00:00 Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I'm Luke Owen and this is my review of WWE
00:11 Fastlane 2023 - where Cody Rhodes won the tag team titles, Jade Cargill made her onscreen
00:17 WWE debut and Carlito returned… with new garbage music. Also Corey Graves was dressed
00:23 like Barbenheimer. There may have only been 5 matches, but I'm going to talk to you
00:27 about them for the next 10 minutes or so. WWE is such a hot product at the moment,
00:32 they are killing it with attendance, ratings and in-ring action. When they're in front of the
00:38 right crowd - which is more often than not - you get an absolutely great time.
00:43 Case in point, WWE Fastlane - a show that very few had any actual interest going into,
00:49 but have come out talking about what a fun show it was. A more or less inconsequential show outside
00:55 of the tag title switch, but a fun show nonetheless. And perhaps even more interestingly,
01:00 it's the total opposite of AEW's WrestleDream from last week. WWE Fastlane really set out the
01:07 stall of what B-Shows can look like - 3 hour broadcasts with 5 matches. You shave off half
01:13 an hour of the runtime and it's basically an in-your-house show, or to give it a more recent
01:18 comparison, an NXT TakeOver from 2016. With just 5 matches - as compared to the 14 matches on last
01:26 week's PPV - each match was given time, and no match felt like it overstayed its welcome or left
01:32 you pondering, why was this on PPV? Here's a fun fact for you. There were just over 90 minutes of
01:39 wrestling on this show - about 93 minutes in total - across all 5 matches. That meant around half of
01:46 the show was entrances, video packages, ad breaks and sponsor spots. And this will sound like a bit
01:52 of a backhanded compliment, but I mean it as a full compliment. WWE really know how to pad out
01:59 a show, because Fastlane blew by, and a lot of that is down to the restraint shown by Triple H to
02:05 only book 5 matches. I'm sorry that I sound like a broken record, but it really is a strength of
02:10 the show. Sure, we could have had Gunther vs. Ciampa, or saved Gunther vs. Gable. Sure,
02:16 we could have had Rhea Ripley defend her title. But WWE have struck the right balance, in my
02:22 opinion, of having big matches on PPV and having big matches on Raw and Smackdown. Which means you
02:27 don't have to bog down PPVs with the "get everyone on the card" mentality, while at the same time
02:33 showing the networks why they're paying you billions of dollars to broadcast the weekly shows
02:38 because you put the big matches on them. And the first of those big matches on PPV was one that
02:43 felt like it was thrown together at the last minute. We might have had Cody and Jey feuding
02:48 with the Judgement Day over the last few weeks, but the pair of them weren't quite sure why they
02:52 were challenging for the tag belts in their promos on Raw, and now they've won the thing.
02:57 For my money this was the best match on the whole show, with fantastic action bell to bell. And it
03:04 was really simple Judgement Day formula stuff. Jey got worked over by the heels to build to the
03:10 Cody hot tag, Rhea and Dom came out for interference and some near falls, JD McDonough came
03:14 out to also help Judgement Day. But it was JD's interference that backfired, because he accidentally
03:21 hit Damien Priest with the briefcase and Cody hit a Crossroads on him on the announcer's table to
03:27 take him out of the equation, and then hit a modified 3D with Jey for the win. I am genuinely
03:33 surprised that Jey and Cody won the belt, but it sets up some interesting storylines for Raw.
03:40 Let's sow on the tease of Judgement Day splitting issues, because I'm a bit over that now.
03:45 But with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, KO and Sami worked so hard to win those tag belts. They
03:52 overcame The Bloodline, which by the way also included Jey Uso, to win those tag titles in the
03:58 main event of WrestleMania. And Owens has been pretty upset with Cody since he brought Jey over
04:04 to Raw, with Sami trying to play peacekeeper between the two. And now, Jey Uso has won those
04:10 tag titles. Again. The titles that KO and Sami lost at the last PPV. This should set up a great
04:19 tag match for Crown Jewel between Cody and Jey vs. Sami and KO, and I'm all here for it. And
04:25 that will also act as a nice stopgap between the four of them before they all team up to take on
04:30 Judgment Day at Survivor Series. LWO took on Not The Hurt Business in our next match, which was the
04:36 shortest on the show, but fair enough. The gimmick was that Montez Ford in particular was acting
04:41 quite cocky, but Lashley was all about the business of kicking someone's ass. Or hurting,
04:47 if you will. The other gimmick is that Rey and Santos didn't have a tag partner as Wacking
04:51 Wild and Cruz Del Toro had been taken out on Smackdown and whoever Rey texted was not returning
04:56 his text. So the heels worked over Rey and built to a Santos hot tag that wasn't there - which
05:00 eventually brought out that replacement partner, a returning Carlito - who's reportedly been signed
05:06 by WWE since just after Backlash earlier this year. This was a fun surprise, only slightly
05:14 ruined by one small detail. They changed Carlito's music. And they changed it to some generic bit of
05:21 guff that will never get the pop his original theme did. Look, I get it, WWE want to change
05:27 and update all of their themes, but do they have to change and update them to ones that sound so
05:32 painfully generic? Everyone sounds like they're coming out to original superstar entrance
05:38 through 21 from one of the old Smackdown games. Carlito came out and did some moves getting the
05:43 wind with the Backstabber. And this is, fun fact, Lashley's first PPV match since Backlash - the one
05:49 where Carlito returned. One might think that a loss like this could hurt the momentum of his
05:54 new group, but you can easily play up the "they didn't prepare for Carlito" card. But more
05:58 interestingly, the Dawkins and Ford weren't taking the match seriously enough. They announced
06:04 that WWE will be returning to Saudi Arabia on November 4th for Crown Jewel, and we can use
06:09 this time to announce that we will be doing a watch party for that show at the Long Arm Pub
06:14 and Brewery in Shoreditch in London with a live edition of No Holds Bored. Details of that party
06:20 can be found in the link in the video description below. We'll see you there.
06:24 And maybe we'll also see Jade Cargill on that show as she was given more of that superstar
06:31 treatment on this show of Fastlane - being shown arriving backstage and being welcomed by Triple
06:37 H while photographers tried to get snaps of this new WWE megastar. This is so smart. Not every WWE
06:45 fan watches AEW - only have to look at the ratings to see a large portion of them don't - and so
06:50 they likely won't be aware of who Jade Cargill is. So you show videos of her on Raw and Smackdown
06:56 touting how major publications like ESPN and TMZ are reporting this as big news, and then you show
07:02 her on PPV being welcomed by Triple H. You could not roll out a redder carpet than this. It's great,
07:11 great presentation of her. And it neatly tied into Io Sky defending her Women's Title against Charlotte
07:16 Flair and Asuka. Uh oh, Charlotte Flair and a triple threat. Well, she's either not taking the
07:21 pin or she's winning the title. Amazingly, neither happened. As Io Sky hit the over the moon salt on
07:27 Flair while she had Asuka tapping in the Figure 8 - which was missed by the referee who was distracted
07:31 by Bayley at ringside - and then Io Sky pinned Charlotte Flair. It was a great finish to what
07:36 was a bit of a sloppy match in part - several glancing blows being covered up for by commentary,
07:42 but the drama was superb. Flair was constantly overcoming the odds against Asuka and Sky who at
07:47 one point teamed up to take out the Queen. They teased the idea that Bayley was going to cost Sky
07:52 the title, but she again proved that she is the biggest supporter and cheerleader of Io Sky by
07:58 helping her win. Dakota Kai also came out to celebrate with them and I really hope that they
08:03 never break this team up. Pat McAfee came out to do the John Cena Money in the Bank promo by saying
08:08 that Indianapolis should get a WrestleMania but only if you shout loud enough so the people in
08:13 the back can hear you. They should just do this in every town on every show. Bumble f*** Nebraska,
08:19 do you want a WrestleMania? Let them know in the back so they can hear you. He also joined
08:25 commentary for John Cena and LA Knight teaming up to take on The Bloodline in a 17 minute match
08:29 that could be summed up as thus. Heels worked over Cena, LA Knight got the hot tag and he won.
08:35 That's it. That's all that happened. And the crowd went ballistic because that, my friends,
08:40 is the power of star power. You can honestly close your eyes and know exactly what happened in this
08:47 match. Some of you watching this video won't have seen this match, but trust me, you've seen
08:52 this match. You know exactly what happened in this match move for move. Pat was so concerned
08:58 about Cena that he couldn't shut up talking about Heyman's hair. And I am all for one for LA Knight
09:02 challenging Roman Reigns for the title at Crown Jewel. Speaking of titles, Damian Priest really
09:07 wanted to cash in his Money in the Bank contract tonight, but Rhea Ripley convinced him not to.
09:12 Though it probably would have been a good time to do so because Seth Rollins got absolutely
09:16 bastered in his main event Last Man Standing match against Shinsuke Nakamura. These two had
09:20 the most underwhelming mid-Pay-Per-View main event last time at Payback, but thankfully this match
09:26 had lots of plunder and smoke and mirrors to get the crowd amped up. They used tables, they used
09:31 ladders, they used more tables, they used kendo sticks, and then used some more tables. The crowd
09:38 never really believed that Nakamura was going to win the title, but were so into Seth's story of
09:42 overcoming all of the back pain odds to retain his title with a Falcon Arrow off the stage through a
09:48 table. Michael Cole was great in this match and really put over the danger of Nakamura, especially
09:53 when he misted Rollins in the face at the top of the ladder which led to Seth falling through the
09:57 announcer's table. WWE Fastlane was a fine show, but it was a breeze to watch and incredibly
10:04 entertaining. I had a good time with this show, inconsequential as it was and so should you. But
10:09 I do hope that Crown Jewel and Survivor Series in November can bring back a bit of spark to
10:14 this company creatively as the post-SummerSlam lull has been very real this year. WWE Fastlane
10:21 is still 4 out of 5, and we were tasked with naming every Hell in a Cell match on the most
10:26 recent edition of Survival Series and here is what happened. Sorry, what? Oh, come on, what is it?
10:32 Look, I know McMahons and DX had one with Big Show there, I know that happened. I said that
10:39 in the video, it was just cut out of the edit. I hon- that is- you can go watch the uncut version
10:44 of it on Patreon, you'll see that I said it. I just thought it was a cage match instead.
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