taydon Paxley all challenging Soul. Also did you guys notice the new TKO trick last week? They said the Gunther Vs Cody match would be advert free, only to end the match, run ad, then have Cody restart the match. I'm starting staying on the record now, this trick will be utilized at WrestleMania next year. That's very good. I'd much preferred the last two weeks of raw this. I thought the last two weeks were pretty decent.. James H I'll give credit to Waston theory. I don't care about his character or style, but at least he's trying. Bron looked like he wants anywhere else, especially during the backstage segments. Default username. Kinda tired of screen mode. I wasn't watching during Paige's first run and now two months after her return , I'm not sure who she is or why I should care. She and Breed just seem so boring and have no story going on or character dynamics. I'm enjoying Chad's Redemption or just wrote WWE will drag it out for too long. I thought that was an interesting point because if you weren't there for Page's first run , what is her character other than I am back ? Yeah, that I think you're right. That's both of their characters . We're here . Yeah. Paige here. You're the champion. You need to have something . Yeah. I am shocked that they are still the champions. I thought, oh yeah, fair enough, pages back one night pop Bribella, Nikki Bella injury, all that shenanigans. They'll drop them immediately, right? Put over another team of that great women's tag division we once had. Moses , really bad episode of war, in my opinion. Judgment Day, the bloodline, the vision all going random circles because the creative team are lazy. Last night's episode just shows how thin WWE's main event scene really is without Roman and Or punk on the show , everybody except Ober feels very mid card. Yeah, the show really lacks star power. No Roman, like you said, no Brock Lesnar I mean, Ober Femi feels like the biggest star on the show , which is good, but I would say book him like that . Vic cutting, sorry lads. Jay is winning King of the Ring and Mya World is winning the Women's Owen Heart Cup. I like you guys a lot, but I cannot believe you don't see how blindingly obvious this all is. I'm ashamed, really. Jam, that jam . Well, I unfortunately agree on the J one. I'd be surprised if Mya one. I wouldn't I wouldn't count it out, but I'm just thinking this person's gonna main tain event, but have a featured match at all end. That's my point. Yeah. Like Mayawld, if it was for Wrestle Dream, then sure. Yeah, Mayawld can win the own heart. This is to get the title match at Weembley, which you are desperately trying to sell big tickets for. The original plan was Tony Storm versus Tekler, so like if it's not Tony Storm, you need an equal starter Tony Storm winning again. And that's Mercedes . Chris , insane that Bron should have won the World Championship last year and now he's lost the tactile championships with Austin Theory. He didn't even win on his first defense . Was it their first defense? It was his first defense with Austin . Oh God yeah, that has sucked. Brombreaker's booking over the last year has sucked ass. Yeah . And lastly, here for Jimmick. Watching those kids yeeting along with Jake at the start of the show made me sick. How could they be so foolish? Don't they realize this guy can't wrestle, gets out of breath easily, and is only in the position because of his annoying gimmick, not to mention his bloodline genealogy, but then it suddenly hit me. An epiphany . Was this what it was like when you guys had to watch John Cena all those years ago when he was the guy on top and I was the annoying kid singing along with the crowd and doing all of his goo goofy catchphrases. Is this just the cycle of hate that all wrestling fans have to live through? What do you wise uncles think? You're exactly correct. In that very building in the O two in London Circer twenty twelve, twenty thirteen , I was at a taping of raw. Maybe it was a raw house show and I was in a box through work and I was sharing the box with my work friends and a family who had brought about eight , I don't know, nine year old ten year old boys and they were all going crazy when John Cena came out and I had had too much to drink and I started telling them that you shouldn't cheer for that man. He's rubbish and they were like, Who should we cheer for? CM punk cheer for CM Punk. That's cool. John Cena is not cool. He can't wrestle. He wins too much. He's late. That's why he's my favorite . I had to be removed from the situation . It's exactly those kids in the same venue. Yeah, yes. Yeah, and they will grow up and they will hate on they will hate on us because we don't we didn't like Jay Uso at the time. They were like, oh, no, you're just old jaded fans. Jay USO was awesome and he always had great matches and they'll have their person that they hate that the kids are into that they don't like . And so obviously the attitude era, who would be one for us? Hogan . But I never liked well, but we looked back on , oh, the Hogan era was so goofy and it was so corny. Oh, I mean at least Hogan was cool on the other channel. I more mean us as teenagers in the attitude era , who would the eighties wrestling fans or the nineties wrestling eighties be going, oh my god I can't believe you like this guy because Austin won all the time and there was that criticism but I think everyone agrees awesome he was awesome Yeah the rock because the rock was awesome. And I think even older wrestling fans thought that the rock was awesome . Scotty too hottie? Is that? No, I think everyone loves Scotty too hottie. People didn't like the worm though. People didn't like the people's elbow. I think that's a common criticism. People didn't like the people's elbow finishing matches because it was that's a good one because I would defend that like sincerely. I would defend that seriously because it was so hugely over and the second that kicks the arm and starts taking off the open ing golf it was awesome. I guess that would be the yeah, so it's not the rock but the people's elbow Yeah yeah is the people's elbow better or worse than J USO or John Seen as a whole? I think when you weigh it all up over all of time, John Seen is the worst. And on that, that's all we've got time for today. Please go over and watch my YW E isn't resting anymore video essay. I'm very happy with it and you can watch it on this channel . The YouTube channel that is. If you're a podcast listener, go over there, spam it with comments of good positive things and share it around and give it a like and all that stuff. Put up onto Reddit. Give it a hype . Someone put it up on Reddit and people were nasty. So don't do that. It's different audiences . Done Reddit. Everyone, all the YouTube comments were so positive and I thought it's kind of a bitch, I'm going to check Reddit, see if anyone's posted on Reddit . And it was just didn't we all know this al ready? Oh, get out. I was like, I'm not gonna wrestle talk and just click bait. I put so much effort into that video . I'm not I'm not gonna check anymore. Do you put effort into that? That redditor didn't put any effort into that timeline. WrestleTalk is clickbait grow up. Yeah, we haven't been Clickbait for a couple of hours now . Get an original thoughts Yes, do that and also please go support hustle, which you can see this Friday in heaven in London. You should do absolutely. Click the link in the description down below to get your ticket and I'm sure you're going to have an absolute whale of a time. Check out Tony Hary Hrarisle.'s Tony . Yes We'll be back tomorrow with our Night of Champions crown jewel king of the Ring and Queen of the Ring predictions. But for now, I've been Only Davis, it's been Luka and DAD Jama Jam Wrestle