Special Edition WWE Evolution 2018

Oh yeah!
It is 6.19 on the east coast, it is 3.19 on the west coast.
It is the 28th of October in the year of our Lord 2018.
It is season 9, episode 16, and 463 times this voice has welcomed you to the Clubhouse podcast.
And when I say this voice, I mean this voice.
Welcome!
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You can hear all of our shenanigans every Sunday night at 7 Eastern for Pacific, normally.
It's paper a few days, so we're on a little bit earlier, but a little bit later than
what I want to be.
And we're going to talk about that here in just a moment, as I do a couple of things.
Alright, so my name is Rob, I am the Executive Producer of the Clubhouse Podcast, and we
didn't think it would ever happen again, but it has.
I would introduce the rest of the day, but there isn't one.
So it's just you and me tonight, kids.
Either out on assignment, out of town, or under the weather.
It's just me.
But it is a pay-per-view show, so that makes things a little bit easier.
I've got everybody's picks.
We'll be going through those here in just a minute.
We did not have any corrections or updates from last week, actually, and there's a couple
from one of the special additions we did with Hunter Killer.
I did not know what C.J.
C.
S.C. was?
I think it was.
I can't remember what it was, but it was the Chief, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, was a character played by Gary Oldman in Hunter Killer.
And the little rock was the sub that Jarr Butler's character originally piloted, and the
one that he was they were looking for was the Tampa Bay.
So I got that for you.
But that's what we got from last week.
Some points of dates, because we had two pay-per-views since we last did this.
We had Hell in a Cell, and we had Sydney Super Show down.
He forgets it that last word.
So here's where the points stand.
Points and standings are at this point.
Doc still in the basement at minus 45.
He was six and four at Sydney Super Showdown.
LA is nine points ahead of him with a six and four record.
I was one point better, seven and three, but I'm nine points ahead of LA.
But I am 12 points behind Jen Rome.
She broke even at five and five.
He's at plus 11.
Andrew is plus 18.
He went seven and three at the Sydney show.
Steven is three points ahead of him with that's when six and four.
Chad also went six and four.
He's five points ahead of Steven.
But Alex made a huge move by doing a lot of specific endings and things like that.
He's actually in the lead.
He's four points ahead of Chad.
And he also went nine and one at Sydney Super Showdown.
So he is currently your leader in the clubhouse.
I mean, we're always here.
Technically, yes, it's always in the clubhouse.
So let's talk about the week that was in our sport and dear goodness, mercy, a week
it was for those of you that may have been living in a cave and didn't see anything
on social media or in mainstream media for that matter.
Roman Reigns starts off raw on Monday night comes out and says that he's in a battle with
leukemia that's returned and he has vacated the universal championship.
And in doing so, I have to walk away from the sport for a while while he gets treatment.
Monday night I was at a screening and as I was leaving the screening, Alex texted me
and said, hey, call me when you start watching Raw.
And I was like, well, I'll usually watch Raw until Tuesday.
He's like, no, you need to watch it tonight, stay up social media.
And I was like, okay, so I got home and I turned it on and I got through that opening segment.
I had so many questions.
So we found out as the week went on that very, very, very few people knew what was going
on.
The only thing production knew was that Roman had an announcement he wanted to make.
And when he came out and he was in street clothes, I was a little concerned.
And if I sounded a little frog guy, I apologize, my allergies went nuts on me this week.
They took my voice on late Thursday night.
So I've been kind of, this is the best my voice has been in three days.
So I apologize, see all ahead of time.
He came on street clothes and I didn't quite know what to think of it.
And then when he said my real name is Joe, red flags just started throwing up in my brain,
like what's going on here?
And then he admitted to battling leukemia for 11 years.
And number one to show the show of respect that that crowd gave him after booing him for
so long, I thought with respect to that crowd for understanding the line between K-Fabe
and not K-Fabe.
And I respected that a lot.
And just the emotion by everybody in the locker room, the video of the WWE released
the next day of the immediate moments after Roman left the stage and went back to the
gorilla position.
And as we saw, he didn't stay for the show.
He just got in his car and left.
And he put on a beautiful tweet later on thanking everybody for their support.
It was a very, I'm not going to lie to you, I teared up a little bit.
I'm concerned for the actor known as Roman Reigns.
Because this is not, you know, when something comes back on you like this, it can be a tougher
deal.
And I know that Roman knows the road he has ahead of him, but, you know, being so close
to cancer and things like that myself and who needs sleep and, you know, hashtag ask
me why I do this.
It was one of those moments where I just kind of sat there and I had to take it all in.
They say that you're never more than three people away from someone who has dealt with
or someone who's very close to someone who's dealt with any form of cancer.
You know, right in the middle of everything else that's going on, you know, October being
breast cancer month, the NFL doing the crucial catch where they're supporting all forms
of cancer research.
It was a moment that just kind of took my breath away.
And I thought it was handled brilliantly and it was handled respectfully.
You have to remember my voice, my throat is very, very dry.
So our best to Roman Reigns in his fight and know that you've got a throngs, I mean throngs
of people that are here to support you, sir.
In other news, John Cena not only promises that he will be at WrestleMania 35, but he
and Daniel Bryan will not be making the trip this coming Saturday for Crown Jewel, which
is a huge announcement.
Cena has been replaced in the WWE World Cup allegedly by Lashley.
One thing about Daniel Bryan at this point, how they're going to handle the WWE Championship
match.
Now there was some questions about Kane making the trip.
He's getting ready to be the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.
But we found out that he's using his appearance, he will be going, he's going to be using his
appearance fee to donate to the Knoxville Public Safety Foundation, which supports first
responders.
So he's honoring his commitments, he's getting ready to have his life after sports entertainment.
And I respect it.
It's still a weird bit to me that they're going forward with this show.
But from Kane's standpoint, hey, the guy supporting first responders, there's just a lot
of variables involved with this.
And I don't really want to get into the minutiae, we try to avoid politics on this show.
Kane has said that if this show goes forward, he will be boycotting for a month.
So he will be, I mean, he gave me picks for today, also dawn out with health, some health
issues, dawn get well soon, we love you brother.
But he's getting us the next two.
And I respect his stance and I understand where he's coming from.
So you're not going to hear me complain about that, I get it.
Sting in a interview this week says that undertaker is the only opponent he would come
back for.
And I've been reading a number of interviews with him recently where he's talked about
how he wants to book that angle and the ideas that he has.
And I'm on board with it.
If this can happen, if Sting can get healthy enough to work that match, yes, I know we
say about takeer on this show and it does take takeer an hour and a half to the ring.
But I think they've got what they, if they can make this happen, I would love to see
it.
But it would have to be the right situation.
So we'll see.
A couple of wrong notes.
Leo Rush, I like the guy, but giving him a live mic during entire match and then chaining
the lash, like, I get that's where you're going.
You want to give me a headache with it, but you have to.
And of course, for a young reminding again, apparently he doesn't know where the teacher
it is.
And if you're trying to promote evolution, this was a weird thing for me.
You're promoting tonight's paper.
You first time ever, WWE all women's paper, you history is going to be made tonight.
You bring out Sasha Banks to her entrance, go to break, and then you come back and do
a Mac and Tire Ziegler interview.
Do that after the match, kids, or do it before, don't do it.
Don't do it when you're mid entrance.
That was weird to me.
And did they just rerun the same brothers of destruction, promo two weeks in a row?
It seemed like the same exact promo to me.
I wasn't going to go back and compare and contrast, but you guys are going to let me know
Rob at the clubhousepodcast.com.
And when you get to DX, I feel like at this point calling them D generation X, it's just
a bad idea.
Because father time, I'm just saying, father time, just call them DX, because we know
he's Hunter Hurst Helmsley, we just call him Triple H.
Because right now, if you call them Hunter Hurst Helmsley, it would be weird.
Same thing, just call it DX and be done with it.
Nice jobs by both Hamin and Strowman in their, in their promos about Roman Reigns, especially
since they didn't know until it happened.
He's been a big fan of Hamin.
I was watching some old footage actually last night on one of the sting sets that I have
on into the light.
And as they were getting ready for Super Brawl in 91, when it was Sting and Luger against
the Steiners, just seeing Paulie back then, it just made, it just gave me the huge smile.
Paul Hamin's a genius from a storytelling standpoint.
And the guy, the guy understands respect.
Hamin and Strowman did amazing jobs.
And I guess Strowman's now faced again, because I'm told with, with the gap left by what
happened at the end of the show and with Roman leaving, that's why you had to turn Elias
and Strowman both face.
And Elias got two segments out of the deal, so go figure.
And then I was watching one of the women's segments and I thought to myself, how tall
are Alicia Fox's heels?
Because she towered over, and I looked at him like she's not wearing heels.
Alicia Fox's 5-11, I looked it up, so love to her.
I didn't realize she was that dog on tall.
And both tag team titles had changed in less than seven days, as we know, two Smackdowns
ago.
The bar wins the titles from, from the new day, and then Monday night, the shield wins,
and then you had the Dean heel turn, which I thought was weird that they wouldn't
have did that Monday night, given the way the show started.
Now the rumors that I'm hearing state that the turn wasn't supposed to come until Survivor
Series.
I don't know why you still couldn't do that, but they chose to do it Monday night.
I don't know, I think it's just too soon, but that's just me.
A couple of things about other stuff.
Impact, we talked last week about, they're moving to 10 Eastern, they did that last week.
Had their lowest numbers in history, they only had 98,000 people watch the show this
past Thursday, which is down almost 50% from the week before.
There is some thoughts behind the scenes that this will level out in a few weeks.
I don't know.
This, this, I just don't know how many, how much more life this, this company has in it.
How many more super Mario brother size bullets this thing can dodge.
For those of you that don't have the network, first of all, get on board, come on seriously.
But the first 30 minutes of evolution will be played on Twitter.
So if you want to stream it on Twitter, feel free to do so there.
A couple of notes about Smackdown Live.
Have we passed the point where Frenchie makes a good heal anymore?
I'm always up to have Frenchie on my TV, you guys know I'm a huge fan of the Big Show,
but Big Show healed, it just doesn't work for me anymore because he's such a great guy,
it's hard for me to separate there.
And my question when it comes to show bar, because I hear that's what they're calling
them now, can they defend the titles free bird style like the new days, the new day does,
I would think they could, I'm just saying.
And a squad to match is one way to end the English Rusef storyline, wow, that was fast
moving on.
And Cory Graves, Cory Graves said that Rey Mysterio is the greatest masked superstar
ever.
You might want to tap the break on that one, Skippy.
I know you know a lot about the business, but dig a little deeper.
He may be, he may, he may be top five WWE mass superstars ever, but not the greatest
period end of statement, I'm not, that's, do do some homework.
And that main event, Randy Orton versus Jeff Hardy, I think if I had booked that match
because I was waiting for this happen when Jeff went for the Whisper and the Wind, turn
that into an RKO, that would have been amazing.
But you know, again, give me the book in the checkbook for a year.
You always seem to the clubhouse podcast, well you're at least listening to me.
So let's get, tonight is going to be a huge night, I'm very excited about this pay-per-view.
WWE Evolution is something that I've been harkening for for a few years now because the
whole women's division is better than it's ever been.
You know from hashtag give divas a chance to no longer calling them divas and just referring
to them as superstars.
And the matches that they've, that the women's division has been putting forth, and in
some cases outshining the rest of the card, tonight's, tonight's all right.
People understand the, the historic impact of tonight.
But I could not be more excited about what's going to happen here in about 24 minutes
and the time that we're recording this, we're me.
So let's talk about this card.
And this card is by no stretch, the order it's going to go, I just listed some stuff in
the order.
And I'm going to give you everybody else's picks and then I'm going to give you my picks.
And we're going to start with the six women tag match.
Let me get back to my spreadsheet here.
Natalia, I'm sorry, Sasha Banks and Bailey versus the riot squad.
And this has been kind of a thing that's been a little bit weird as it's been going.
But we kind of all saw this coming as well.
Let's see, Chad has the riot squad, Don has the faces, Andrew has the riot squad, L.A.
has the faces, Steven has the riot squad, Doc has the riot squad, General and Alex both
have the faces.
Anyway, in case you missed it last week, Alex is not here because he is on the Chris Jericho
rock and rager wrestling crews and he's been sending me pictures and it looks like they
are having an absolute blast.
So we're looking forward next week to having his report from that deal.
I'm going to go with the faces here as well.
I just don't know what a win by the riot squad does for you because this angle will end
because I'm expecting some things to happen out of this paper view that are going to make
things work even better.
I'm actually just getting other texts from Alex right now.
He's hanging out with Horne Swag.
I'll look at that.
We'll put some of these pictures up on our social media so you guys can see him as well.
He looks like he's having a blast.
Next up, we have a battle royale for the number one contendership.
Now, there are 20 women in this battle royale.
And if you know the rules that we're using for scoring, tonight's going to be a game
changeer because since this is 20 women, there's 20 points on the line.
That could be a huge swing.
So let me go with what everybody has.
Chattice picked Asuka, Don is picked Ember Moon, Andrew is picked Ember Moon, L.A. has
picked Ember Moon, Steven, Doc, General, and Alex have all picked Asuka.
I'm picking Asuka as well, just if for no other reason to protect points.
So let me tell you all's involved in this.
Tamina Snuka, Asuka, Billy K, Carmella, Dana Brooke, Ember Moon, Lana, Mandy Rose, Naomi,
Nia Jax, Alicia Fox, Peyton Royce, Sonya DeVille.
Now let's get to some of these legends.
Tori Wilson, Michelle McCool, Alondra Blaze, Ivory, Kelly Kelly, Maria Canalis, Molly
Holley, and at the last minute, Zelina Vega was also added.
Now there are rumors that Eve Torres is in town, but we don't know in what capacity at
this point.
But the winner gets to number one, it's to be the number one contender.
I don't know if this is like the Royal Rumble where they can pick the champion or how this
worked.
They haven't really said so we're going to see how this works out.
Next up we have a tag match on the card.
We have Trish Stratus and Lita versus, excuse me, Alicia Fox and Mickey James.
This was originally going to be Alexa Bliss, but Alexa Bliss with a concussion is as
playing her out and Alicia Fox in her place.
Everybody in this match has picked Trish Stratus and Lita, Alex has gone farther and said
it will be them by pinfall.
So there's that.
Finals of the May Young Classic tonight.
If you've been paying attention to that on the network tonight, I owe Shirai versus
Tony Storm.
I think this particular tournament has been great because they've been showing it a little
bit better.
See, this one L.A. did not pick so he's going to get a big NA on that because I don't have
time to wait for him.
Alex, Don and myself have all said Tony Storm by pinfall, Chattis, Tony Storm straight up.
Let's see, I'm sorry, you know, Don has, I was Shirai via pinfall, I apologize, Alex and
I both have Tony Storm by pinfall, everybody else has Tony Storm straight up.
There's supposed to be an NXT UK Women's Championship tonight, but I've heard it's been scrapped.
So we're going to move on.
NXT Women's Championship on the line Kyrie Sain versus Shayna Baszler.
This was pretty interesting because here's the thing about this.
I don't see this title moving.
So I'm going to say exactly what Don and Alex are saying, Kyrie Sain by pinfall, everybody
else but Chattin and Gen Rome say the same, they're both saying Shayna Baszler.
The rumors of Baszler moving to the main roster is what keeps me from picking against that.
Last Women's Standing match for the SmackDown Live Women's Championship, first time ever
being defended in the last Women's Standing, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, I don't know
that this is going to steal the card, but these two can go and this could be a match that
might even exceed expectations.
Now, you can't really put more than one point in the line here because there's only way
to win a last Women's Standing match and it's just not to answer the 10 count.
So myself, Don, Andrew, LA, pretty much everybody except Chatt has picked Becky Lynch to retain.
Chatt is going with Charlotte Flair and the Raw Women's Championship on the line, Ronda
Rousey versus Nikki Bella.
I'm still trying to figure out what we're doing with Ronda Rousey.
I mean, I understand that it's good to have a name like that with your title because
of what it does for mainstream media and things like that.
I still think it was too soon.
She's learning, she's getting better.
But man, this is a tough road to row.
Myself, Don, and Alex are all saying Ronda Rousey by submission.
Everybody else is just picking Ronda straight up.
I don't think anybody really really believes Nikki Bella will win this.
That doesn't mean she won't.
But I just think that if you're going to have her drop this title, you're going to have
to take more than two weeks to hype it.
I mean, you're really going to have to build this up.
Maybe this is where Nia gets involved and you put the belt on her.
I just don't know how, there's going to be, I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going
to declare shenanigans here.
But I just don't see this match doing anything out of the ordinary.
I think that the last woman standing match will be your, actually, you know what?
It could be your main event.
But it could also, I think the battle royale will happen right in the middle.
But I really think your last woman standing is going to be the main event tonight.
That's got the most hype of anything.
It's going to be, in my opinion, the best match on the card.
This is going to be a great card.
And I'm actually going to grade this, and not because it's the first one, but I'm saying
top to bottom as this card stands right now.
I'm giving this an A minus.
I have been excited since they announced this thing on July 23rd on raw.
Three months we've been building up to this pay review.
We're going to see some great faces from the past.
We're going to see great faces in the future because you're going to have the finals
of the million classic tonight.
NXT is getting a chance to shine.
All both brands, I mean, this is a well put together pay review.
And why wouldn't you let NXT be a part of it on any pay review, much less this one.
This is going to be a pay review that people are going to be talking about in the weeks
and months to come.
And I, and one for one, I cannot wait for this to happen.
It happens from the time I'm recording right now, 16 minutes away.
We're going to be in the Nassau, New York, Union, New York, the Nassau, Coliseum.
A Mecca, if you are a wrestling historian, you know major, major, major events have
taken place in the Nassau, Coliseum.
It used to be like, WWE had MSG, WCW had the Nassau, Coliseum.
I can all, I remember talking to somebody, says the words, Nassau, Coliseum, I can hear
Tony Shavani in my head, welcoming fans in the night.
I can't do my Tony Shavani impersonation because of my voice is shot.
But tonight is something that a lot of us have been looking forward to.
And I expect nothing less than to have my mind blown tonight.
This is going to be amazing.
If you're not a WWE network subscriber, what's stopping you?
This is the perfect time to do it.
Get on there.
Get your free months because you're not only going to get this for free, you're going to
get Saturday's crown jewel for free and you're going to get survivor series in three weeks
for free.
Because you get your first 30 days free, I mean, there's no downside to this.
And if you're going to have a paper, be your first one, let it be this one, because we're
gearing up for a major in three weeks, which is also right around Charlotte's birthday,
which is awesome.
So we might, maybe we have some for a birthday on the show, you don't know, you have to
be here.
This WWE Evolution, I'm going to go get ready to watch this.
LA might come to the house.
I don't know, but I'm going to be watching this.
I hope you will be too.
So I'm going to do the plugs when you get out of here.
Visit our website.
Find out everything you need to know and so much more.
It's www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
Make sure you follow us on social media.
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Everything else is at the Clubhouse podcast.
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You can follow me on social media if you would like.
Everything is yes to that Rob Irvin, that is still ERVIN.
By the way, Saturday night and Wednesday nights, Grace Descending shows have been canceled
because of the weather.
We will be rescheduling until you know about it very, very soon.
My co-host for this show is Chad Womack.
You can follow him at ChadNPG69, the official fact checker of this show.
We hope he gets better very, very soon as Don Ford.
You can follow him at Igboonu, IGBU, NUU, I hope I got that right.
You can also email Don for information on how we can come do a live show for you.
We love doing live shows and hanging out with the Empire.
He's Don at the ClubhousePodcast.com.
You can email me questions, comments, concerns, something to go pound, sand, I am Rob at
the ClubhousePodcast.com.
Chad is Chad at the ClubhousePodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.
Our normal show of the vocal now studios will be back in studio next week, 7 Eastern for
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Not just so many awesome shows, make sure you check that out.
So until next time, for me and the Empire, I am Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
For any part, what could a client with me that would be kind of cool.