00:00Say this all the time, I need to make that one longer, because you boy needed some water
00:10after yelling about the NFL for a minute and now we need to get that one back, need to
00:16extend that a little bit.
00:17But it is!
00:18WWE Bad Blood went down this weekend from Atlanta, Georgia and a lot of talking points
00:23coming out of it.
00:24So, let's break it down, shall we?
00:27The night begins with Drew McIntyre against CM Punk and I thought this was exactly what
00:34it needed to be.
00:36I thought it was an excellent, excellent Hell in a Cell match.
00:39I thought every bit of brutality kind of meant something.
00:42There wasn't a lot of egregious stuff, just to be egregious, and I think we know what
00:46promotion I'm talking to when I say that, but I thought that they were, they did a really
00:51good job of kind of stringing everything together and it wasn't just a plunder match, it was
00:55a psychologically thought out Hell in a Cell match with still enough blood and violence
01:00to justify it.
01:02I thought that, again, it got across the seriousness of the stipulation and made Hell in a Cell
01:09feel like just an absolute badass thing that you really needed to worry about and it makes
01:15it this, like, absolute playground of just violence and something that will change you
01:20for a bit.
01:21And I've said before, like, I know Crown Jewel is coming up and I know it's getting
01:25into Survivor Series, which is getting into Royal Rumble, which is getting into WrestleMania.
01:28I think Punk and Drew have to sit it out for a bit.
01:31I think you have to sell the repercussions of this for a while and do video things or
01:37whatever vignettes you need to do, but I don't think you have these guys on TV, especially
01:41like you can, it's easy to just, like, go away from them because Raw's going to two
01:46hours now, so it's easy to just kind of pivot from those guys and do something else and
01:51let them kind of sell the effects of the match that they were just in.
01:55And then I thought after, like, Punk stumbling and needing the oxygen and all of that.
01:59I thought that was really, really good.
02:02And then also, I thought the commentary of that match, and for the most part of the show,
02:08I thought the commentary was phenomenal.
02:09I thought Cole and Graves did a good job of setting up, again, the severity of the match
02:13type that they were in and the aggressive nature that both guys were portraying.
02:20And I thought that they added to that match spectacularly.
02:23The only thing I will say about the commentary is that I do wish Wade Barrett was on the
02:29desk there.
02:31Not that there was anything really lacking, but just, again, because one of the things
02:35that I am always saying is you need to keep this brand split, you know, split.
02:40And you need to, if you want to do this, you have to take it seriously.
02:44And Graves and Cole have amazing chemistry together, and they're awesome, and obviously
02:48they follow the product and all of those things, but they are both the SmackDown guys.
02:53And so I do think you need the raw dude there, at least to just lend a bit of the raw voice
02:59so that it doesn't just seem like it's the SmackDown guy and then, well, it's not really,
03:02it's all WWE, and then all of it gets blurred and it doesn't work.
03:05So that's why I loved it when the initial brand split, they had the two different broadcast
03:11teams, and I understand you are limited with that when Joe Tessitore is doing college football
03:17or doing boxing or both.
03:20So there is a limitation with that, and so I think the compromise is getting Wade Barrett
03:24on there and it's a three-man booth, and that's how you go about it.
03:27But that is the only knock.
03:28I thought it was really good.
03:30And then after that, we kind of dragged for a while, I thought.
03:34Bayley and Nia was alright.
03:36It wasn't amazing.
03:38It was good enough.
03:39Like, there wasn't anything awful about it, I didn't think.
03:41I thought it was fine.
03:42It definitely is setting up now, Tiffany Stratton against Nia Jax, and I don't know if the
03:47crowd is overly enthused to be cheering for either of them there.
03:51So it's a weird spot, I think.
03:54But I do think part of this now sets up something interesting with Bayley, because they showed
04:00before that, like, they were up in the box, the luxury box, with the tag team champion,
04:08the women's tag team champions, and Naomi, the hosts for the evening, which, what hosting
04:13they did.
04:14But they did a thing where they were saying, like, okay, women's championship matchup next,
04:19who do we got?
04:20Like, how's Bayley gonna do?
04:21And Naomi's like, yeah, my girl Bayley, she's got this, it's gonna be great, it's gonna
04:24be awesome.
04:25Oh, Bianca, what do you think?
04:26She's definitely gonna try hard.
04:28And there was a glare from Naomi, and I do think maybe we're setting up a tag team feud
04:34now with Naomi and Bayley going up against Bianca and Jade.
04:38And I think that could be interesting, because this tag team division just needs some stories
04:43right now, and needs some interest.
04:45And they're starting to get it a little bit, like the Kabuki Warriors and all of them,
04:50and they are getting it, they're trying, at least, with, like, Carter and Chance and the
04:55whatever they're calling the Sonia DeVille group and all of them, but this would be a
04:59good one at the top to let the other ones kind of figure out what they are doing and
05:02building up their storylines.
05:04So I think that could be the pivot, and I think it could be really interesting.
05:08Priest against Balor was alright.
05:10It felt like Raw.
05:11It felt like a Monday Night Raw match.
05:14They did make Priest feel like a bit of a beast when he's going out there and everyone's
05:17running in, and he's disposing of all of them and crushing them, and then he ends up getting
05:20the win.
05:21So, hopefully, this was enough beating down of the Judgment Day to allow Priest to go
05:27off and do something else.
05:28I think there needs to be a touch of a remake with him.
05:32You can't get too far away from the character that he is, but all of it still screams Judgment
05:38Day, because that is the group that he is closely associated with, not just because
05:44of recency, but also, like, it's the biggest thing he has done in this company.
05:48And so, I think that there needs to be just a slight little retool of him so that it doesn't
05:53look so connected, because I do think you now need to separate the two groups, the group
05:58from the guy.
05:59Triple H comes out for a massive announcement, and it is the Crown Jewel, where the undisputed
06:07WWE Champion is going to face the World Heavyweight Champion, and ditto on the women's side as
06:12well.
06:13Neither title will be on the line, but the winners will be crowned the Crown Jewels of
06:172024.
06:19It is what it is.
06:20Like, it's not, um...
06:23At least when they said, oh, groundbreaking announcement, it wasn't a thing that was teased
06:25for weeks and weeks as something that would change the industry, and then it was just
06:28kind of a bit of a, oh, okay.
06:31It'll get a couple of interesting matches.
06:34It is curious that you would have two champions lose on big shows like that, but I think that
06:42there's an interesting storytelling device that can come with all of that, and so I think
06:47if done well, it is something that I think you can feel confident in, and actually do
06:53quite a bit with.
06:54So, I think there could be something there.
06:56It is something that is also, if it was the past regime running it, I think you would
07:01have some major concerns about how it was all being put together, and how it was all
07:07being booked, and all of that.
07:08But I think that this is a creative department now that gives you the confidence that they're
07:13going to be able to take this seriously and actually use it in a way that helps further
07:19a few things.
07:20So I think it could be interesting, but it doesn't necessarily have my interest piqued
07:23right now.
07:24I think it's like a lot of things in wrestling, where you're doing it for the first time,
07:27so you have to really do it to make us take it seriously.
07:31And then the Gunther Goldberg stuff, it's fine.
07:33It was a raw segment after that.
07:35I would imagine at some point we get some kind of Goldberg involvement in something,
07:39and he comes back and there's a whatever, but yeah.
07:42Live Against Rhea, it was alright.
07:43It was mainly a stage for other storyline things to happen.
07:49And that was... like, you have the hell in the cell at the beginning, and then obviously
07:52you end the night with Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns in a tag team match, and The Rock comes
07:58out.
07:59So there are big things that happened on this show, but like 95% of this show felt like
08:04Raw or Smackdown.
08:05Like, this did not feel like a premium live event, and I understand it is kind of a secondary
08:11one, but this... they had just enough on here to make it not skippable, and I am not going
08:19to tell WWE their shows need to be longer, or anything like that, but getting into these
08:25rhythms where these are five match shows, and a couple things on them are going to happen
08:30that are going to be interesting, the rest of it is just going to kind of be a... basically
08:33a souped-up Monday Night Raw, and we're going to move forward with that.
08:36Like, I just...
08:37I worry that these are coming a little skippable, and not maybe meaning as much.
08:42And again, it's coming from an era where some of these shows were four and a half hours,
08:46and too much was jammed onto them, and we were trying to force everyone onto everything,
08:50and like, we're getting a world title match on Raw tonight, so there is... you are still
08:55getting a lot of very good content, and it is making the weeks and the TVs feel special,
08:59and all of that, but it is...
09:00I do think we are taking away from some of these a little bit, anyway.
09:06But yeah, Liv and Rhea, it was alright.
09:07It was about the story.
09:08Raquel Rodriguez comes out, it makes complete sense.
09:10She has history with both, she is a good kind of the Diesel to Liv Morgan's Shawn Michaels,
09:16she is a little on the nose with Camille and Mercedes Monet, but that's a thing that's
09:22been done in wrestling for a hundred years.
09:24So I think this role fits Raquel better.
09:28I think that she is better suited as the big bully heel, rather than just trying to be
09:34like the big smiling, oh man, boy, I'm really strong, aren't I, baby face.
09:39Like, she seems like a legitimately nice person, it just hasn't been able to translate into
09:43a character that gets people invested.
09:45So, what's the thing you do from that?
09:47Just pivot and be huge and terrifying.
09:50And she can do that, there's a thing now with her and Liv as a group, you have a ready-made
09:57storyline with all the different years of things that they did with Raquel and Rhea
10:02Ripley, and how that can now grow, and then you still have a little Rhea-Liv hanging over,
10:08if you want to get to that at like a WrestleMania time, or something like that.
10:12So it's a pairing that makes complete sense.
10:14And then the main event, it was Cody and Roman taking on Jacob Fatu and Solo, and there
10:19was the run-ins, and Jimmy Uso is back, and we are all very excited about this.
10:26And there's the hug with Roman, and so we have now, and then The Rock comes out at the
10:29end.
10:30We have firmly started to now push this into high gear, and get this storyline rolling,
10:38as we push towards WarGames in Vancouver, and then onward towards WrestleMania.
10:44And so, the first seeds were planted here, and I am very excited to see where it goes.
10:50But yeah, for the most part, you have a blow-off match in Hell in a Cell, and then the rest
10:55of it all just kind of felt like we're advancing for something else.
11:00And the rest of it just felt like a really, really souped-up Raw or SmackDown.
11:04So it was an enjoyable, what, it ended up being close to three hours?
11:08It was an enjoyable show, I enjoyed it.
11:11I was entertained, but I did not come away from it thinking, like, man, we just saw a
11:15premium live event.
11:17What a night for the WWE.
11:18Just like, yeah, this was fun, can't wait to see what happens next.
11:22Which I guess is episodic television, but it didn't feel like a big, a big event by
11:27any stretch of the imagination.
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