Oh...You Didn't Know - Fastlane 2018 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Dogg today we’re talking about the last SmackDown exclusive pay-per-view ever, Fastlane 2018!

Just to remind everyone where we left off…at the Royal Rumble Ronda Rousey debuted with the WWE, Shinsuke Nakamura won the men’s Royal Rumble, while Asuka won the first ever women’s Royal Rumble, and we’re right in the middle of the Shane McMahon, Daniel Bryan, Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens feud.

The SmackDown after the Rumble takes place in Philadelphia. Dogg - Philly is known as a hardcore rabid fan base when it comes to wrestling and in a couple weeks we’ll be discussing your big Philly moment at WrestleMania 15 - what does Philadelphia mean for you on the calendar as a performer, writer and agent?

Do you work things differently in Philly compared to other towns?

With Nakamura winning the Royal Rumble - at this point in time do you know it’s him vs. AJ at WrestleMania for the WWE Title?

Was there any wavering off of that?

Do you remember what the original plan was for the Zayn, Owens, McMahon & Bryan storyline if Bryan had not been cleared to return to wrestle?

Did you know at this point he was working on getting himself cleared to return?

Owens & Zayn are upset over how their match at the Rumble went down with Shane and Daniel Bryan announces that Owens & Zayn at the next SmackDown will take each other on and the winner gets a shot at AJ Styles at Fastlane. How good were Bryan, Owens & Zayn all working together?

Rusev would win a four-way to earn a US title shot against Robert Roode over Zack Ryder, Jinder Mahal & Kofi Kingston when everyones seconds kept interfering - this was the beginning of the New Day using pancakes. What did you think of the pancake gimmick?

When someone like Rusev & Aiden English begins getting over with the Rusev Day gimmick - WWE has always been catorgized as a company that when someone gets over on their own and it wasn’t the WWE’s idea they do everything they can to kill it - what say you to that?

From the Observer:

The Ascension, Breeze & Fandango were in a room. The Ascension are now comedy guys trying to read Internet questions for Breeze & Fandango such as what kind of conditioner Breeze uses for his hair. Gable & Benjamin showed up and Gable said that what the four clowns are doing is embarrassing to wrestling. I guess he skipped watching wrestling for the last 15 years. Breeze said the embarrassing thing was losing two straight falls to the Usos. Gable & Benjamin turned over their table with the computers.

There was a lot of hope for the Ascension coming out of NXT - what didn’t click for them?

From the Observer:

Bryan announced a new top ten list. He said the talent would be voting on who the top ten guys were based on personality, wrestling ability and other standards. He said that he and Shane wouldn’t vote, and the talent can’t vote for themselves. They didn’t say what the purpose was of all this.

What was the original plan for this do you remember?

The Riott Squad would attack Charlotte in a promo which would lead to Carmella coming out to cash in her Money in the Bank briefcase but would accidently knock the ref out of the ring causing her not to be able to cash it in - this comedy of errors with her and trying to cash this shot in - who’s idea was it and was there anything you didn’t get to do with it that you wanted?

The next week SmackDown is in Kansas City and this is one of the first shows where Rusev Day was chanted throughout the show - what goes on in the back when the fans attempt to take over or hijack the show?

Is this something Vince gets hot about?

There’s a promo where Shane & Bryan are going back and forth and you can start to see the real dissension between the two of them - really about Shane giving every chance to Zayn & Owens to be successful. How much input did Shane & Bryan get to have on their creative?

Finally Shane says the magic words - that Bryan can’t wrestle and he’s trying to live vicariously through Zayn & Owens. We’ve learned in later years that the classic Talking Smack segment between Miz & Bryan was based in reality - a lot of this also is as well isn’t it?

Daniel Bryan would announce the top ten and it features singles wrestlers, tag teams, women, etc. Not your normal top ten you’d see in a ranking system. Was it all just to have Tye Dillinger be #10?

Roode would retain the US title over Rusev and get a RKO out of nowhere from Randy Orton. Is the hope that working with Randy would elevate Roode to the next level?

From the Observer:

There was a backstage skit where Gable & Benjamin were acting like Breeze & Fandango and The Ascension were turning the tag team division into jokes. The new thing on WWE broadcasts is they do these giant word graphics in some promos, when English sings and in other spots on the show. It makes it feel like a show for little kids which is funny when the median age of viewers is early 50s.

Was this something done to help get kids more involved?

The main event would see AJ come out and interfere and the Owens & Zayn match was declared a no contest.

Bryan came out and announced that since there was no winner, the main event at Fast Lane would be a triple threat match with Styles vs. Owens vs. Zayn.

From the Observer

Fans didn’t react all that much to it. Honestly, it does feel overdone but right now we’re in this unique period where they have a WrestleMania show, but have to do two PPVs before it and are just trying to get past these shows without giving away anything they want at Mania and setting things up for Mania.

How tough is it to book this pay-per-view in between Rumble and Mania while also the Raw side has the Elimination Chamber - and the big story in WWE is the building of Rousey & Kurt Angle against Hunter & Stephanie?

The next week on SmackDown all of a sudden Dolph Ziggler & Baron Corbin are now involved with Owens & Zayn - were you worried that a 3-way main event - the same as the Rumble - wasn’t going to be effective in selling the pay-per-view or was this always the plan to add more people to it?

Robert Roode comes out and talks about how he’s going to be like John Cena and start up the US title open challenge. At this point do you know that Cena is coming back for Fastlane?

Eventually this leads to Orton and Jinder getting involved - is this just a sign of the talent roster that you have so many people wrapped in so many fueds - between the main event storyline and now this?

From the Observer:

In another segment that went way too long, the New Day came out with tons of pancakes. They said that Big E was going to break the world record by eating 118 pancakes in eight minutes. He was stuffing a bunch down his throat but actually not eating any when Gable & Benjamin came out to cut a promo and end it quick. Gable & Benjamin made fun of the New Day for not being serious competitors. At the time, Kingston was picking his nose. Woods was insulted they would say that, and they did more New Day shtick but did bring up being the longest reigning world tag team champions in WWE history. Gable threw a pancake on the ground as did Benjamin. This was really dragging by this point. Worse, then it came down to Gable saying that nobody likes pancakes, a line which actually got more heat from the crowd than anything on the show. Then Gable & Benjamin knocked a tray of pancakes to the ground. Benjamin then put over waffles as being better than pancakes. This led to a match where Kingston & Big E beat Benjamin & Gable in 5:24.

This whole segment - this is just Vince at its finest isn’t it?

Eventually Owens would lose to Corbin and Zayn to Ziggler and now it’s looking like a 5-way for the title at Fast Lane…

But before we get any farther - on February 19th - Jeff Jarrett is announced for the WWE Hall of Fame. Walk us through how you found out - when you knew - and what all went into having Jeff brought back into the WWE fold?

At this time - how were the HOF members selected?

The next SmackDown tapings are the second night of a back and back in Phoenix with Raw there the night before. How tough is it to do this at this time?

Was it hard to keep the crowd engaged on a second night?

From the Observer

In the dark match opener, in a non-title match, the Usos beat English & Rusev while pinning English. The one thing you have to say is that the whole Rusev day was supposed to be a one week joke. It caught fire. They are marketing it and kept it going, but from a booking standpoint, even with all that, Rusev is in the exact same spot he was in before. It’s almost like now it’s a push-back because if anyone but us creates a star, and the fans create it organically, the mentality seems to be that they don’t understand drawing money (which is true, but the drawing money term is almost an archaic today except for about seven people, and in the U.S., probably four of those ten aren’t even in WWE).

What say you?

From the Observer

Smackdown opened with Styles out. He talked about the five-way match at Fast Lane, saying that if he wanted to put Owens through a table, he has to make sure other guys don’t get pinned in the ring or he can lose his title. By the way, that right there tells you a key reason (far from the only reason) why titles don’t mean anything at the box office anymore. Styles said that individually he can beat everyone in the match, but that doesn’t mean he’ll win the match.

I mean - AJ is a babyface champion - talking about why titles don’t mean anything at the box office anymore…why is that how this is presented?

From the Observer

Mahal did a promo with a graphic of Bobby Roode’s top ten. The key is that Roode was No. 1, and both Orton and Mahal weren’t in the top ten. He called Roode a glorious egomaniac and an inglorious liar. Roode came out. Mahal tried to manipulate Roode to say something bad about Orton. The way this was scripted made Roode look bad, evasive and more like the heel in some ways, so it was bad scripting. The segment wasn’t good to begin with. Roode did tell Mahal that in a fair fight, Mahal knew he couldn’t win. They were about to go at it when Orton came out. Orton attacked Mahal. Orton tried to hit Roode with an RKO, but this time Roode escaped and hit the DDT. But Mahal attacked Roode from behind and laid him out with the Khallas.

Was Roode better as a heel and is this how it was all going so it was the pretense to it?

From the Observer

Bryan and Shane were backstage. They weren’t getting along. Bryan saw the segment and wanted to make Roode vs. Mahal for the Fast Lane show. Shane thought the best match was obviously Roode vs. Orton. It’s notable that Shane got to pick the match fans would have wanted more.

Bryan said that he’s supposed to be in charge but every decision he makes is met with resistance. Shane said it’s because Bryan is making his decisions based on emotion and keeps giving Owens and Zayn title shots. Shane said it’s Roode vs. Orton and Bryan said, “Whatever you want, boss,” and walked off.

There’s so much good stuff from these two - sad we never got that big payoff aren’t you?

On February 25th Raw has the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. What is your role when that’s going on? Are you at the show? Watching at home? Walk me through that Dogg.

On Raw the next night John Cena vs. AJ Styles is promoted as being Cena’s return and it would draw a big number - 2,692,000 viewers. When are you told Cena is coming back?

Are you going to Vince saying - hey we need something right now. Is this a Vince call?

On the show Cena would defeat AJ to earn his way into the Fast Lane main event where it’ll now big a 6-pack challenge. Cena & AJ are always magic in the ring together aren’t they?

From the Observer

Corbin pinned Zayn in 9:38. Backstage, Shane was mad at Bryan for putting Owens on commentary because he’s right there to interfere. Bryan argued that Owens is great on commentary giving a wrestlers’ insight and Shane should listen to him. Shane said Owens was just there to interfere. Shane then came back eating popcorn, I guess with the idea he’s just there to have fun and watch how things unfold and told Bryan that Owens would interfere at the end. He was paying no attention to the match.

Zayn was distracted and Corbin then hit the End of Days for the pin. Afterwards, Ziggler laid out Corbin as well with the Zig Zag. Shane was still eating popcorn. Shane then said Owens & Zayn got what they deserved. He asked Bryan if he needed to check on his buddies. Bryan was mad and said he wanted to go home to see his wife and daughter and left, and told Shane that Shane has it all under control. Owens & Zayn confronted Shane, who was still eating popcorn. They wanted to know what Shane would do about the interference. Shane told them that Bryan just left and you two should leave with him because Brie doesn’t like when you’re late for dinner.

Daaaaaamn Dogg - who’s the heel in this?

From the Observer

The Usos came out to a big reaction. Jimmy has such great delivery. Jey said that year-after-year, they get passed up for WrestleMania and have never been on the show. They said they’ve been with the company for nine years and no WrestleManias, but this year that changes. Just by bringing that up means they have to be on the show. It also did a great job of getting over the importance of WrestleMania. They said this was their time. Jey said that they’ve adapted and evolved while the New Day is still stuck doing the same thing they’ve been doing for the past five years.

Were the Usos starting to feel this - and why do you think it was important for them to be on the show?

From the Observer

Nakamura pinned English in 6:19 after the Kinshasa. Loud Rusev Day chants and English did his singing. Rusev interfered at one point giving Nakamura a high kick. After Nakamura won, Cena came out for his match and both were pointing at the WrestleMania sign, with the idea of teasing you it’ll be Cena vs. Nakamura.

Do you think Cena and Nakamura could’ve drawn money together?

The go-home Smackdown in Green Bay finalizes the card for Fastlane.

Charlotte will be defending the Women’s title against Ruby Riott and the Riott Squad have made Charlotte’s life a living hell the past few weeks. Do you think Charlotte is better as a heel or a babyface?

Meltzer would report there were four cases of unplanned bleeding on the show - is that the guys being too stiff or just sometimes shit happens?

From the Observer

Nakamura did an interview. It was brief. English & Rusev came out. English’s throat was hurt from Nakamura last week so he couldn’t sing. Rusev said it was like breaking the hands of Billy Joel, so he couldn’t play piano and now English can’t sing the Rusev Day song. Rusev challenged Nakamura to a match at Fast Lane. Nakamura then sang that Sunday would be Nakamura Day. This was more entertaining than it had any right to be because Rusev and Nakamura made all the corny lines work.

What did you think of their scripting? Is it tough to have verbiage sometimes that it feels like the guys were forcing it?

Are you in favor of scripting or bullet points for talent?

A name we haven’t mentioned - is Becky Lynch. Did you see the budding talent that was there - or was it something that when it happened - it blew everyone away?

Styles and Ziggler have a hell of a match that ends when Zayn comes in for a no contest and then Corbin comes out and Owens comes out and now it’s a five-way which saw Zayn pin Owens clean. Hell of a way to go home for the pay-per-view isn’t it?

When you have John Cena one week and not the next - does that hurt?

The show is a critical success from the Observer readers with 67% voting it a thumbs up but I want to ask you this before we get into it.

With this being the last brand specific show - is that a weight off your back?

Are you happy about it?

Is the talent?

Or is this just something that would lead to less people being on various pay-per-views?

The show drew a sellout of just over 12,000 fans - so that’s a hell of a crowd isn’t it?

From the Observer

Overall it was well received. Nothing was bad and the main event was great. The crowd helped a lot, as this was one of the better WWE big show crowds in recent memory.

Judging from the late gambling odds, since smart money clearly came in with the lengthy odds for Nakamura, Flair and Styles, it appears that the other finishes, aside from the Usos match where smart money wouldn’t have bet because they knew there was no winner, that the other two finishes were decided late. Roode in particular was the favorite, but the margin was such that the smart people avoided the match. It really didn’t matter who won the Orton vs. Roode match since they were going into a three-way at Mania. But the storyline is that Orton has now won every major singles title (except the cruiserweight title) in WWE.

Did you ever gamble on the shows Dogg?

1. Tye Dillinger & Tyler Breeze & Fandango beat Mojo Rawley & Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable in 7:26. This was your usual preshow match, only shorter and not as good as most, but the crowd helped it out. Fandango put on amateur wrestling headgear at first to mock Benjamin & Gable. Gable at one point tried to get Breeze to wrestle him and took the down position but Breeze rode him like a pony. The crowd was into Dillinger’s hot tag. Benjamin sold a dropkick by Fandango that missed. Dillinger pinned Rawley after a superkick and a knee to the face. **

Was there a member of this match that you think - 5 years later - should be in a bigger role in any company?

2. Shinsuke Nakamura pinned Rusev in 14:28. Aiden English was at ringside. There were super loud “Rusev Day” chants, but nobody booed Nakamura. English was rapping at the start. There were dueling loud chants and Rusev stalled to play heel. The match was built around Nakamura going for the Kinshasa and Rusev going for the accolade. Lots of near falls, including a great one when Nakamura went for the Kinshasa and ran into a kick. The finish saw Rusev go for the accolade. Nakamura got out of it and hit a Kinshasa to the back of the head and another to the front of the head for the pin. ***1⁄2

Nakamura looking strong going into WrestleMania - what were your expectations of him in a top guy role?

3. Randy Orton pinned Bobby Roode in 19:27 to win the U.S. title. A well worked match. It started slow since they were going long. Really, this was very slow, but in a Harley Race way and to me not a boring way, although if you’re a fan of fast action,

this wasn’t it. It got good with both doing all their regular stuff. Orton did his draping

DDT and top rope superplex. The finish saw Roode come off the top rope but get hit with an RKO for the pin. After the match, Jinder Mahal attacked Orton. Roode then saved Orton and laid out Mahal with the glorious DDT. Roode then hit Orton with the DDT and his music played when it was over, even though he was the one who lost the title. ***½

These are just two great wrestlers having a great wrestling match is it not?

Was the music of Roode’s more over than him do you think?

4. Natalya & Carmella beat Naomi & Becky Lynch in 8:51. Solid wrestling, but the crowd wasn’t as hot for this as the prior matches. Natalya distracted Lynch by teasing hitting her with Carmella’s briefcase. Lynch then got superkicked by Carmella for the pin. They are giving Carmella a push so it feels like a briefcase cash-in attempt should be coming soon. **¼

It’s crazy to look back 5 years and see where Becky is here compared to now right?

5. The Usos retained the tag titles going to a no contest with Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods in 8:57. The match was going along fine. The idea was that each team was doing the others’ moves. The Usos used the Midnight Hour on Kingston. Woods did all the superkicks. Kingston did a splash off the top rope on Jey, The Usos did a double- dive. Then Harper & Rowan came out and destroyed both teams. It was a real first-class massacre. The big spots were a double suplex on Woods on the floor. Harper powerslammed Jimmy on the floor. Rowan then slammed Jey on Jimmy and slammed Harper on both of them. Rowan did a splash on both Usos. Rowan went for the sledge hammer but the Usos escaped. The final act was a double-team power bomb on Woods on the ring steps. Woods was taken out on a stretcher. **½

How fucking cool were the Bludegon Brothers in destroying these 4? How did Vince not push these guys to the moon as top monster heels? Did you think something was missing?

6. Charlotte Flair pinned Ruby Riott to keep the women’s title in 13:44.

Putting these two on late led to a lack of crowd reaction here. There was good innovative stuff but in other points it was sloppy. Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan came out and distracted Flair and Riott kicked her in the head. Naomi and Becky Lynch came out. Flair did a slingshot suplex which saw Corey Graves make an “Uncle Tully” reference. Flair was on the top rope and Riott shoved her off into the barricade. Riott went for a tope, but Flair caught her and gave her a fallaway slam into the barricade. Flair came off the barricade with a moonsault into a reverse DDT on the floor. Morgan & Logan teased interfering and Naomi and Lynch jumped into the ring. Ref Mike Chioda threw out Naomi and Lynch. Morgan & Logan started beating on Flair so Chioda threw them out as well. The finish saw Riott go for a reverse huracanrana, but Charlotte fell forward and that whipped Riott into the top turnbuckle. Charlotte then hit a spear and got the submission with the figure eight. **¾

These two - while not exactly gelling together - still had a great match and the story was great - how good is Charlotte?

Asuka then came out to a huge reaction and fans

realized immediately she was there to challenge Charlotte at Mania. There had been no teases of this and it had been outright said on Raw that it was Asuka vs. Bliss to steer people away from thinking this. The original plan was to play up who Asuka would choose as a question for weeks, but the decision was made to make people think it was already decided so they’d get a surprise reaction here.

Asuka’s music is tremendous and the pop is great - was this always the plan to have these two at Mania - and was it a last minute change to have it announced this way as Meltzer says?

7. A.J. Styles retained the WWE title in a six-way over Baron Corbin, John Cena, Dolph Ziggler, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in 21:52. This was all-action and good twists and turns. Everyone looked good in their roles. Cena opened doing the AA on Zayn, Owens, Corbin and Ziggler to clear the ring of everyone but he and Styles. They did the yay/boo spot. Cena went for the AA on Styles, who landed on his feet. Then everyone attacked Cena.

Cena put Styles through a table outside the ring with the AA and Styles sold for several minutes. They pushed after Styles got taken out that it was almost a sure thing the title would change. Everyone was taken out leaving Owens and Zayn in the ring. Owens told Zayn to lay down for him. Zayn did. Owens was leery but went for the pin and Zayn went for the small package. Then they did the hockey fight spot. Owens went to superkick Zayn on the floor, but Zayn moved and Owens nailed Shane McMahon. He nailed him hard because there was noticeable swelling near Shane’s left eye. Daniel Bryan wasn’t there as they said he had a family commitment.

Let me stop there - Shane got killed there - any heat off it?

The excuse for Bryan not being there was sort of lame was it not?

“They went at it including Zayn doing the dive from the floor into and out of the ring with a DDT on Owens. The crowd was going nuts at this point. Owens superkicked Zayn and hit the pop up power bomb on Ziggler, when Shane pulled the ref out of the ring. Zayn hit the Helluva kick on Owens and this time Shane pulled Zayn out of the ring. Ziggler tried to pin Owens but it was broken up. Corbin hit Cena with the ring steps. Cena used a low blow and hit Corbin three times with the ring steps and gave Corbin an AA on the steps but Ziggler saved. Cena hit Ziggler with the AA but Owens made the save. Owens powerbombed Cena, but Styles finally recovered from going through the table, and hit the forearm on Owens for the pin. The show ended with them pushing Cena wouldn’t be going to WrestleMania. I don’t think anyone believed that. ****¼”

How good were all these guys and this match?

This has to be high fives all around afterward?

Did anyone actually think that John Cena wouldn’t be at WrestleMania?

What say you Dogg - what did you think of the show and looking back at it?

How stressful is this time for you going into WrestleMania season?