Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network. Right you ready, when you're ready, let's.
Get it off.
How's it going, everybody? Brian Alvarez here on Wrestling Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday, New Pacific Threeastern a Sunday three Pacific, six Eastern. I haven't been doing a lot of talking today, but as I begin the show, I realize I have no high notes for those of you that tune in for my high pitched voice. Golly, maybe I should be sick more often. But it is Tuesday on this show, and you know what that means.
We've got a lot to get into here today. Hopefully not a run in with the FCC, but yes, last night, Monday Night Raw, we got a week and a half until Summer Slam and h and we got a lineup for Summer Slam so far, pretty much the entire cards all ready to go. And so we'll tell you what they did last night on Raw to lead to the show, and of course also tonight is NXT and on the heels all Dirty dumb exploding the rating. Last week we've got Rhea Ripley in action. Rihea Ripley will be facing
Lyra Valcira on the show. Dominic will be there as well. They're gonna kick off the show celebrating his title win. So a lot to talk about in the lineup for NXT tonight. Also some ratings notes. SmackDown on FS one did his best number ever on FS one and as usual, the Bloodline segment was what spiked it. And then we've got collision notes and rampage as well, which was up with the Royal rampage. We have injuries in WWE to talk about. Kevin Owens is injured, liv Morgan is injured.
Both of these they did injury angles on the show, but they are actually hurt. And Cody Rhodes talking about his WrestleMania moment which was not what a lot of people expected. And the New Day, according to Xavier Woods, should be back in due time. So a lot to get into here today. You'd like to Texas four two five seven eight zero seven five sixty six and is four two five seven eight zero seven five sixty six.
Brian at Wrestling Observer dot com, on threads, Instagram and cameo get a cameo everybody at four w online and at Brian Alvarez on X Moment Observer Live some time again the show. Brian Elbarez here Wrestling Observer Live, Mike SIMBERBB also Wrestling Observer dot Com, and take our time to this show today. Ain't no rush right exactly, and there ain't no rush in either because he resigned with aw.
Now can you you can't do it with your condition? Can you? You can't roll the arc?
I can't. I could not say, Max Dupe. Actually I kind of did. Actually, Hey, I guess I'm healing.
Don't strain anything though.
Anyway. The update the line up for NXT Rhea Ripley and Lyra Valcaira Carmelo Trick and Elia Dragnaw versus Joe Gacy and the diad Coora Jade and Dana Brook In a kendo stick match, and Dominic will kick off the show with Aria to celebrate his North American title win. The show's gonna do a big number again, everybody, It's gonna do a big number because, honestly, as we were talking about last night, and it was patently obvious watching Ra as well, with the exception of Roman reigns in
the Bloodline. The hottest act in WWE is the Judgment Day. I don't even think there's like a close third. Like, the Judgment Day is so over right now. Rhea is super over. Finn Balor should win the title. Dom is doing great, Damian Priest is awesome. I mean this act is hot, Yeah it is. And they're gonna be all over NXT tonight. So I think the show is going to do probably the biggest NXT number in forever, probably beat that seth Rawlins show.
And you know what the good part about the Judgment Day right now is to me, it's the fact that once they inevitably break up, unless they really fumble something going along the line, Like Rhea Ripley is going to be she already is a major star. She's a star period point playing. People want to get behind Damian Priest, whether he's a babyface or a heel, a big guy who can kick ass. He's very experienced, like he's a guy that like they really seem to like they should
like him. And after this is over, no matter how it goes, he's probably going to be more over Finn Valor. To me, you know, I don't want to say he's unsinkable, you know, to the level of like Kevin Owens in that company, but like people are always going to rally around him. The only question is with Dom, is Dom going to be able to maintain after this, especially if he's not with Rhea Ripley or has some sort of alignment that way, can he continue to keep this heat?
So he's the one you'd have to worry about the most, and they're investing seemingly a lot right now into him, so we'll see how it goes.
Now. The hottest singing WWE remains The Bloodline SmackDown. Friday on FS one did one point two three million viewers and a point three six and eighteen to forty nine, so the last time they aired on FS one, they're up forty four percent. And obviously the Bloodline segment with the Rules of Engagement was the highest rated thing on the show, and it did one point five million viewers. And I forget what Dave said the demo was for it, but it was like really high, Like what did he say?
It was?
See if you can find it? I thought he said like zero point five or point six and I can't possibly be right, But that was on FS one on Friday, so they did very very well. The Rampage Show did better than usual based on the Royal Rampage four hundred and fifteen thousand viewers, which was up thirty three percent, and it did a point one one in eighteen forty nine, although that is not a great demo at all. But obviously, if you looked at the quarters for the Rampage Show,
I mean it was a Royal Rampage. People wanted to see the Royal Rampage. They stuck around mostly for that. And then you know, the Collision number is interesting because you know, viewership wise, it did well six hundred and eighteen thousand, which is well for Collision. Demo wise, it didn't do as well point one point eight, which is down quite a bit. And you know the interesting thing about it is, it's like, so obviously the show is supposed to be the cmpunk Show. It's built around cmpunk.
So if you go online now because the ratings are out, you know, all the people that don't like cmpunk are talking about no mill Phil and this whole deal. But if you look at the quarters for this show, this show is totally propped up by cmpunk. He was in three segments on the show. He was in the opening segment where they set up the tag match, and he was in the two final segments with the tag match, and those were the highest rated segments on the show.
So cmpunk is a draw for Collision. He's consistently the thing that people want to see more than anything else on the show. But he's not going to do a million viewers on Collision. He's just not. I don't even know why that's I mean, I know it's a mean because he had to go out there and call himself one bill Phil and I mean he basically was asking for it with that promo troll wise. But anyway, that
is the number there. And I would like to come on here and just rail on the fact that I said, you need to advertise more for the show, but this is not a number where you know, you can say that's the whole problem. But I do think as a general rule, they need to advertise more for the show. I think if they advertise more for the show, it would have done probably better, especially in the demo. But you know they did. They did the thing where we've
got a main event. We've got a main event featuring CM punk, but we're gonna shoot the angle on the show, and so we can't tell you what the main event is. So obviously there's there's two things that you can do. You can do what WWE has done before, which is you announce the match and then shoot the angle for
the match. That's kind of whacky. Or your other option is you shoot the angle on the previous week's Collision, or you know, you could argue you could shoot the angle on Wednesday's Dynamite, but we've got the split deal that they're doing and so that wasn't going to work. So this is what they came up with, and uh, you know, point eighteen. So I think that I think that you could safely say in the future, we need more than one match announced on Dynamite for Collision.
Yeah, they do. Indeed, they need again a better string throughout all three shows, advertising things for all three shows. I think they need to make sure that they hammer that stuff home better. The rating is down eighteen to forty nine from the point two to zero it had last week. But Russell Kovis pointed something out and it makes sense because I was thinking when it came to all of the competition that you have on Saturday, from Major League Baseball to soccer to any sort of car
racing to you know, football in the fall. The DVR three number, I thought was going to be the most important because they want to see Okay, yeah, maybe you watch something else live and you're decided to wait on watching Collision, But did you watch it within forty eight or seventy two hours? Did you watch it in a way where there were embedded commercials that you couldn't skip through?
You know?
I thought that was going to be important. But they did point out the fact that their movies that they would usually do, you know, in this timeframe would do like a point one three, a point one five, a point one eight. Yes, during Christmas Story, you know, and they run that for twenty four hours, and TVs and
TNT that does like a point two toy one. But as long as the show does you know, north of six hundred thousand overall and gets a point two zero or at least near it every week, that's going to be the most important thing that WBD is going to be worried about, especially as it moves into football season. That makes sense to me.
All right, we've got injuries, and that is live Morgan and Kevin Owens, and they did injury angles for both of them last night. And Live Morgan, I am told has a shoulder injury, and I was told it was not the same shoulder. So she had that shoulder injury when she got the drop kick in the corner. I think it was a separation or something like that. And then she came back and now she has injured her other shoulder and may need surgery, may not need surgery,
but she's out of action. And so they shot an angle where Rhea absolutely obliterated her and pilmonized her arm twice, and so she is out of action, not on summer Slam, and who knows when she's going to be back. And then Kevin Owens has a fractured rib, and he has had a fractured rib for a while, but it was working on it, and they were waiting for an opportunity to do an angle to get him out of action. And I don't know this for sure, but I believe he is off Summer Slam as well. So they did
injury angles to write both of them off. Rhea with Live and Kevin Owens was attacked by the judgment day and so both legitimate injuries, set up stuff on wrong back in the mouth with more observer live, so stop it. So, Mike, what was that quarter for the Bloodline on FS one?
I believe it was a point four six got a point four six point four six.
Eighteen to forty nine on FS one.
Yeah, so that equates to what was it here? Six hundred and six thousand people on average? It was up twenty three percent from the quarter before. And the segment overall did a one did one point four eight two million people by far leaps and bounds the top thing on that show. So there you go. Oh, by the way, the second biggest thing on the show, although it happened to be at the top of the hour, was Eo Sky against Charlotte Flair.
Wait a second, you're telling me women did a great quarter. You mean you're telling me outside of the Bloodline, the women did a great quarter on SmackDown, Just throwing that out there, How about that? How about that?
Just wait until you have a situation where it's Ria Ripley, you know, face to face with Bianca for some reason, or you have that deal with Charlotte Flair, And again they're very loaded up on the SmackDown side of the equation when it comes to the women. But again, at some point, Rarea Ripley is going to have have face offs with these women, And can you continue to keep her hot? You know, Becky Lynch, you know there were ebbs and flows and she lost some stuff and she's
not at the same level she was before. You know, can you keep Ria Ripley, you know, pumped up and going, and can keep those other women going? Because Bianca, Charlotte, Eo Sky, they've all been great.
So if you've seen the Raw quarter hours yet, I need to get those I can find out how Raw did if the women were the highest rated segment on the show. Actually we don't ever all ratings what we're talking about, yet they come out today. I got it. Okay, this would be four straight weeks if the women are in the highest rated quarter on Raw.
Now, if it happens to be a situation like Dom and Sammy's, ay, do you give Ria Ripley the credit?
Only if they are these they have to be the centerpiece of the deal. So like Ria Ripley destroying Live Morgan, that would count. But that was very, very quick. It wasn't even a full quarter so.
What about what about Becky Lynch against uh against Zoe's.
Stars the Mecky versus Zoe of course would count.
Tricia's tattoo on the line. I wonder how that did.
Yeah, I was surprised they put that on first with the given what the stipulations were. Yeah, there's really only there.
Riquel Rodriguez in that mix too. As far as women and she there's still a lot to be determined with her, you know, on her own right now, we know she can flex her back and you know, she is impressive, but like it'll be interesting to see, like, can you as you're trying to keep the momentum with these other women, like make sure you build her because she can be a threat, or at least right now, she looks like she could be one. I do.
Like in the in the chat, like everyone's all excited that Eosky is such a huge ratings draw. You know there were two people in that match, right, well, we don't like Charlotte, so she doesn't count, Okay, just making sure we got that right now. Just I mean that's what's going on here, right.
She has that effect on it.
I mean she was in the match.
I mean, come on, well, does the referee deserve some credit?
Then to Brian, I don't know who the ref was. Was it the female ref or was it some Cone? John Cone? That guy's an NXT ref. He's actually not what he should be.
He's one of the only refs whose name I even know anymore. Back in the day, even if you were making fun of the referees, Guerrilla monsoon would kill the referees. At least you knew Tommy Young and Earl Hebner and these guys. We should know who the referees are. They put more shine on the announcers and God bless you know. Samantha Irvin is a beautiful looking woman and all of the other they put more attention on them than they do the referee who's actually the third person in the ring.
Or says she'd been featured for years? Where were these numbers in prior years? They just started pushing io Dude, Charlotte's done good numbers for years. I mean, there's so much cherry picking lately. Goll Lee Gee, I'm just trying to give you a foy. There are two people in that match and a referee. You can't just say it was all one person. Clearly here come on, now, here's SummerSlam. We got Cody Rhoads and brock Lessner. They have not
announced a stipulation. My understanding is there is still going to be a stipulation. They have one more show in which to announce.
It a fight without honor.
We've got Gunther versus Drew McIntyre for the intercontinental title. Now, Gunther is I think like fifty days maybe forty days away from breaking the Honky Tonk Man's record. Do we want the Honky Tonk Man to remain the greatest Intercontinental champion of all time? No, because if we don't, then then Drew's losing here.
He's got to. Now, look, are you gonna bring Honky out to hit Walter where I'm sorry to hit Gunther with a guitar? You could do that, but he's got to shake it off. He can't. He can't not break the Honky Tonk Man's record. They've broken all the other ones, or at least they're trying to. They're gonna do Honky dirty watch.
Well. I mean, here's the thing. Drew has not re signed, and they made a big deal about the fact that he failed at Clash of the Castle like when I watched when I watched The Deal on Monday, I thought, you know, Drew might win this match, but there's there's extenuating circumstances where he might not. Now we got Shana Basler and Ronda Rousey.
Let me ask you a question before you move on there. Yes, much like La Park in Mexico. You know who's holding onto that mask no matter what because the price it just the price has never been right quite yet. Honky talk Man would never let somebody just take a shot from the guitar and take the shake, rattle and roll and just just walk away from it. You know, he's still probably wrestling out in the indie scene. He's got
he's got something to protect. Can is there enough money to pay the Honky talk Man off to do that? Would he actually smash Gunther with the guitar, but let him shake it off and then beat him up?
No, No, Honkey wasn't even taking bumps twenty years ago. Bro, I mean, what are you gonna do? The guy?
I know?
And we have Ronda and Shana in a fight, which I think Ronda Rousey's hat here after Summer Slam so kind of tells you just winning this fight, but I presume it's going to be some MMA rules type deal. That's the way they kind of promoted it. Ricochet and Logan Paul in a singles match. We have got Oscar,
Charlotte and Bianca least said about this the better. And then of course we've got Roman Reigns and jay Usso in tribal combat for the n disputed Universal title and the designation of the Tribal Chief, which of course jay Uso will be losing here, but this is also part of a longer story. And then we have seth Rawlins and Finn Balor and I will die on this hill. F needs to win this match. He needs to win back the title that it was stolen from him by
this singing preposterously dressed geek. And furthermore, I mean, they got so many things they can do with Finn Balor's champion and his best buddy with that briefcase, so title needs to change. There is my that is my. In fact, I would say it's a demand, So let Vince know, Yeah, I'm demanding this one, much like I'm demanding that FDR dropped those tag team titles to Adam Cole and MJF and they do not break up. These are demands, do you understand.
I don't know. Do we have to do that? I wouldn't mind saying Jay White and Juice Robinson with those belts.
Bro dude, they got years on their contracts. There's plenty of time for them to win those titles. But if Adam Cole and MGF lose, then they're breaking up and they're wrestling at Wembley. I don't want that now.
You just want more dancing, don't you?
No? I want I want the fans to get what they want in a fake sport.
You want you where the whole manipulate planet. That's what you want? Do you want? Just this is what you really want. And in your mind you're trying to repress this. But you it's about Adam Cole. You don't care what happens with Adam Cole during this feud, whether he turns dirty, whether mj After all you want is MJF to come out of this thing. Is the biggest baby face in the whole wide world. And for him to remain that way rather number one good guy that if I were single, devil turned himself in.
If I were single, I'd marry Adam Cole, you're telling me I don't care nothing about this guy. Now, obviously, MJF. I'm sorry, should be top babyface. I'm not gonna make the argument again, but if it's not gonna happen, at the very least, you need to run with this one for a while because it's what yet, What do they say when the best friends? So maybe drop an f bom again? What do they say when those best friends are the ring? You got to give the people what they.
Want, Give me what I want to crew this up again? Listen to me, turn on them. Who cares that the fans boow you? They'll still do the boom thing anyway. Look at Jericho, they sing like idiots even though he's throwing fireballs at people. He's a wizard. You're Adam Cole. Damn it. Turn on MJF. Give Brian what he wants, but make sure you make him pay for it.
I don't want I don't want them to break up now, that's my point. I want them to stay together. I want them to entertain the people. I want them to go further with this storyline. And listen, well, I had an endgame, and right now you know the endgame is they they win the tag team titles, and hey, if you want to, if you want Jame Juice in there, you can do a three weight Wembley. I don't care.
But they defend the tag team titles at Wembley, they lose there, they split up, and they wrestle the following week in Chicago for the title at It All In, or you know, they don't. I guess I we're gonna do CEM Punk and MGF. You can have them lose that match and then you know, lead to MGF defending against cm Punk and then go from there to whatever. I don't know. I don't know, du you haven't thought about. All I know is I watched the show and it's too early to break him up on Saturday.
What's really nice about this whole thing is any mention of MJF leaving in twenty twenty four has gone right down the drain.
He leaving in twenty twenty four guys come.
A gimmick that they're going to bring back, especially if he turns dirty again after all of this. But it is nice to not have that swinging over our heads constantly.
Back in a moment with the Robs, They're alive, better in the show, Brain Elber is here Wrestling Observer Live. Mike SIMBERVB also Wrestling Observer dot Com. Raw open with the Judgment Day and the ring priest Finn Rhea. They had a big speech video of dominning the North American title. They called him out. My god, this guy got heat. These people hated this bro or enjoyed hating him. And then he's out there. They got another video package. He
declares he's a North American champion. Kevin and Sammy interrupt and they've been through this before. I don't like Dom. Tom says, I'm the champion. Sammy says, well, listen, these fans don't respect you, but they might respect you if you wrestle me tonight. Tom says you're on, and then Sammy says, you know, last week we were going to wrestle you guys, and you demanded we put the tag team titles on the line, and we did so. I think it's only fair that tonight you put the North
American title on the line. And Dom is not down with this, but Rhea grabs the mic and says he accepts. Dom was not happy about that. Then we had Becky and Zoe Stark The stipulation is if Becky wins, she gets a match with Trish. If she loses, she must get thank you. Trish tattooed on her chest. So had a good match and Trish headbutted her with the face mask for the heat. Then she threw the mask in
for distraction. But eventually Zoe tried a springboard Becky cotter in midair manhandle slam pinder, So no tattoo for Becky Lynch, huge pop at the finish, Becky is getting her match with Trish.
You know, in another era, mainly the Attitude era, Zoe Stark would have won, and then we would have had long segments about what counted as part of the chess. Did it have to be like right in front? You know? Could Becky tried to get out of it by doing under boob? That's what would have happened back in the day. Not all that Attitude era stuff was good.
Then we had Cody coming out. He's very ginger with his arm. I don't know if that's a word, but he was holding it gingerly jurely. Yes, ever thought about how weird that is. So anyway, he doesn't have a cast, but it's it's not one hundred percent, and he says, you know, I'm not surprised by what you did last week. I'm quite impressed. But someone who was not impressed was my mother, Michelle Rynolds. She was there when Terry Funk
threw fireballs at my father. She used to drink with Gordon solely at the Columbia and she'd tell me what I'm telling you, you made a big mistake. You left me breathing. He vows to end all of this at SummerSlam.
Drinking with Gordon, which probably wasn't too hard since slowly was drinking pretty much all the time.
Had a Ricksha promo challenging Old Logan, and then we had Sammy and Dirty Domb for the North American title. Man. They had a really good match. Sammy Zay was great. Dom did a great job. They did a spot where Rhea took the ref and priest shoved Sammy off the top for the heat and Kevin jumps up on the apron and the referee says, I saw you on the apron. He jecks him for being on the apron. How much
if people are on the apron all the time. So of course the fans boo, but then the ref goes reap Priest, you're out of here as well, and he gets rid of him stress, so it's one on one. The announcer started plugging X I can't even say it. No, Dom hits the three Migos, goes for the frog splash, knees up, Sammy hits the exploder. He's going for the boot, but Ree and Priest are shown beating up Kevin and the rampway and of course Sammy's distracted, rolled up and
pinned by Dom. This was a horrible finish to a very good match, and in fact, that happened too in a row. Now, listen, I know they do these stupid finishes sometime. I've seen these finishes. I've seen these exact same finishes on AW. I don't inherently hate them. It's okay to do it every now and then, don't do it two matches in a row. That's what the agents are for.
But god, that's what they do.
Oh, it's not what they do because it stuck out here because they don't always do it too in a row, and they did here. It was irritating lazy. So we had Bronson, Reid and Champa. It was the same thing this match. This was a great match, and it started out with a crowd it was like, ah, Bronson, Champa, Yeah, it's fine, whatever, But these guys were like, they beat the crap out of each other, and they're doing all
sorts of things that you don't see. Like Bronson did a like it wasn't quite a rain maker, but it was like he was going for a short arm clothes line, but then he turned it into a power slam that was awesome, like a fast power slam. And then there was an air raid crash off the middle rope and Yo Kazunas sit down splash after Chompa tried the fairy tale ending. So the crowd's going nuts for this by the end because they're just working their buttocks off, and
then Knakamura walked to ringside. Chomp has distracted. At least this time. Bronston hit him with a move off the apron, then threw him in and hit his finish and pinned him. But still, I didn't need two in a row. You could have done this later on in the show, and I actually probably wouldn't find with it.
Very disappointing with Chompo, but you know what, at this point, in his career. You know, you don't expect a lot out of pushing him. But Bronson Reid I do worry about because of his height, and it's like he can do so many unique things that I don't ever need him to be the world heavyweight champion. They shouldn't look
at him that way. But because he's so unique and can work with different guys and do such different things compared to a lot of other people, They're like, that's why you have a mid card and an upper mid card, so you can he can be that guy in the mid card. He can hold the secondary titles and every once in a while you can pull him up if you need to. I do. And again, I just I know the triple H sees something in. I don't know if everybody else does.
Well right now the guy that needs to see something in with his Triple H, and you know what I want to see. I don't mind Chompa losing because I want him to lose and lose and lose, and then Johnny Gargana returns and Diy no diy reunites, we get
some awesome tag matches. Lived in a promo. I saw this coming three weeks ago when she was backstage and Rhea showed up, and Rhea is the baddest woman in all wrestling, and she's standing there like just looking like whatever and live all smiling and have he goes we are I don't know if you get it or not. We're not scared of you, and I thought you're And then she did the same thing last week and she tried again here and uh Ria gave her a warning
so they were gonna have a match. Ria jumped her and she destroyed her, and she absolutely destroyed her to death and she pilmanized her shoulder twice. Somebody on the board was like, I watch horror movies and people get lit on fire and don't sell like this. Well she's out and maybe for a long long time.
Didn't you see her get killed by Chucky? She she loves moments like this.
Well, she was absolutely killed. And this will lead to uh Riha Ripley and Raquel Rodriguez at summerset.
No no, no, no, no the title. No, it may be Raquel Rodriguez challenging Lyra Valkyria.
No.
You should have seen the digital promo. Brian had gotten you all fired up to getting ready.
I'm sure they'll show it tonight. Oh my god, I can't wait.
The range of lyra Vel is amazing.
Alpha Academy did a promo, so they had a Viking Rules match last week, which was like a really fun match. It actually turned into a great match by the end, but the Alpha Academy lost, and so this week they have now challenged the Viking Raiders to an Alpha Academy Rules match. I hope I can contain my excitement for this. And then then Maxine steps into frame and she challenged Valhalla to a one on one match.
Give it to me, give me all of it, please, please, Yes.
It's happening next week, thank you, Yes it is. Rick j comes out calls Logan down to the ring. This Rickochet. He's actually doing for a guy that they never let talk. He's actually doing pretty decent promos. But you know the problem is, you know, you can do a decent promo, but like you can't be completely totally full of it.
And what he's trying to say is, we wrestlers were on the road all the time we trained, you know, some of us went through the indies, we like, you know, did the grind and you just walk in off YouTube and you're getting main events. So he's angry about that, but he actually goes, We've missed time. We've missed months. We've had months away from our families, months away from your families. What are you talking about. Who in the
world has months away from their families because of this business? Nobody, especially in twenty twenty three.
So you forget the COVID time. I mean a lot of people that spend a lot more time with their families and not do as much.
Come on, there were people that couldn't wait to get back on the road. But anyway, Logan flew in out of nowhere, jumped in from behind, got on his phone, accepted the match. But then Rick She made a comeback, super kicked him standing shooting Star Press gave a hell o to Logan's followers. I checked his social media last I didn't see this video, but maybe he forgot to hit record. Have you ever done that? God? I saw
Bigfoot the other day. Shana Basler had the promo I'm gonna fight Ron to Rousey and then Logan does a promo backstage and he's interviewed by Byron, and you know, Byron goes, you know what happened out there and Logan goes, that was unprofessional as hell would happen out there. I was victimized, but none of that matters. I'm coming for Ricochet next week and I'm gonna pop him in his stupid bald head. And then looks at Byron. He goes, no offense. They passed him on the head and leaves.
He was so polite. He felt so.
Bad because Byron was bald, or because he was bald.
Well. I mean, it might have been a lot of things. Damian Priest squashed Apollo cruise two minutes south. Heven Becky Lynch.
Apollo's eye didn't see that one coming.
He didn't see it coming. Well, maybe he did, but he was all right with it. Valhalla accepts Maxine's challenge. We had a gun through Drew McIntyre face to face, and and uh, it was a good face to face. I thought Gunther was good. Drew was good. You know, Gunther is a fighting champion. He goes, you want to ride my coattails. I accept, I will humiliate you at Summer Slam. I humiliated you with Mania, and Drew says, well, you know it was a three way mania. Seamus and
I were so intent on beating each other up. That you snuck in in one, so good for you, you deserved it. But it is a one on one match at Summer Slam, and I'm gonna beat your butt. And then Ludwig Kaiser steps up. How dare you speak to the ring general like that? Drew says, I like.
You, you should voice to actually do what he did.
I can't turn and so anyway, this leads to Drew versus Kaiser and they had a really good match, and the highlight of this match actually was Corey Graves doing a Ludwig Kaiser personation. This guy was so unbelievably good that, like, I couldn't figure out what was going on because I didn't hear him start, Like I was kind of zone a little bit because I don't listen to the commentators much, and also I'm watching Kaiser and I'm also hearing him, and I'm like, is he wrestling in a headset? What's
going on? It was Corey. He did a great, incredible job, and then Kaiser avoided the Claymore hit a kick, but then hit the Ropes eight a Claymore got pinned, and then they beat the heck out of Drew afterwards, poor Yl ran down this poor bloke he got killed and they laid him out, but then Drew fought back and power bomb gun through through a table gun through landa right in his head. Thought he was dead, but he appears to be okay. But uh, good segment. That match
is gonna be awesome. That might be the best match on SummerSlam, and it will be unless Roman and Jay just have like some incredible match. And then we had the contract signing with Seth and Finn Balor and Seth does this promo about how Finn knows he has no chance. You have no chance here. You are going to lose at SummerSlam, and in fact, you're either gonna lose or if you win, your boy is gonna cash in on you and you're gonna lose. So no matter what happens,
you're gonna lose. And Finn's all angry, but then he laughs and he signs, and he says, you think you have this figured out, but you don't. We run this place right now. I've been losing for seven years. It's been driving me insane. And he said some stuff. I can't stay here on the air because you know I don't swear, and then Seth tries to you know, jump him, because the Judgment Day is round of the ring. He tries to get a jump on them, but he fails
and they absolutely destroy Seth rawlins. They hit him with all their finishes and pre sits the edge, dom hits the frog splash, fin hits the foot stomp. They leave him for dead. They celebrate his show ends, and yes, Judgment Day is the hottest act outside of the Bloodline on this whole show. And it was patently obvious watching this show here. So anyway, back in the hole with more obserbilve, Well, somehow I made it through.
This show today, and a fine job you did too.
Thank you.
You did such a good job boss man that I think you don't even need me tomorrow. So what I'm going to do is not be here so you can go ahead and do the show yourself. And the guy with all the letters in the in your forum there who sounded a lot like he'd wanted to hear much more Brian Alvarez solo on this show. I guess he's going to get his wish.
To don't be Dax, don't get gotten to. Hey, you know what, that's fine I'll find someone to replace you. I'll find a very intelligent man.
Oh yeah, where you gonna find one of those? You will find one of the United States, that's for sure.
You'll see, you'll see. But tonight I will be back, barring a horrible turn of events in my illness, which could occur because I'm watching NWAT and A from twenty one years ago this week and on a half hour in and so far it is better. But like everyone's going, they ain't gonna make it. They're gonna quit, They're not gonna last on hundred and five more episodes. Last week's show was so ungodly, ungodly horrible. But I didn't quit.
But I actually am closer to quitting because of the unprotected chair shots to the head than anything booking wise. Bro dude, every single show, and it's always Jeff Jarrett. He's just swinging these chairs like a baseball bat. Wow, just waffling these people in the head. And you know he was there in WCW when like Brett Hart suffered multiple concussions and had to retire. Like, don't give me this. We didn't know.
That.
I mean, come on, he's just killing dudes.
I know, Mabe, wait till you get to the Abyss portion of the proceedings, what they do to him, and week after week after week.
I gotta go. I'm gonna go make some chicken. We'll talk to you next time, Wrestling Observer. You have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network