¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Intro
Yes, you there, the one listening to this podcast. Hello, it's Luke Owen here from the WrestleTalk Podcast. Hope you're doing well. This is just a little quick plug to click the link in the podcast description because there is a survey there. are looking to build a better profile for their podcast listenership. So...
Give us a hand. Help us out a little bit. Tell us who you are. Tell us what you like. And you can do that by clicking the link and doing the little survey. It should only take a few minutes, so I've been told. And it would really help us out. Thank you. Enjoy the podcast. Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk podcast here every Tuesday and Friday. We're back to Tuesday and Fridays. There's no more PLEs for the rest of the year.
We're not doing World's End. It's only me doing a video for the John Cena retirement show because Luke's birthday is the day before. I might be hung over on that day. But yes, we are here for Raw. I'm Oli Davis. I'm joined by Luke Owen, D.A.D. If you haven't already, please... subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. It could be on YouTube. It could be on Apple podcasts. It could be on Spotify and interesting pickup here from Harvey Burton seven.
We said in the Survivor Series review that we are not paid by WWE. We do not work with WWE. We are on the take.
¶ Chris Jericho The Masked Man?
of KhanCoin, and have been since 2019. They're currently not returning any of my emails about that show they're doing in Manchester in a couple of weeks' time. For two guys who are on the AEW payroll, you'd think we'd get press tickets. The shows in England. Not reply to any of the emails I've sent. Just asking. Oh, don't worry. We'll probably get a reply two days before when trains are enormously expensive.
But yes, Harvey Burton writes, I was confused when you said that you weren't working with WWE because during an overhead shot of the men's war game match or games match. The combination of the cage and participants formed a QR code, which took me to this podcast. They do that without our knowledge. No, no, no. We actually sponsor Petco Park, which is the venue where it took place. That deal. We had a bit of fun. You know, we were telling them, hey, you know.
played Titus O'Neill's entrance music in the setup, fooled a couple of fans outside the arena. But yes, it cost a fortune. Really. Really whiffed on that one. It's not led to the sign-ups we hoped. I don't know, man. Podcasted really well on Sunday. It did, it did. Yeah, the Survivor Series podcast. If you haven't already, please go and watch that because we will be covering right now in Raw the follow-up to one of the key questions that came out of that show.
You know, it wasn't actually that exciting, but in kayfabe terms, this is the most important thing in WWE right now. Who is the masked man who attacked CM Punk in the War Games match, letting Team Vision... Get the victory. Yeah, I would say there were two big question marks at the end of Survivor Series. Number one.
Is Roman Reigns going to be facing Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania? That certainly seemed to be the sort of the tease that they gave at the end of that show. And as you said, who is the masked man that helped The Vision get the win over CM Punk? Reports are, by multiple places.
it was austin theory austin theory was the guy he was meant to be factored into the war games plans originally but then seth once got hurt and those plans changed but he was ready to go so they had him do the running and the
Feeling was he's probably going to get revealed on this episode of Raw as the latest member of The Vision, along with Bronson Reed, Brunbreaker, and Logan Paul. Logan Paul's still there. Still, he is with the group. He's just a member of that faction. Yeah, not what I would have done.
But there was no reveal of Austin Theory on this show whatsoever. There was no reveal at all of The Masked Man. They had a backstage segment where Adam Pearce went up to Paul Heyman and said, Who is The Masked Man? And Paul Heyman said, Nothing to do with me, boss. And Adam Pearce was like, All right, cool. I'll ask the referee then. I'll ask...
famously competent referees to go do the investigating. So we then went to a referee and he was like, can you just keep your ears to the ground and see if anyone's talking about Seth Rollins? It can't really be Seth. I know he's just had surgery, but maybe there's Seth. Maybe this is another one of his ruses. Keep your ear to the ground.
round, I'm forgetting as well that if it is Seth Rollins, he's just helping his team win after they kicked him out of the group. Anyway. And the referee then came back and was like, no one's talking about it. Adam Pearce was like, all right, cool. Well, you know. I hope that doesn't come back to bite us in the ass at any point. Adam Pearce, kayfabe, is terrible at his job. So that led me to believe. Oh.
We're not going to get a reveal of this any time soon, which is why you have then come up with what I would say is a very good theory. Not the Austen kind. It wasn't just me. I independently came up with it, but then you said that you had the same thought, and then you'd heard Sean Ross Sapp speculate on it as well. I didn't have the same thought that you did.
What I said was that Sean had said on his Fightful post-show that... it was austin theory under the mask that does not mean it's going to be austin theory could be austin theory but the fact that they did not reveal it on raw this week might say it could be anyone they could just retroactively say
It was Jericho all along, if they do reveal it to be someone else. It's Santos Escobar all along, but we're just going to play the long game on this. But they are not going to be revealing this for a while. That's what it feels like. So that was just very interesting.
I think you've got the bigger theory on this of when it's going to happen and when things come in. This is speculation, fantasy book. It was... I feel like if it is Austin Theory, and, you know, it was in person, the best way to get around that, because that is a really lame reveal, it is Jimmy Uso again. helping Roman beat Jay at SummerSlam. So I feel like you just want to nip that in the bud. You don't want to raise expectations anymore. You don't want more anticipation. So just...
On Monday's Raw, right after Survivor Series, Paul Heyman goes, ha-ha, the newest member of the Vision, Austin Theory, and we do a podcast about what a lame reveal it is, and the world moves on. But they haven't done that. they have somewhat, I wouldn't say buried it, but this to me is them going, okay, we're going to string this out. Yeah, I think so. And...
I was like, oh, that's a bit disappointing. I started to go down this route of, because we're watching 2001 WWE and WCW right now, because we're preparing for our Invasion series next year, which we're very excited about. excited for patreon.com forward slash wrestle talk for that and having watched a march 26th episode of raw from 2001 and how much stuff and fun they have with things i was like
Why the hell has Akira Tozawa and Otis not been deputized by Adam Pearce to interrogate the whole roster? This is why you suggested this in your script. It's because you watched the March 26th episode of Monday Night Raw. Well, I think I would have done it anyway. You could, like, where are the fun? Where's the fun, Luke? Well, it's a serious company now. They're a TKO UFC-style sports presentation company. You saw the Maxine Italia vignette.
in this show. Oh, that's going to work out great. I'm going to believe Maxine Dupree is a serious, gritty MMA fighter. Yeah, but they want you to think a bit of Natalia. There is an inherent goofiness to pro wrestling. You shouldn't completely bury that because that makes us all go, yeah, but there's something under the surface that's goofy here. So I think you can have serious presentation and fun. on the same three hour broadcast.
But yeah, imagine all the fun we could have had of Otis and Tazawa. They're comedy characters. They exist within their own world. Bring Chad back. He's injured. He can't actually wrestle right now. I'm going to push you back there. If Otis and Kira Tazawa are in the same...
as Maxine Dupree, who's getting her new serious character direction. Maybe that means Otis and Akira Desair are also getting a serious push direction. They're also going to get in the ring with Natty Neidhart. Do you really want the Zack Snyder gritty reboot of... Alpha Academy. Why not? Pierce goes, I need someone who's an expert in men under masks to look into this. And he calls up Chad Gable.
And Chad Gable's always like, honestly, I've got no experience about other mosques. But I'll look into it regardless. He interrogates Rusev. He interrogates the New Day. Have some fun. look i appreciate having some fun and i agree we should have some fun wrestling is inherently goofy but i cannot believe your takeaway from watching the march 26 2001 episode of monday night raw was like you know which was by the way a bad What else happened on that show?
Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. 12 segments of Vince McMahon being felt up by Trish Stratus. And your takeaway from that was like, man, I think WWE needs to be more like this in 2025. They should bring some weird... Sexual awkwardness. Back to Raw, yeah. Okay, I don't want to bury the lead on what the podcast will be coming out next year, because we're recording some of it today. But there is a backstage segment on that show where Vince McMahon...
This is the entire segment. Vince is watching Dustin Rhodes on WCW and he says, look, there's Dustin Rhodes. He once said he wanted to have fake tits. Speaking of fake tits, you've got some. And the segment ends. It just fades to black. And it's just Vince McMahon staring at Trish's tits. And the segment ends. That was the whole segment. Look.
there's a lot of things that have come out in the last few years that make watching that deeply uncomfortable however do you know how long that segment was One minute. It was one minute backstage. That's 20 minutes in the ring with entrances.
These days, there needs to be variety. Anyway, I'll put all that to one side because we are talking about Chris Jericho. Yes. Heyman and Breaker moved past Pierce's... inquiry, very weak-willed inquiry about who the Master Attacker was, with, we need to talk, because Bron pinned Punk, we need to talk about the World Heavyweight title situation.
And the vision come out later. Heyman does the big sort of spiel. Here's Bronson Reed. Shout out to Lesnar, Logan Poole, who actually got the most heat. And Heyman reveals that Breaker and Punk... On the first episode of Raw in 2026, the anniversary of Raw on Netflix, we'll have Breaker vs. Punk for the World Heavyweight title. Yeah, and I was surprised because you and I said on the Survivor Series show, I feel like that's going to be the WrestleMania.
match. It probably still will be. And it still can be, because we saw this with Jay versus Gunther took place two weeks before the Royal Rumble for the world title, and that was also one of the WrestleMania quote-unquote main events for the world title. So it's not out of the realms possibility.
that it still is going to be Punk versus Breaker at Mania. Punk versus Seth happened on that debut episode of Raw. And that was two-thirds of the three-way. So yeah, I think you could have that match. And then I was like... That's weird because I feel like Breaker should win that match. Punk could win and that's probably what will happen. But the masked man is an integral part of this now.
If Theory reveals himself again when he does that, who cares? But then I thought, it's like they've kicked this new direction, because from what we understand, the Bron Punk. is a pivot from what they had just a week or two ago. Yeah, it was going to be Bronn versus Brock. And Punk versus Roman. So they're going in this new direction, and they've put it on the 5th of January.
And the 5th of January is a key date for me because that's five days after Jericho's AEW contract expires. Do we know that that is... Exactly when it is going to expire. We know that it's at the end of the year, but do we know it's specifically on December 31st? Well, no, but it says through 2025. To me, that implies it's to the end of the year.
Reportedly, Jericho's a free agent. Jericho has publicly been putting over WWE and TNA, kind of been nagging AEW in a sort of clandestine way. Tony Khan has been doing his classic, I'd love to work with Jericho. You know, Jericho's a great, he's been a great part of AEW's history. Love to have Jericho back, which is usually, as Tony Khan speak for, he's not coming back, but I appreciate the work that he's done. The reports are everyone backstage.
believes Jericho is going back to WWE. Which I think is the smartest move that Jericho can make. And Jericho... Before this, I thought Jericho comes back... the week before the Royal Rumble. I think those shows are in Canada. And also there was a report that doing surprise reveals...
at the rumble itself in Saudi is just a bit logistically difficult with plane routes and everything like that. I don't know. I don't know why it is. What they more mean by that, at least what I read of those reports, is it's difficult to hide those surprises from them. Logistically difficult.
Logistically, it's hard to keep them hidden because you literally have to fly people out as opposed to sort of surreptitiously driving people in. And oh, we've got some shows in Canada the week before the Royal Rumble. Hmm. The stars aligned there for Canadian Chris Jericho. But yeah, when this all aligned here, Brom Breaker versus CM Punk, the masked guy being a part of it.
I just felt like Jericho has a history with CM Punk. Jericho has a very storied history with being under a mask or a disguise. We saw it on the March 26, 2001 episode of Raw. He was doink. I thought you were going to say we saw it in person when he did it at Rev Pro at the anniversary show attacking Will Ospreay. The first all-in. He's under the pentamask. He does it.
lucha musk all the time so that's another tick in the oh it could be revealed to be jericho with some butt padding and then also what is more jericho by 2026 than joining a faction
where he surrounds himself with more over younger guys. And there was a part of Breaker's promo where he talked about how Seth and Punk are the same in that they are just veterans who are holding down younger talents. So... jericho coming in to almost like you go back right into that position of being a veteran holding down younger talent can just further the story of brunt's frustrations as being in part of this faction of
Why am I not being, why am I not getting, why is there a glass ceiling that I keep bumping into that these veterans are holding me down? So really, I've got to be honest, I'm like 20%. into this idea i'm 100 sold because even i'm very skeptical that will happen i actually don't think it will happen um and if it does happen
I don't know if that's the best creative for Jericho and Bronn and Punk. I mean, it's probably better than doing a horrible surprise and then starting their first storyline eight months later, which is what they did for Andrade and Rusev. But also, I think Jericho comes back as a babyface. I think it'd be very difficult for him to come back as a heel. Yeah, and he's going to get cheered by this crowd because it's the returning star. So I think he will definitely get cheered.
But I mean, Jericho, maybe it's like, it's a smarter guy than we think. And he's just, he knows how to get the heat from the crowd. He's going to be attacking CM Punk. And he can spin off, maybe you can do Jericho and Punk at Mania, or you do Punk and Prom. That could be in the chamber as a singles match.
chamber absolutely yeah because punk won't be in the rumble yeah i mean so my question is there is so is jericho going to return on the netflix show i'm just in your hypothetical fancy model you're pitching here do you see jericho returning on the january 5th show and helping breaker win Or is it that Breaker still loses to Punk and then Jericho attacks Punk afterwards and then reveals himself? Oh, that could be it.
that could be a better way to keep the title on punk. And then you have break a beat punk at mania. If you go in that route. Yeah. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't really think it's a fully good idea rather, but just. the way WWE have treated the mystery attacker, they're obviously, as we speculated, they want that first episode of Raw every year on Netflix to be a big deal. And right now, looking at this card and the creative...
I don't see where the big deals are. And this would be a huge deal that would get everyone talking. To your point, and I completely agree with this, not revealing the mastermind on this show means it has to be something bigger. Because if it's just Austin Theory, you have to do it now.
If it's someone other than Austin Theory, you can kick that ball into the long grass and do it later. But it has to be a much bigger surprise. If it's on January 5th and it's revealed to be Austin Theory, it would be... why don't you just do this? We all knew it was Austin Theory. You might as well just turn this the following night. Yeah. Do you think it ties into who attacked Jacob Fatu as well? Huh. There's a mystery attacker there.
Fatou will come back soon. I think, well, bearing in mind that when Solo walked into the building here, he looked up at a picture of Jacob Fatou in the truck. I think it'll probably just be revealed it was the MFTs that did it. Yeah, great. Go with the safest option, which means it probably will be Austin Theory. Before we get on with the play-by-play, should we talk about Bron's promo as part of the Vision segment? What a promo it was.
like he's when you and I were pushing for Bron to just win the world title after he took out Seth Rollins and made Seth Rollins in storyline vacate that world title and then he handed it over to Piers like a little wuss and then was like why
isn't Bron and then I took out Bron because they were worried about him getting cheered we were there just been like put the belt on Bron the number one thing that everyone said to me in the comments or when they said to me you can't push Bron just yet he's not a good promo give him some time on the mic and you know and give him another couple of years and he'll be good enough on the mic to be able to be in the world title picture my argument that was he's managed by paul a b
He does Steiner promos. Yeah. We've heard him do Steiner promos. And he comes out here and he does a Steiner promo. And you look at the feedback that we've had on our Patreon post asking for comments. everyone's talking about how awesome of a promo this was i i think this is the best thing on the show and yeah it's nice to know that we were right you're welcome everyone
I look forward to you all going back and replying to those comments on the podcast episode from a month and a half ago and saying, oh, turns out Luke and Ollie were correct. Like we always are. Look at our Survivor Series predictions. I got four out of 20. You got... Three out of 20.
Yeah, so what he does is Heyman announces, you know, it's Punk versus Breaker. And then Breaker just gets the mic and he says, I was disappointed in Punk. How easy it was to beat him. He's a soft ass bitch. And as soon as he said so. I was like, this is...
This is picking up. Yeah. And then he goes, you should be more worried about the war going on at home, that your wife is a bigger star than you. This is good material. I don't think that is good material. It is good material. No, no, no. I think that... There's such an easy trope that WWE always do, which is like, your wife is more popular than you are. And I just think like every heel does this to a married wrestler. And I think it's kind of lame.
But it's effective. I don't want Shakespeare soliloquies from Brombreaker. I want fat asses. Well, yes. Your wife, you're a bitch. And your wife's got your balls. Well, I think that last bit's lame. I actually think of just being like, you suck. So does your wife. She's also terrible. And that's the kind of stuff I want out of Bronn. Your wife is more popular than you. It's so tedious and it's so played out. Oh, I think it's fine. I disagree. Did that thing again?
And then, like, as he's talking, he's looking down the lens. He's shouting in a way that no one else speaks. On wrestling, I guess Becky Lynch has got her own style, and it's great because it's unique, but everyone else does kind of fall into that same Seth Rollins 15-minute opening promo. Mate, when Liv Morgan did her return promo, and I was like...
oh man, nothing about your character has changed in the time you've been away. You've done nothing to freshen up your act. I think one of the things that could make Raw at the moment feel pacier like it used to in the Attitude era is just have everyone talk quicker.
Because if you go back and watch The Attitude Era, people are just burning through material because they've only got a minute to do it. Well, what I loved about Bron's promo and the delivery style of it in that Steiner way that he does do promos is that... It's scripted.
but it doesn't sound like Steiner just did things off the cuff. Would you go out there and be like, I think DDP should have a sex change. And then he gets into a backstage fight with DDPs like directly afterwards. But like, you know, that's the bad side of doing the Steiner promo. But the better side of it is like,
¶ Raw Review
This doesn't sound like you have had a writer give you word for word verbatim. And WWE wrestlers, even CM Punk... are given word for word verbatim. This is what your script is. Go out there and you do your script. The ones who are great at that are the ones who make it feel like it's not written verbatim and it's not done word for word. And that's where Bronn is great. Because Bronn stumbles over some of his... word bronze stumbles over some of the things he's trying to say which
People are like, oh, it's a bit clunky. No, it just makes it sound like it's coming off the top of his dome. Because it's coming off the top of his dome trying to remember what it is he's been told to say. And he's so frenetic in the way he moves his head and stuff. You're right, it makes him feel unique. It was great. And it's, yeah, hopefully this means that everyone can get on board with the actually now is the right time for Bron train, particularly with the Heyman packaging as well.
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The show opened with Wade Barrett and Joe Tessitore in the crowd. Yeah. Which was weird. Was weird. Way to open the show. Didn't mind it. I just watched that 2001 episode of Raw. And that 2001 episode of Raw in the first 10 minutes has about eight different segments and accomplishes a billion different things. And I'm not saying really go back to that. I'm being facetious. But there is a healthy middle ground. Yeah.
which is probably WCW Nitro. Yeah, I will say, when I was looking back at the notes that I made for that episode of Raw that we're going to be reviewing, I'd watched 30 minutes of the show and I'd made eight... pages worth of notes of things that had happened i make at most a
page and a half of notes for an entire three three hour episode of raw so this opened with wade and joe in the crowd which is you know fun it's a bit different but then they introduced a recap of war games which you know i've already seen but Fair enough, you know, the pay-per-view just happened. Then we go into, here's all the people arriving at the show, which I'm a bit over now. Like, WWE has even more entrances, sure. It's just such a...
It was a fun, cold open thing when they started doing it. But now I'm like, can we get into the action, please? I think it's a nice way rather than just doing like a match card of like the Judgment Day will be doing a promo. The return is the Judgment Day arriving.
and be like, they're going to be doing a promo later. It's AJ Styles and Dragon Lee arriving. It's like, they're going to be having a tag match later. I think it's a more dynamic visual way of telling you what's coming up on the show. I think a more dynamic visual way is just starting on a match. And I'm not saying do that.
all the time. I'm saying have variety. Variety is the spice. And then we get Dom and Liv arrived in a low rider to meet the Judgment Day, which was the only useful thing about this part, I would say. And then Eosky comes out, Rhea Ripley comes out.
Honestly, we're eight minutes in and the show begins because someone's got a promo. Yeah. You want to talk about not selling war games? Like, Rio and I come out just fine. Happy, smiley. Like, I know they won, but... not a scratch nothing on them just a happy and then ria's like i'm a bit banged up after war games i'm like are you because that would you're not selling to me that you are you look totally fine you look like you didn't even have
have a match on Saturday, let alone be a part of war games. I think EO had a bit of a bandaged arm, but I totally agree. And, you know, for equality's sake, AW... did the exact same thing. So yeah, I said that in my review. They say, welcome to Monday Night Rio, because Rio and EO. So this is, I hate this now. I am over people saying Monday Night my name. Just put that out there. That's now in room 101 for me. And they say the war isn't over because we still want to beat the tag.
beat the Kabuki Warriors for the tag titles. Charlotte and Alexa come out and they say, well, we're former tag champions. We never got our rematch. So they book a number one contenders match for the main event. Yeah. I'm really glad that they had a war games match to not get revenge on anyone and not end a war. I know we just did war games, but the war is not.
¶ Jey Uso vs. LA Knight
not over. We now want our revenge. Cool. Well, that match was a complete waste of time then, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it was. Sure did fill up a contract, though. We did. We did the contractual match that we said we would do for San Diego, and we did it. That's what you want from wrestling, isn't it? So this is when we get Pierce talking to Heyman and Breaker. Did we say the Flare and the Lex came out? Yes, yeah, that's what set up the main event. Oh, sorry, yeah.
So Piers is backstage before the Heyman and Breaker bit. Ivy Nile is talking to him and they set her up as Maxine Dupree's first opponent. Great question for you. When was the last time she won a match on Monday Night Raw? bearing in mind that the promo here was ivy now walked up and said i deserve a shot at the title and pierce said yeah i think you do i want to say that she got when lyra had the belt
I want to say Ivy got a win in the build to her losing to Lyra. Wait, wasn't it the tournament to decide the IC champion in the first place? Because Ivy got through. What did she beat Maxine? I'm going to say it was February. She has beaten Maxine on main event. I think they might have had a match on Raw as well. But she last won a match on Raw on October 28th, 2024. Well over a year ago. And she's walking up being like...
I think you and I both know that I deserve a shot at this title. And Pierce was like, yeah, we do both know that. Yeah. Not anybody who won the War Games match. No.
Because they're all busy doing other things. Yeah, we'll come on to that in a little bit, actually. I do have some thoughts. We'll also come on to Maxine's new gimmick, potentially. We got a package on CM Punk and John Cena's rivalry, which was quite nice. This is, you know... recapping Cena's career really and this is when Joe Tessitore revealed CM Punk isn't cleared after war games so he's not here so Punk
sells war games. Well, yeah, but he wasn't booked for tonight, so he can be at home selling this. Presumably Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, Brock Lesnar, Becky Lynch, AJ Lee, all also sold war games. The tide's gone out, as you said it would. All the stars came back for the build. And then this is the episode after the match. And all the big stars aren't here. I thought this was a well-booked episode. I enjoyed this a lot.
but it was significantly lacking in star power. It's part-timer mania. As we have lived through this, you and I have lived through this, many people watching live through part-timer mania, where all of a sudden a bunch of the stars arrive between January and mania, and then... they all leave and you're just left with a bunch of mid-carders carrying the show for the rest of the year and you're like this isn't all that good then come January all the stars come back for part-timer mania
The first match was Jey Uso versus LA Knight. Jey Uso had replaced the injured Penta. No, that's incorrect. The injured Sheamus. Yes. No. The injured Rusev. Miz replaced the injured Sheamus. on SmackDown. And then Jey Uso, I think, beat... No, Jey Uso beat the Miz in the first run.
Jay Uso's been in this from the start. Yeah, he beat the Miz in the first round, I think. Oh God, I don't care. And they actually had a good match. They did, yeah. It was a few bits of botching from Jay at some points, but I'm so impressed with LA Knight, even though he loses all the time. He won here, thank God. I think he's totally reinvented himself on Raw. Yeah. Jay Uso, you want to talk about not selling war games? Just absolutely fine.
Just went in there, did his standard match. Worst spear you've ever seen in the history of professional wrestling. Ellen Knight, it's so bad, Ellen Knight kicked out two of them. And he kicked out the splash as well. And yeah, I thought it was a decent... match. Nothing particularly special. I was surprised that Knight won. Knight had a burning hammer.
Yeah, and Jay just kicked out of it because, you know. So Jay hit both the spear kind of and the splash and then went for the pin. So it wasn't like a reversal of the splash. Knight kind of just no sold. reverse the pin into a crucifix, and that's what got him the win. I agree. I think Jay was...
I thought Jay was going to win because we'd get Gunther Jay in the finals. That's what I thought as well. I mean, Godzilla Dreamer left a comment on our Patreon post and said, I was thoroughly surprised Triple H didn't decide to do Jay versus Gunther for the seventh time, but I'm pleased with the people set for the finals. Yeah, I think it'll be a...
a better match for it and a fresh match. So the camera stays on Jay after his shock defeat, I guess was how it was booked. And it's like he remembered. All of his character development, he paused. Unpaused. On October 31st. We just unpaused this story now so we can start doing this again. And Joe Tessitore and Wade's like, oh, poor Jay. He's had a tough couple of months. You know, it's been... Just want war games!
No, he didn't. They lost. Oh, yeah, of course. But tell Jay, grinding the steel support cable on top of War Games to the Yeet chart. Yeah. He's had the worst time. Yeah, won two matches in the scene of Solemn. He's had a terrible time. And anyway, they went into a real solemn voice mode as Jay... just remembered all that character stuff that he was doing pre-war games, and he boots over the hydration station.
¶ Liv Morgan Returns to Raw
Because he's having a little temper tantrum and he's teasing that heel turn that we teased ages ago, then stopped teasing for a bit and now can tease again. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know where this is going. Like... But yeah, he was just everyone was on the same page. He was generic main event Jey Uso again for the War Games build. And now it's like, oh, no, wait, I've got confidence issues.
Am I Little Roman? Am I main event Jay? I don't know. Well, there's a moment later on with Jackie. We might as well just talk about the Jackie thing now. Jackie, by the way, when she was chasing after me, she was like, Jay, what about this? And Jackie's like, Jay, it's me.
Oh, yeah, because you've got a really established, friendly relationship. I'm not sure I've ever seen you two on screen together at all. But his end point was just like, I don't know where I am anymore. Maybe title belts look better on Roman. And he walks off. And I was like, this wasn't for a title. What are you upset about? Cena lost that title at the Survivor Series. Maybe he was referencing...
the end of War Games when Roman was looking at the titles. And that would have been better on my shoulder. But yeah, I agree. Yeah, but this tournament wasn't for a belt. Just to put over a bit I missed on Survivor Series. After the match, Roman is in between the two rings. He's got the titles on one side, Cody and Punk, and his family on the other, Jay and Jimmy. And Roman's just like, so, you know...
It's subtle storytelling I missed. I don't think it makes Survivor Series a good show. No, no, no. That retroactively does make it a five-star show. But I really appreciate the cinematography of that. Cinema. Not cinema.
Then we got Lyra and Bayley backstage. They're talking to Pierce. They also want a women's tag title shot. It's the best division in the company right now. Kabuki Warriors walk in. They bully Bayley. It's your fault we didn't win war games. And then they say you haven't got... a title we've got a title so kairi puts a chain around bailey's neck and goes ha ha ha you've got this instead and then they walk off and
The shot then crossfades into the next shot, which is of the crowd. And during that crossfade, Lyra, I don't know what happened to her face. Yeah, she broke. Do you think she broke or she was just like, I should smile now? I think she just broke character ever so slightly and do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, send for the man. Whatever it was, her face was terrifying.
She looked to mend it. It wasn't just that the Kabuki Warriors said, we have titles, you don't. She also said, Charlotte Flair's in the main event, and you're not. So, like, it's more of the Bayley... is this locker room leader, but no one seems to respect her as such? Or the company does not respect her as such? Oh, is that her character now? Remember when she was a schizophrenic? I think she still is. I haven't seen that for a while. I'm happy for that one to be paused.
Dominic Mysterio comes out with a Judgment Day sans Liv, and he says he couldn't have beat Cena without Finn, JD, Rox and Raquel, and of course, Liv Morgan, who gets a separate entrance. She said that she's heard things about the Judgment Day that... we're weak, that we've lost our goals, that we're falling apart. But that ends now because Liv is back. They run Monday Night Raw again and then Liv slaps Dom but then jumps on him as they rub noses. Who's been saying this? We have.
No, we've just been saying, I'm sick of this group. I'm sick of the Judgment Day drama. I don't know. I don't mind that. They lost the tag belt. They keep losing. They've barely been on TV. We haven't had these backstage segments for ages where they've been really infighting because they've just dropped a lot of the storylines they were doing when Liv got injured. And now we're just sort of pretending that we were doing all of these stories.
It was on-screen dissension between Finn and Dom for like a month. They just won! They just helped Dom win the IC title back. Yes, but I don't mind this. I see Liv has been sitting at home watching this, weirdly not interacting with any of her friends. Calling any of them? Yeah, exactly.
I think this is proper s***. I think this is absolutely garbage rising. But yeah, that set up the main event, which we'll talk about. Then we get this intense training video. I didn't... quite know what was happening at first but it was like it was black and white it was gritty it was all up close and it was grappling it was this woman it turned out to be maxine being thrown to the ground and it was natalia's voice saying again
Maxine's like, I can't. And Nanny says, again. And then she goes, I can't do it. And then she goes, get out of my ring. And then Maxine stands up and goes, again. Pretty cool. Yeah, this was awesome. I was facetious about it earlier. I genuinely thought this was really, really cool. It's proper heart dungeon, stew heart thing again. Stretching people out again. Stretching people out again.
Very Hart-style training. I thought this was pretty rad. This is something that fans have been asking for for a while now, dropping Natalya and bringing in the Natty Neidhart character that she's been doing on the indies since she re-signed with WWE and then not been putting her...
on tv where she's going out she's doing she's coming out sort of rage against the machine and like it's like which i don't think she'll be doing on on tv uh and of course their record label was like hey we could license out this music for a band that would very much rebel against sort of a tko
merger style thing um but it's it's an awesome presentation it's very different it's not natalia yay this is natty neidhart and i feel like this we're going to get natty neidhart and maxine but to your point earlier it's hard to do with Maxine as a character when her character is, I'm a bit naff and goofy. I think it's, I'm excited to see...
What happens with Natalia? This was a very well-produced bit. I don't have confidence that it's going to really result in anything substantial. I think Maxine can't play this role. I'm happy to eat humble pie if she suddenly turns out to be a really good, serious, gritty MMA wrestler. I don't think she will be. So I can't get excited in that direction. Nor do I think they're really going to push Natalia. So she'd probably fall around the eye.
Navy Nile, undercard of undercard, which is where the icy belt seems like it's destined for. Now it's not with Becky. Yeah. I suppose my point I would make about this is that weren't these the vignettes you were supposed to play when Maxine said, I'm going off to train. I like, you know.
Maybe I'm just a bit of a nerd for remembering these sorts of things. But that story went. Maximum, I'm not ready for a title shot. I need to go and train. Then she came back one week later and was like, done it. yeah i'm now now ready for my shot so we didn't see any of that now that she's won the belt we're seeing the training montage of of what happened while she had her one week's worth of training well you know you remember that bit in rocky 4 where he just beats
And wins right away. And then you get the montage. And he runs along the beach. And here's how I did it. AJ Styles and Dragon Lee then took on the New Day. The idea is they're fighting tag team champions, unlike the Judgment Day who defended it. Twice, I think. In all those months. And it was very good with an excellent finish. Yeah, it's really cool. I do not know how this happened.
¶ Gunther vs. Solo Sikoa
Kofi Kingston is draped over the top rope. Dragon Lee hits a top rope stomp onto him, which bounces Kofi off the top rope seamlessly into the Styles Clash position with AJ. Now, I'm probably going to get some heat for this in the comments because people will be like, of course you're going to say this. It's a Young Bucks spot and obviously they don't do it into a Styles Clash, but Nick and Matt do the double stomp flip up and Matt catches them into a move.
That's so awesome. Every time I see it, it blows my mind and it proper pops me in. It blew my mind here. The double stomp into the Styles Clash. It's perfect. What a superb finish. for this team. Love it. And then they said they want the War Raiders next week. They're going to put their title on the line. I think this is ultimately filler stuff. I think they're transitional champs.
So at least we'll get some very good TV matches out of them. But I do not believe, just like I didn't believe in Nikki Bella and Stephanie Vaker, I don't believe in AJ and Dragon Lee's relationship. So I can't... really invest in these beyond transitional champs with good matches. Yeah, and part of the problem with the Judgment Day having those belts for so long, what a group that was falling apart, was because they weren't defending them.
That means that none of the tag scene was featured on Raw. So now all of a sudden it's like, yeah, the War Raiders. You haven't been on TV since like September. It's like, yeah, now we're going to have a match with them. It's like, if you'd have done more with this division, these teams would have felt, even the New Day.
Like, you know, it's been a year since they did that heel turn. What a dropped ball. What a dropped ball. What a waste of time. And it just feels like the entire tag scene has been a complete waste of time on Monday Night Raw. Jackie then interviews Stephanie Vicar, posts the Nikki Bella win. She talks for a bit, but then Liv walks in and says, congratulations. So setting up what you brought up on the Survivor Series show, Liv versus Vicar. Great.
Very good. Superb choice. You think Liv wins? I feel like they want to get the belt on Morgan. I think we could be seeing all the gold in Judgment Day. Yeah, I think that's a good story to tell. Then we've got the Vision promo that we've covered. Then Jackie tried to talk to Jay. Jay, it's me. He was not in the mood. It's me. John Cena. talks to us about the passage of time. I do not know what these things are.
I love the little sad trumpet to lead into all of this. So then Mr. Roboto just doing his like a pre-programmed speech about here's what I think about time. I don't know why what looks like quite a boring court. interview for John Cena that will be uploaded the day after his retirement match is getting a month-long build.
There's so many other things this show could be building. I mean, you say it's boring corporate. This is every John Cena interview I've ever seen him do, where you sit him down. And I've done one of them. This is just what John Cena sounds like in all of his interviews. is sit-down interviews. He's not a real person. Gunther then took on Solo Sokoa. Odd match, because it was heel versus heel. Awesome, though. I thought it was a matcher than I.
I mean, like, only because the main event has the DQ. I thought this was rad. Okay, sorry, I don't want to cut you off there, but I think the reason why I love this match so much, A.
¶ Logan Paul vs. Rey Mysterio?
superb work. Turns out that Solo Sokoe is better than Jey Uso and Gunther could just work with anyone apart from Jey Uso it would seem. And like these two just had this awesome match that was so good the crowd were not into this at the start because everyone just knew. Gunther's winning. Gunther's probably going to face John Cena at the set of notes main event. So they were not into this match. It's heel versus heel. Passive emails from Triple H on my GM mode.
But the work was so good and the story they told throughout the match was so good that by the end of it, people did believe that Solo Sokoa might pin Gunther here and he might go on to face LA Knights. I thought they told such a good story throughout the match. This is why I don't get why people say Gunther's a boring wrestler. I cannot fathom.
watching so many Gunther matches and be like, man, what a boring wrestler. He's so good at what he does. He's so good at making you believe or making a crowd believe he can be beaten. whilst also being so dominating in the ring he's a genius at this he's got an incredible i hate the word aura about him he's superb he's awesome i thought this match was ace
¶ Rhea Ripley & Iyo Sky vs. Alexa Bliss & Charlotte Flair
Yeah, he's had the best match the last three weeks, hasn't he, with the Javon Evans and the Carmelo Hayes match. Yeah, I just thought it was good. I didn't love it as much as you did. They told a nice story where Gunther was trying to work over the thumb to disable the Smyrn spike. And yeah, despite the crowd being like, who do we cheer for? Which is the problem with heel versus heel matches.
It became such a slugfest near the end and Talatonga's getting involved that they were coming alive. They were chanting, this is awesome. Ultimately, Gunther got revenge. You know that whole ring is sacred thing? Kick Solo in the dick. Yeah, awesome. No, I didn't. I didn't think that was good. But then he powerbombed Solo to win. Nike came down for a stare down because they will wrestle in the final on Friday's Smackdown.
Yeah, real problem with this tournament. We've covered this before, but just a bad tournament overall. Not doing brackets, not telling any form of story through the tournament, not using it to elevate.
new people within the tournament a very like from the very get-go the most obvious choice or the only choice of winner because it's not going to be LA if it is LA Knight versus John Cena for his final match this company is stupid Gunther is a much better choice but he was such a predictable choice it's kind of frustrating that it's just been a waste of a tournament but they could have done a much better thing here we talked about a few years ago Javon Evans on the other side of the bracket
And he's the Cinderella story through this tournament. And then he has to go up against Gunther, who's been dominant on the other side of the bracket. And then you can see this story of like, can Javon Evans do it one more time to get the match with John Cena? That's the story to tell for me, yeah. We got the Becky portion of the WrestleMania lady promo, which was good. Styles and Lee talked to Pierce backstage.
Jackie is talking to Rey Mysterio about, hey, maybe you'll go for the Intercontinental title that's on Dom again now. But Logan Paul interrupts and he says the IC title belongs to The Vision. First, I've heard of that. And he says, I'm going to retire you. Rey, Rey slapped him, pull apart brawl. I like their rivalry. I always have done. I feel weirdly like they're kind of soulmates in that Logan match against Mysterio. Was it for the United States? Yeah.
That one match they had. I just think they've got something. They can just pick it up again here. But to me, this is a very clear pivot from Logan Paul was going to face Punk, maybe at that Raw. I think it was. Of 2026. 100% think that was the plan. But they have gone, nope, you are in the Intercontinental title picture, which I think is a wise pivot. Yeah, for a company, I, you know, lambasted this company a lot for not pivoting.
And this is one of those examples where I think they have pivoted and it is the right choice to make here. Yeah, because his promo more or less was. I'm not going for Punk anymore, so I'm going to come for the IC title instead. As I always said the Vision would be. You know, me and the Vision, we go back weeks. And the main event was Charlotte and Alexa versus Rhea and Io. Really good.
Fast-paced match. Great match. As all of these women's tag matches have been, I'm so into this women's tag division. I do not currently, might grind my gears eventually, care about... DQ finishes. I do. Because it's such... It's the Triple H crutch. And I think it really does expose him at being quite bad at this at times. I... I will come to regret this, but I hope it will build to an actual match and that's where you have the finishes. I'm hoping these matches, these DQs will...
have a reason eventually because it'll make the eventual wins mean more. But as I'm saying out loud, what am I talking about? That's not going to happen. Are you mad? Are you high? I'm optimistic right now. Can I just have, because I'm enjoying the women's tag stuff. Just let me have this.
So it was sort of built around Rhea and Charlotte as well clashing. So maybe there's a longer story coming out of that. But I like how everyone in the tag division kind of has a beef with everyone else. It doesn't matter if you're a baby face or a heel. You just want to win the belts and be the best. Yeah. And it's doing wonders for the women's tag titles.
almost at the expense of the world title. Yeah. Because this world, this tactile scene, the thing with the women's world title scene is that, Sidney, look over on SmackDown, the WWE Women's Championship scene. Jade is in a... barren wasteland of no one to face. And then you look over on this tag title scene and it's Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, Alexa. It's all of like the top stars. It is all of these top names. Even Asuka.
what could have been singles challenges for Stephanie or in particular, Jade Cargill. And she's got no one. Stephanie. Thank God Liv's come back. Because if Liv had not come back, Stephanie's got no one to face. She's also in this barren wasteland. Because all of the top stars are in this one division over here instead. Doing wonders for the tag titles. It is...
There is no balance, unfortunately, within the women's division. It's either it's too stacked over here and not here, or it's too stacked in the opposite direction. Io hit a moonsault on Bliss for a great near for Charlotte Shavria. into io i said that wrong in the news video so
Just correcting that now, I've just realised. And then the Kabuki Warriors run down for the DQ. They start beating up Io. Bayley and Lyra run down, which is off of the segment they had earlier. But then Liv Morgan attacks, I think...
I can't remember who on the outside. I think it was Raquel ran down. Raquel and Roxanne ran. They were the ones first, and then Liv joined them for the beatdown afterwards. And the three of them worked together to beat down everyone. Yeah, so Judgment Day, just like Liv Morgan said, we run Raw again. They stand... And like belts up high. Roxanne goes to give the tag belt back to Liv.
And then Liv says, no, you have it and raises her title. Yeah. Which I thought was a really good, that is great showing, not telling. That I did like. Because Morgan is getting across there that we are on the same page. This is a belt I never lost. but I want you to have to go for it now, Roxanne. We are a coherent unit and I am going for the singles title. So very, very well accomplished. That I do like. The idea of Judgment Day running raw again.
I have zero, less than zero level of interest in seeing. We've not seen a sort of live and rock sand dynamic, though. And I don't particularly care to. If they had told... a story while live was out injured of roxanne taking over the group roxanne playing a puppet master infiltrating various different pieces speaking with these people speaking with these people that might have then led to an interesting dynamic when live came back
but they haven't done that they've done surface level stuff with it and then we're just sort of meant to pretend that it's been this really well told story and it hasn't and so now i've got no interest in it whatsoever Overall, I did enjoy the episode of Raw. I gave it 75%. Lacking slightly in star power to follow on from War Games, but it does lead to some interesting stuff down the line. Live versus for care.
Punk vs. Breaker. Great stuff. Logan Paul vs. Rey Mysterio, I don't mind. And of course, AJ Styles and Dragon Lee vs. The War Raiders. Let's see what you all thought. If you go to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk and become a Patreon over there, you can send us comments which we'll read out on these shows. Well, the best ones rather, not all of them.
there's too many dylan campbell writes hey lads been watching since the t-shirts falling off the walls days and have basically grown up with your videos from the wrestle sketch days when i was 10. i'm turning 20 next year Oof. This is like that time when we did that first watch party and that woman came up to us and was like, oh yeah, you helped me get through my GCSEs and my driving lessons and my A-levels and my university degree. And I was like...
Oh, we've been doing this for a while. Wow, what a promo from Bron with that intensity. I want him to go out there and maul punk on the first roar of the year, put the belt on him and send him to the moon right now. It's time. P.S. Oli bought the book and thoroughly enjoyed it more than expected. Booyah. Thank you very much. Here Rational can be bought from Amazon. Just type in Here Rational. Not an easy title to put in. So maybe just search for my name. Yeah, here as in listening here.
So that's the book. That's Patreon. That's a cut scene reference with Booyah. Dylan is a triple threat. Huncho Jack. I really thought they were finally going to have Finn kick Liv and Dom out of the Judgment Day, but nope. Pretty much the same promo we've gotten for what feels like years. The product isn't bad, in my opinion. It's just uninspired and stale.
Bronze promo was good, though. I think that's actually kind of how I feel about the Liv Morgan, like the Judgment Day thing. It's like, oh, I've just gone back in time to the same Judgment Day promo that I've heard now for, like, what, four years this group has been together? I'm sick to the back teeth of them. I read somewhere, someone commented, I think on Reddit, they said, it's going to be so weird when they go in the Hall of Fame. They're like, Edge, Finn Balor.
Carlito. I mean, you're right. They will go in. Sean's there on five. I've been like, gotta say, they'll probably go down as one of the greatest factions of all time. I'm like, are you mad? Like, sure. maybe with members they've had a good run of it but like as an actual faction of storylines It's been one story. It's been one story for four years. And what a story. Jack Tope. The sugar babes. Or Jack Tope. Someone's watching a documentary on girl groups. A DQ.
the main event welcome back raw we missed you the past few weeks seriously though this direction for the women is exciting almost as if pausing everything to force a war games match once a year holds momentum holds momentum instead of helps it live handing the title back to roxanne at the end when she gifted it was also a hilarious way of her saying that she is not going to the midcard.
Feels like she is going to the mid card because the women's tag title seems feels like the bigger deal at the moment. Samuel Nelson. Time zones. Australia here, which always makes catching the podcast live difficult. Cut off the top bit, which is like... I actually prefer this style of chatting in because I can't catch the live shows because I'm in Australia.
Great to be a part of the WrestleTalk family, jam that jam. Also, just me who really enjoyed Raw this week. Really solid in-ring action all around, especially in the main event until the predictable Mo finish, but at least... The women's tag division looks great. Also excited about pretty much all the directions that were set up, especially with Breaker. That promo was gas. It was gas, I guess. Did Joe Tessitore say that was lava?
What? At any point. I thought I heard, but maybe I'm wrong. Is lava slang now? Like straight fire? Man, that was lava. Six, seven. Jey Uso, hang on a minute. A DQ finish in the main event. Judgment Day stagnation. You know what that means.
Back on the treadmill, lads. We're going precisely nowhere for months at a time, but at least we have Crash Out J. Hopefully this leads to Uso destroying every instance of the word yeet, like Bailey when she turned heel on the inflatable things. Also, I know... that Jay Oliver left this through his mobile device and not on a keyboard and a computer because every time I've written Jay Uso in a text message
It automatically, the autocorrect capitalizes USO to capital U, capital S, capital O. Why? I have no idea, but it happens every time. Looks like a government organizational. The United States. Oil. Office. Office. That's where the president lives. But yeah, you are right. I feel like we're not stagnating for months. I think we're stagnating for a month. Yes. Because I do think Raw.
I said that last year, though. It was nothing. It was just a bottle episode for The Rock to go. Hey, hi, corporate shareholders. What a deal. Remember when Russell Votes put out the tweet? It was just like, if you think that the product is bad at the moment. It's bad on purpose. It's because they're gearing up for a big run of shows.
Brandon writes, really good episode of Raw today. The women's tag segment at the end reminded me of the SmackDown tag scene earlier this year when that was great. I'm so glad they were smart enough to realise that pinning the champion should get you a title shot. Bron cut a great promo to build the match. Can't wait for the feud. Got nothing else to say, so I will just ask Oli if he's read Absolute Martian Manhunter yet. It's my favourite of the new Absolute comics.
It's the only one I haven't read. Why do you hate General Swanwick? Is that who it was? I mean, we all knew, right? We all saw Man of Steel and we were like, that's Martian Manhunter. So... I've sort of taken a pause on reading the absolute range. Wonder Woman and Batman are fantastic. But I love Al Ewan, who's writing Green Lantern at the moment. I read the first issue of that, which seemed very promising. I feel I'm going to go.
Just lose myself balls deep in the DC Infinite app when I'm at my parents' for Christmas. I'm going to tune out the reform chat and I'm going to read Absolute Martian Manhunter. I don't care about your latest boyfriend drama, sister. I've become too busy reading Absolute Martian Manhunter. Dev King, everyone is going to be talking about bronze promo. I want to talk about how Solo had a much better match with Gunther than Jay.
ever did. Come to think, Jay has been the least entertaining of his brothers. Ah, who cares? People like Yeet. Give the man the titles. Anyway, thanks for you guys making my mornings awesome for the past eight to nine years with all of the podcasts and skits and failed WrestleTalk takeovers. Laurie was framed for Fakidor. Cheers from New York. Math's greater than Pipon. Yeah, that's a good point. Excellent point at the end there. A lot of people pointing out how long we've been doing this for.
Jonathan, the headmaster. Hedman, there's a lovely name. Triple H said tonight was going to be epic. I didn't see Faith No More on the show. Colour me disappointed. Yeah, me too. Ronnie Bottom's got a new book out as well to promote, so they could have had Faith No More on the show. But yeah, apparently this was... promote it's going to be an epic night yeah sorry well i don't know the names of the faith no more members yeah roddy bottom yeah roddy bottom yeah roderick bottom yeah
Is that his given name? No, it is. It's not a stage name. No, it's just that's his name. Roddy Bottom. Roddy Bottom. And finally for now, Pat Bottom. Pat Bottom as in B-O-T-T-O-M. Bottom. Oh, bottom. I thought it was Roddy Bottom. Like Roderick Strong. Roderick Strong ass. What are you going to work? That ass. The Roddy.
And finally, Pat the Booker writes, why does it feel like the closing to Raw tonight was the best build to War Games? And War Games was last Saturday. Very good point. I suppose it's more of a build for a Royal Rumble because you've got everyone battling everyone. But yeah, point taken. But yeah, thank you very much for joining us here today. Go over to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk because we've got...
Loads of Christmas videos going up there exclusively. We've got tables, lists and chairs. A three count, do we? Christmas, yes, there will be. Yeah, one or two of them, I think. We've got the finale of the Aces and Aids series about TNA on WrestleTalk Extra, which is great over there as well. And you get to submit your questions and comments. for the podcasts. But for now, I've been Oli Davis. This has been Luke Owen, DAD. Chana, chana. Chana, chana.
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