Block 1:
Taz opens today’s show by diving right into his analysis of last night’s TLC PPV. He says that he wasn’t overly fond of his show, even though all the talents worked hard.
He says he would have preferred if Kurt Angle would have respectfully denied the vest when Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose offered it to him. Taz would have liked if Angle would have said something like, “Thanks, but I think I’ll wear this on my chest instead”, as he pulled out his gold medals. Taz thinks a huge part of Angle’s return is seeing Angle in all his glory, with his own theme music and wearing his singlet.
Taz thought that Elias and Jason Jordan were put in a rough spot last night, working in between Styles/Balor and the TLC main event. He thought Elias’ initial segment was repeated later in the show because McMahon was so mad at how bad it was the first time. After watching it unfold exactly the same the second time around Taz realized that his opinion was wrong in that case.
He also believes that the finish to the Elias/Jordan match was botched. He says that while WWE sometimes books controversial finishes, this finish didn’t look that way to him. If it was supposed to be a controversial finish, Elias kicked out way too early prior to the 3-count.
Block 2:
Taz was not surprised to see Enzo Amore regain his Cruiserweight Championship last night. There’s no doubt that Amore moves the financial metre more than Kalisto, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the Title is back around Amore’s waist. He also points out that WWE needs to be careful with ‘shotgun booking’, flipping their Titles back and forth like this.
He really didn’t like the fact that Asuka used an ankle lock multiple times during the opening match on the card. Given that Kurt Angle was making his long awaited return to the ring last night, Taz thinks that the ankle lock should have been saved for the Hall of Famer in the main event.
Speaking about the finish of this match, Taz admits that his prediction was incorrect here. He really thought WWE was going to shock the world by booking Emma to defeat Asuka during her main roster debut but that wasn’t the case. He felt that this was an extremely predictable finish, and an Emma victory would have been the complete opposite of that.
Taz knew his prediction was going to be wrong once Emma started to get some offence during the match. If Emma was going to win it would have had to be a shocking, surprising finish that came out of nowhere. Once Emma started to get some offence in on Asuka there was no doubt in Taz’s mind that Asuka had to win.
Blocks 3 & 4:
Taz loved the match between A.J. Styles and Finn Balor. He thought this match stole the show but this shouldn’t have shocked anyone, because everyone knew how great this was going to be before it even started. He really liked that Styles wore blue ring gear, as this really drove home the rivalry between RAW and Smackdown Live.
He was really surprised that WWE allowed Styles and Balor to do the ‘Too Sweet’ hand gesture at the end of the match, but he thought that was a pretty cool moment. He also says that this was definitely something that those guys had to clear with the office prior to doing it, because there’s no way they’d do that without getting approval.
A listener calls into the show and asks Taz if he thinks WWE dropped the ball on the recent Bullet Club invasion, especially with Balor and Styles wrestling just a couple of weeks later. Taz points out that this match was never in the plans a couple of weeks ago, and he didn’t think McMahon would ever acknowledge the Bullet Club’s presence.
Here we are a couple of weeks later and two of WWE’s biggest stars are acknowledging their Bullet Club history in the middle of a WWE ring after a PPV match. Taz suspects that McMahon might regret not involving Anderson and Gallows in some fashion because if they went this far with the nostalgia, they should have went all the way.
That sums up today’s episode of The Taz Show. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!
