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00:00LA Knight made a great point at the start of this week's episode of Smackdown because he was all
00:03like, oh, isn't it interesting? I'm not getting a buy in the John Cena tournament, even though
00:08Sheamus got injured and in all other walks of life and in all other walks of sports, which is not a
00:13term. Do you know who get buys? It would be people like me, but quite clearly there's shenanigans
00:18going down on the show. We walked off. Of course, again, a mystery opponent, but turned out not to
00:21be a mystery opponent. It was that Nick Aldis hadn't bothered to book anybody yet because he
00:26had to use the magical Tumblr. I was like, Nick, man, you have days to do this. We all learned
00:31about Sheamus weeks ago, which is a mild exaggeration, but also kind of true. It's made me laugh out
00:36loud. So I guess in that sense, it was a pretty good beginning. Otherwise, my friends, welcome
00:40to Ups and Downs, the only wrestling review show you need. And today's episode is indeed sponsored
00:44by Norton, which means if you would like a VPN, you can use when you do go abroad and you want
00:48to use a VPN that's going to keep you safe in your tum tum, which is not a thing to say,
00:53but I've said it now. You can do it right now by clicking the QR code on the screen.
00:56There's also a link in the description down there. And my gosh, you're going to get like
01:0073% off. Now, there are different links to the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia. So make
01:04sure you use the right one because nobody wants to do that. You'll be confused. You'll be like,
01:07good day, mate. And then, hey, man, how's it going? And all kinds of accents are going to
01:10get mixed up. And of course, there are extra sales given it is the Black Friday weekend.
01:14But even if you get to Monday and you just so happen to watch this video, there's still
01:18some great deals. So again, QR code, click the link, take the finger of power, up the doubt.
01:23For that, though, the John Cena tournament was in full gear because it was Jey Uso taking
01:26on Rusev. And I did like this from, oh, hi. I never thought these two people would be in
01:31the ring together again after they separated a few years ago. Otherwise, it was just fine.
01:36I would say we had an over-reliance of kicking out and finishes. But actually, the good thing
01:40about Jey and Ruru is that Rusev has the match to kick, which isn't his proper finish.
01:44And Jey Uso has the spear, which also is proper finish. So even though he did do some
01:47one-two-oos pro wrestling tees, I think they kind of got away with it. Shout out to Ruru
01:52as well, who actually did a bear hug. We don't see enough of those, but obviously never do
01:55one literally. When Jey Uso came back with the dive, put one on the counter. This is
02:00when he kicked out of the stupid match to kick two, when Rusev tried to Samoan drop him,
02:04but Jey Uso didn't let him. So I was like, maybe he's not Samoan. Then he hit the Samoan
02:08drop. And I was like, it's okay. He is Samoan. And I looked around and I pondered what I'm
02:12doing with my life. Rusev then made a terrible mistake because he was all like, ha ha ha, as if
02:16he was Zangief, I'm going to hit the attitude adjustment. And Jey was like, I'm not going
02:20to let you do that. Given that John Cena is the goat, when he got another spear and he
02:23hit the Uso splash and he got the one, two, three. And yes, if you are looking at the
02:27brackets, it does feel like we may end the year with Jey Uso versus Gunther, which is
02:31also basically how we started the year. Some people are melting down. I'm going to wait
02:35and see. I will say, actually I'll hit pause there. John Cena tournament is like good,
02:41but it's just kind of missing something. But I'll talk about that. We do get it at
02:44La Night and give it an up like it was perfectly fine. We shall now never talk about it again.
02:49When yes, it all continued. This was a terrible segment, which means WWE has gone back to back
02:54with these in terms of Raw and SmackDown. But The Miz was talking to Nick Aldis going,
02:58I want to be in the tournament, even though he's already been in the flipping tournament
03:01and he lost. This is when R-Truth walked in. It was like, oh man, let's make some more
03:05testicle jokes. Don't get mad at me. That was what happening. And given that Aldis had
03:09been distracted and he was holding some of the damn balls in his hand, The Miz replaced
03:14it. I was like, Nick Aldis, there was no way you wouldn't have realized this. It was
03:18so dumb. Dare I said, it was insulting your intelligence just a little bit. It was if
03:23somebody was holding your phone and they walked in and just nicked it. And two seconds later,
03:28you're like, I don't know where my phone is. If you do that, the problem is you and you
03:31need to go look in the mirror and figure your life out. I got to give it a down. This is all
03:35we could come up with. At least have The Miz fiddle with the Tumblr or something. It was
03:40the worst sleight of hand you've ever seen in your life. I suppose it did make me laugh,
03:45but it just felt lazy. Okay. I don't want to get mad at you. It felt really lazy. But
03:50the writers walked in and said, oh no, I guess you could just do a little switcheroo with
03:55the hands. I'm not even going to say it was like watching Looney Tunes because sometimes
03:59Looney Tunes can be pretty good. Daniel Priest was then talking about Aleister Black and thankfully
04:02his eye has healed after he was set on fire. Basically, he doesn't like Zelina Vega. He doesn't
04:07like Aleister Black when Zelina Vega walked in and was like, ha ha, you're terrible. And
04:11Damien was like, oh, did your husband send you? Zelina was like, no, I'm a human being.
04:14I have come to tell you you're a moron. Now, the main reason we did do this is because
04:17after she had walked away, Rhea Ripley walked in. She's like, oh, good day mate. It's lovely
04:21to see you. Don't forget we are best friends. And she even said they should have a chat about
04:26things. So I do believe we're going to do Rhea and Damien taking on Aleister Black and
04:29Zelina. And actually we do need to sort of start pushing Damien Priest again. So that's a great
04:33way to do it. I also laughed out loud here because Rhea Ripley said, listen, we'll talk
04:38about this later because I have to go and hype up Charlotte like she was in an RPG and she
04:44was about to cast buff. Honestly, that made me crack up and we should do more of that.
04:48And as for this Damien Priest Aleister Black feud, my answer is shrug emoji. Sometimes on
04:53the television, sometimes it's not. It's been going on for ages. We already had the big street
04:57fight, whatever you want to call it, with fire and it's still going on. I kind of think we
05:02should get to 2026 and hit reset on this, but still throw them up the card. They're
05:06very good. I don't think this is the only words I can think of. It's setting the world
05:11on fire. When Chelsea Green finally came out for her US title championship celebration,
05:15wham the zoo, she was all like, I'm the best champion of America. I'm the best champion
05:18of the continents. I'm just the best champion in history. Nobody can beat me because I am
05:23the best. And then she asked for a big pyrotechnics to play when surprise, surprise, out
05:26came Jake Cargill. She booted Applefire so hard in the face. She hit Chelsea Green with
05:31jaded when she walked off. I was like, that was a very weird kind of no point segment.
05:37Now I'm going to give it an up because I think Chelsea Green is hilarious, especially because
05:40after this, the pyros did go off. She was like, no, no, why would you do this to me?
05:45But why didn't Julia interrupt here, given that she was getting in Chelsea Green's face last
05:49week? I understand that Jade did that as well, but once again, Julia has vanished.
05:53Jake Cargill is our brand new, essentially women's champion. She's not getting into a feud.
05:58She doesn't really cut promos. I don't mind them being short and sweet. I get she did
06:01one backstage, but we kind of had two brand new champions here and we just smudged them
06:06together. And then yes, later on, Jade was like, I just sent a message to the women's division.
06:10When B-Fab and Meachin walked into the frame, B-Fab just stood there and said nothing.
06:14And then Meachin became exposition. She was like, oh, maybe we should fight Jake Cargill at
06:20some point. It is not their fault. They need better stories. They need more time.
06:24And Jade Cargill as the silent but awesome champion or someone that only says a few words
06:29works perfectly well because look at her. But I just don't understand how someone can
06:33win a title and not get into like a really knee deep, interesting program with stories
06:38that I'm going to do this to you. And it's the same with Chelsea Green. I think the rumors
06:42about WWE not caring about that women's US title are totally true, which is up to them.
06:47But I like it. And I think we could have done more with it. You got to give it a down.
06:50We then had another hilarious segment because the women in the War Games team, the baby
06:54faces, were having a big old chat. They were like, oh, Charlotte, you have to beat Oscar
06:57later because then we will have the advantage. When actually, I'm going to try and do it.
07:01It's going to be difficult giving my framing in my room. But this literally happened, right?
07:05AJ Lee just walked in. She said, ha ha, I will help you win and maybe I'll do some crazy
07:10things. All right, I got to go. She just walked off again. I don't know how that's going to
07:15play when you are watching it on YouTube. But man, I was dying. Everybody, especially
07:20Rhea Ripley, seemed very excited to have AJ Lee on the team. I was like, guys, that's
07:24a bizarre, bizarre thing to do. Also, we can still see her because she's literally stood
07:30right there. I did enjoy it though, so I can't get mad when we did get to LA Knight versus
07:33The Miz, which was basically a carbon copy of the first match. And of course, The Miz had
07:38to hit the skull crushing finale because nobody believed that he could possibly win given
07:43it. And he had just come out of nowhere. I think 2026, something that WWE should try
07:47and do, is just kind of rein it back in a little bit when it comes to people kicking
07:51out of finishes. Like, it was a random match in the John Cena tournament. It wasn't a
07:55semi-final. It wasn't the final. Just don't think we need to bastardize finishes to the
07:59degree we have done. Save them for pay-per-views. Save them for WrestleMania main events. I'm
08:04going to give that just a little bit of a doubt. Otherwise, though, it was perfectly fine.
08:07I mean, there's not much to write home about. The Miz tried to cheat at one point. The
08:10referee went, ha ha, you're not allowed to cheat in the John Cena tournament.
08:13So LA Knight hit him with the BFT. He got the one, two, three. That rhymes, so it must
08:17be true. I can't remember what the semi-finals are now. I think it's Solo versus Gunther and
08:23LA Knight versus Jey Uso, which actually does tie into a story we were telling a few months
08:26ago, so I do like that. At the same time, Jey Uso is coming into this match after WarGames,
08:32so maybe some more shenanigans are afoot, but I'd give it up. Once again, it was perfectly
08:35harmless, but if you wanted to skip it, I'd understand.
08:38Becky Lynch was then doing the same for the heels of the Women's WarGames team. She was really
08:42funny, like she was on Raw. She's like, only one person has got a 100% win record in WarGames,
08:47and it's me. You suck in them. You suck in them. She went to somebody else. You've got
08:50like an 8% win rate because while you were in a match, you didn't get the pin. So ultimately,
08:54everybody should be listening to me. And I text her like, man, you really annoy me. We
08:59don't care about you today. We care about Oscar, because she's about to take on Charlotte Flair
09:02in the Advantage match. Oscar continues to be the best heel ever as well. She was like,
09:06oh yeah. The last time me and Charlotte fought, do you know what happened? I took her out the
09:10game for a year, so I'm going to do it again. And all the bad guys basically went, yeah.
09:16This episode of SmackDown was like watching a pantomime. Everybody kind of leaned into a
09:20stereotypical way to play their character, but actually it made it very funny. Still laughing
09:25about that AJ Lee thing. Maybe the best thing of the year. Then a quick interview with Ilya Dragunov,
09:29and he was all like, I understand Tamatonga keeps coming up to me and going,
09:32yep, yep, yep, yep. But if he wants a match, he knows what to do. Come out to the ring and
09:36challenge me. Went and walked to Musso Ciampa and said, well, it sounds like you should be
09:40challenging me. And Ilya called him a jackass, and he walked off. I thought this was quite bad,
09:45to be completely honest with you. Just get around to doing the flipping to Musso Ciampa match.
09:49When WWE actually did surprise me, mostly because I put Oscar up on a pedestal,
09:54because we did get to this War Games Advantage match. And I was like, of course,
09:56Oscar will win, especially because when it comes to that stipulation bout,
10:00it always makes sense for the bad guys to have the advantage, because then they can beat up the
10:03babyfaces. And when the babyfaces have the advantage, well, sometimes they're just absolutely
10:08clocking a heel, and it doesn't make any sense. It's a bit 2 plus 2 equal potato. But we didn't do
10:12that. Oscar did lose. Charlotte did win. It was essentially clean as a whistle, even though at one
10:17point, Oscar went and missed her, and accidentally hit Timmy the timekeeper instead. But this match was
10:22so damn good, it wrote me in to such a degree, and I was surprised by the winner. I don't think I can
10:27get mad at it. Like, if all of a sudden I was in charge of WWE, which would be a terrible idea,
10:31I think I would save Oscar's losses for singles huge, just because she comes across like such
10:35a badass. But when you're doing work that's up there like this, I ain't going to moan.
10:40This also made me start to think, are we getting some sort of a heel turn in this women's war
10:45game? I don't know why. I don't know where it comes from. I think it even could be Charlotte
10:48Flair, or maybe even Alexa Bliss, although I think Charlotte makes more sense. But this made me
10:52intrigued about the pay-per-view. The work was very, very good. And yeah, at the end,
10:56Oscar applied the Oscar lock. Charlotte got out of it. She hit the natural selection and got the
11:01one, two, three. And as somebody, it's always ranting and raving, going, well, we should just
11:04let people lose sometimes for the story. That's exactly what WWE did. I've given it up. I thought
11:10this was brilliant, and they did it. They made me in, whatever that means. I want to see the
11:14women's war games. I was pretty pumped about it anyway. When nostalgia hit me right in the face,
11:18and I shouldn't have said it like that, but we did get our traditional Survivor Series match.
11:21It was the MFTs taking on Sami Zayn and Phoenix, the motorcycle machine guns,
11:26and Shinsuke Nakamura. And actually, I would describe this as not bad. It was okay. But because
11:31we had this rule to wrap it, I have a whale of a time. I thought it was super duper fun. Of course,
11:36Soto and friends beat up Sami Zayn for a while because they saw him as the captain when Phoenix
11:40and Sami Zayn did a couple of dies and put a two on the counter. Well, we do need to talk about the
11:44WWE run of JC Mateo, formerly Jeff Cobb, because essentially the motorcycle machine guns both hit it
11:50with a double pin, and they got a one, two, three. I mean, he's not really done anything up to this
11:54point. He kind of just hangs out in the back playing Nintendo. As long as he's happy, that's
11:58all I care about. But he's way better than this. I find it very confusing. Phoenix then used the most
12:03devastating move. In all of sports entertainment, the surprise role I could take up Tangaloa.
12:08For some reason, that made me laugh. Well, we got a huge takedown, literally, because
12:11Tyler, I am the tallest Tonga, essentially took Alice Shelley, hurled him into the ring apron,
12:15and he just pinned him. And he's like, you shouldn't have messed with me. I'm tall.
12:19Tyler then did the same to Chris Saban after a massive clothesline. So once again, we are pushing
12:23him like a big old guy when WWE wussed out a little bit. And also, why are they so obsessed
12:28with count outs later? I think somebody has gone, you know what? We have done a lot of
12:32disqualifications and no contests. We can abuse the count out. That's a surprise, surprise. We're
12:37doing too many of those. Now, actually, before that, Tyler Tonga did take out Phoenix with a cutthroat,
12:41which is when Sami Zayn and Tyler Tonga were fighting on the outside. And after Sam had hurled him,
12:45into Timmy, the timekeeper's area that was having a terrible evening. That's right. He wasn't able
12:49to make the 10 because management had gone, he's really big. He's really massive. He cannot
12:54possibly be pinned. This was good for Sam as well, because at this point, he was like three to one
12:58against him. He also got rid of Tamatonga with a halluva kick, which means we did get down to
13:02Sola Tukawa and Sami Zayn, which kind of ties into the past. And even though it looked like Sam was
13:06going to win after he hurled, poor old Sola Tukawa, into Tina the turnbuckle. He then went for the
13:12halluva kick. Sola went to cut it off with the thumb, which is the greatest sentence ever,
13:15Sam went for the most devastating move in all the sports entertainment surprise rollups.
13:19Sola didn't want that, so he turned around. He did spike him. He just pinned him for the one,
13:23two, three. So there was some nonsense throughout this match. But by the end of it, I was like,
13:27well, damn, son, we are pushing old Sola Sola. Given that I love Solo, I got no problem with it.
13:32For some reason, WWE also did their credit tease after this. We are doing that way too much.
13:37It's like four times in the past four weeks. But yes, it means the Whites finally remembered to
13:41return to work and they kind of looked at Sola Tsukawa, a little scary wary. And then
13:46Uncle Howdy laid him out with the sister Abigail. It was a bit like, maybe one day we'll get to this
13:50tag team match, or maybe it'll go on for another 42 years. Also, I presume when we get to the tag
13:55team title portion of this, it won't be Sola Tsukawa in it. So I wonder if we're going to do
13:59another five-man tag before then, or a four-man tag, I suppose. We'll wait and see. But for the mere fact
14:04we did get a traditional Survivor Series match, and Sola Tsukawa won as well. I am going to give
14:08it an up. I'll also say, in terms of like the ending of a go-home show leading into a PLE,
14:14well, it was a little bit meh. It's also totally missable. Don't want to be that guy,
14:17but if you just want to read up about SmackDown or watch me do it as you just have,
14:21that's probably the way to do it. Now, people get mad, especially this one guy on the internet
14:25who went totally off on me, when I do give the middle thumb, but I'm giving it a middle thumb.
14:30Sola Tsukawa ending the night kind of on top is always going to make me happy.
14:33Actually, outside of that, there wasn't much else. Now, I really enjoyed Charlotte vs. Oscar,
14:38right? So I can't give it a complete down. That would be unfair. And also, a lot of this
14:41is coming from the fact I want to leave for Survivor Series, and I did not do that at all.
14:46But there's also a caveat to this. It was a taped show, which really affected the crowd,
14:50but really it was a taped show. It's because WWE allowed all the superstars to go home for
14:54Thanksgiving, and I think that's nice. And actually, given we get so many shows on television
14:59every single year, I will take a crappy SmackDown, which is a bit of an exaggeration,
15:03for human beings to have a nice time, it's getting thumb middle. Now you can come yell
15:08at me. Also, please leave me a comment below and let me know what you thought about last
15:10night's episode of SmackDown. Like the video, share the video, and subscribe. Click the video
15:13on the screen, which is ups and downs for Monday Night Raw, and I will be back tomorrow morning
15:16for Survivor Series, and I have a match in progress too. It's going to be a busy old day for me.
15:21See you then.