The Road to SummerSlam Begins

They SAVED SummerSlam!

For weeks we've been sitting here saying the same thing... WWE has been playing it safe. Predictable champions. Predictable booking. A SummerSlam build that desperately needed something to wake it up. Then Night of Champions happened. Sami Zayn shocked the wrestling world by pinning Cody Rhodes CLEAN to become the NEW Undisputed WWE Champion, Oba Femi was crowned King of the Ring, Iyo Sky became Queen of the Ring, and suddenly the road to SummerSlam feels exciting because—for the first time in a while—we genuinely don't know what's coming next. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔥 IN THIS EPISODE 🏆 Sami Zayn defeats Cody Rhodes & GUNTHER to become the NEW Undisputed WWE Champion 👑 King Oba is officially crowned 👑 Queen Iyo earns another shot at Liv Morgan 🤔 Why WWE finally stopped playing it safe 💥 Why Bron Breakker should have won 💥 Why Jade Cargill should have won 🔥 How one night completely changed the SummerSlam landscape 👀 RAW Preview featuring Roman Reigns' return and the fallout from Night of Champions ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💥 ALSO DISCUSSED • Cody Rhodes finally passing the torch to Sami Zayn • Why unpredictability is back • Oba Femi's dominant rise • The future of Brock Lesnar • SummerSlam championship scenarios • Ricky Saints' continued momentum • WWE finally taking creative risks • Why not knowing what's next is the best thing that could have happened heading into SummerSlam ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛡️ This episode is sponsored by Zarc International. You insure your home. You insure your vehicle. You insure your health. Why not protect yourself, too? Check out VEXOR Pepper Spray from Zarc International—the family business that's been manufacturing personal safety products since 1982. Be Prepared. Protect Yourself. Carry Vexor. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling is your home for weekly RAW, SmackDown, Premium Live Event coverage, WWE news, fantasy booking, long-term storytelling discussions, wrestling philosophy, and everything happening on the road to SummerSlam. Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. ⭐ If we earned your listen, we'd truly appreciate a 5-star rating and review! Follow Alexander the Great on X & TikTok: @Froe87 Join the Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling Discord and keep the conversation going all week with fellow wrestling fans discussing RAW, SmackDown, Premium Live Events, fantasy booking, predictions, and everything happening across WWE. 00:00 WWE Finally Stopped Playing It Safe 03:12 Night of Champions Overall Thoughts 05:59 King Oba Is Crowned 10:58 Queen Iyo Is Crowned 18:10 Rollins vs. Breakker - Wrong Winner? 25:06 Why Bron Needed This More 31:09 Seth Wins... But Should He Have? 36:36 Trick Williams vs. Ricky Saints 42:32 Tiffany Stratton vs. Jade Cargill 55:12 Sami Zayn Shocks WWE 01:04:26 NEW WWE Champion! 01:11:01 What's Next for Sami? 01:15:58 Sami's 20-Year Journey 01:20:04 They Saved SummerSlam 01:23:56 Night of Champions Final Grades 01:27:00 RAW Preview | Roman Returns

One Night. Two Crowns.

One night. Two crowns. Two SummerSlam decisions. Night of Champions isn't just about who wins King and Queen of the Ring... it's about who takes control heading into SummerSlam. Are WWE's tournament winners the right choices? Will new stars be created? Or is WWE about to play it safe when they should be building the future? This week, we make our official Night of Champions predictions while opening the TTW Vault for two of our biggest countdowns yet. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔥 IN THIS EPISODE 👑 TTW Vault: Top 5 Greatest King of the Ring Winners of All Time 🏰 TTW Vault: Top 5 Greatest King of the Ring Moments of All Time 👑 Official Queen of the Ring Finals Predictions 🤴 Official King of the Ring Finals Predictions 🔒 Seth Rollins vs. Bron Breakker – Steel Cage Match 🏆 Championship Match Predictions 🎯 Which winners create the most compelling SummerSlam matchups? 🤔 Who SHOULD win... and who WILL win? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💥 ALSO DISCUSSED • Stone Cold's legendary Austin 3:16 promo • Undertaker vs. Mankind: Hell in a Cell • King Booker • Kurt Angle vs. Shane McMahon • Xavier Woods finally becoming King • Bret Hart, Brock Lesnar, Owen Hart & Triple H • Why King & Queen of the Ring matter more than the crowns themselves ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛡️ This episode is sponsored by Zarc International. You insure your house. You insure your car. You insure your health. Why not insure yourself? Check out VEXOR Pepper Spray from Zarc International and carry with confidence every day. Be Prepared. Protect Yourself. Carry Vexor. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling is your home for weekly RAW, SmackDown, Premium Live Event coverage, WWE news, fantasy booking, long-term storytelling discussions, wrestling philosophy and everything happening across WWE on the road to the next major event. Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. ⭐ If we earned your listen, leave us a 5-star rating and review! Follow Alexander the Great on X & TikTok: @Froe87 Join the Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling Discord and keep the conversation going all week with fellow wrestling fans discussing RAW, SmackDown, Premium Live Events, fantasy booking, predictions, and everything WWE. 00:00 – One Night. Two Crowns. Why Night of Champions Matters 04:14 – TTW Vault: Top 5 King of the Ring Winners 13:03 – Bret Hart vs. Brock Lesnar: Who Deserves the Higher Ranking? 19:04 – Brock Lesnar's King of the Ring Legacy 25:36 – Triple H, The King of Kings & The Curtain Call 29:31 – Owen Hart vs. Kurt Angle: Two All-Time Great Winners 33:30 – Owen Hart: The King of Harts 37:44 – Kurt Angle's Meteoric Rise to the Top 45:30 – Why Stone Cold Is the Greatest King of the Ring Winner Ever 54:02 – TTW Vault: Top 5 King of the Ring Moments 01:01:53 – King Booker & Kurt Angle vs. Shane McMahon 01:07:34 – Austin 3:16: The Promo That Changed Wrestling 01:08:41 – Undertaker vs. Mankind: The Greatest King of the Ring Moment 01:14:32 – Official Night of Champions Predictions 01:22:23 – Final Thoughts & SummerSlam Outlook

Nobody Asked For This

The road to Night of Champions is almost over, but did WWE lose the unpredictability that made the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments so much fun? This week on Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling, we catch everyone up after missing our normal SmackDown Fallout episode before diving into a very unusual go-home edition of RAW. We discuss why SmackDown massively underdelivered despite an incredible card on paper, why the semifinal rounds may have taken all the excitement out of the tournaments, and whether WWE is struggling to stick the landing heading into Night of Champions. We also break down: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👑 Oba Femi vs. Jey Uso and why there's only one right outcome. 👑 Iyo Sky vs. Liv Morgan and why we're firmly on Team "Queen Iyo." 🔥 Roman Reigns, Jacob Fatu and the continuing Bloodline civil war. 🏆 The Street Profits become four-time WWE World Tag Team Champions. 🙏 Chad Gable's apology tour finally hits its first real roadblock. 😈 Lyra Valkyria's shocking heel turn. 💥 Ethan Page vs. Dragon Lee. 🤣 Danhausen continues stealing every backstage segment. ⚠️ Plus, we discuss the biggest spoiler developments from the taped Go Home SmackDown in London, including the future of Solo Sikoa's MFTs, Blake Monroe's first major storyline, Ricky Starks' continued rise, and the final build to Night of Champions. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsored by Zarc International Protecting people since 1982. Be Prepared. Protect Yourself. Carry VEXOR. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Follow Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & Amazon Music. ⭐ If we earned your listen, we'd truly appreciate a five-star review. 💬 Join the Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling Discord and keep the conversation going all week long. Follow Alexander the Great on X & TikTok: @Froe87 00:00 - WWE's Unpredictability & The Road to Night of Champions 02:49 - SmackDown Catch-Up: The Good, The Bad & The Disappointing 06:11 - Cody Rhodes vs. Gunther: What Went Wrong? 09:07 - Jey Uso's Push & The Tournament Problem 11:49 - Liv Morgan, Charlotte Flair & WWE's Injury Angle Problem 14:48 - Why Nobody Wants Jey vs. Oba 17:59 - Oba Femi Is Still the Future 21:02 - SummerSlam Implications & Creative Concerns 23:51 - Final Thoughts on SmackDown 41:17 - Roman Reigns, Jacob Fatu & RAW Begins 45:15 - Women's Tag Team Championship & Lyra Valkyria's Heel Turn 50:48 - Chad Gable's Apology Tour Hits a Roadblock 57:12 - Dragon Lee vs. Ethan Page 01:06:45 - Rusev's Old-School Heel Promo 01:07:18 - Iyo Sky vs. Liv Morgan: Queen Iyo or We Riot 01:12:44 - Danhausen Strikes Again 01:15:03 - LA Knight vs. Jimmy Uso 01:21:45 - Judgment Day Friction & Roxanne Perez 01:24:47 - Backstage Notes & Next Week's RAW 01:26:08 - World Tag Team Championship: New Champions Crowned 01:36:04 - Final Thoughts on RAW 01:41:11 - Go Home SmackDown Spoilers from London 01:55:02 - Night of Champions Preview

Oba Femi Is The Story

King and Queen of the Ring have become some of WWE's most unpredictable tournaments in years. Seth Rollins is gone. Bron Breakker is gone. Becky Lynch is gone. Dominik Mysterio made a run. Je'Von Evans made a run. And as Night of Champions gets closer, one thing has become clear: The entire tournament now feels like it's orbiting around Oba Femi. But is WWE about to stick the landing? Or are we heading toward the safest possible outcome? ⸻ On this episode: Eddie Andelman passes away at age 89 and we look back at the man who helped create WWE's King of the Ring tournament. A major update in the Vince McMahon lawsuit and why the move toward arbitration could dramatically change how this story unfolds moving forward. Roman Reigns continues manipulating Jacob Fatu. What did Roman whisper to Jacob backstage? Iyo Sky advances to the Queen of the Ring Finals. Charlotte Flair defeats Roxanne Perez and continues building momentum. Why Roxanne Perez may have been the best wrestler in the match despite taking another loss. Seth Rollins vs. Bron Breakker inside a Steel Cage is officially set for Night of Champions. Chad Gable continues proving why he's one of WWE's most underutilized stars. LA Knight calls out The Bloodline after being proven right once again. Logan Paul attempts to recruit Je'Von Evans into The Vision. Oba Femi destroys Dominik Mysterio and advances to the King of the Ring Finals. And our full SmackDown preview from Kansas City. ⸻ This week's episode is brought to you by Zarc International. Protecting people since 1982. If you're looking for a simple way to add a little peace of mind this summer, check out the VEXOR line of pepper spray and personal safety products at Zarc.com [http://Zarc.com] or on Amazon. Be Prepared. Protect Yourself. Carry VEXOR. ⸻ If you're a wrestling fan who cares about storytelling, character direction, and wrestling philosophy, you're in the right place. Follow Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Follow Alexander the Great on X and TikTok: @Froe87

THE LAST REAL GOOD GUY

SmackDown finally felt like it knew where it was going. Sami Zayn and Cody Rhodes delivered the best segment on the entire show. Gunther added even more tension to the WWE Championship picture by naming Sami as the special referee for next week's title match. And the King & Queen of the Ring tournaments continue reshaping the road to SummerSlam. But did WWE make the right call sending SmackDown completely out of the men's side of the King of the Ring tournament? ⸻ Sami Zayn vs Cody Rhodes explodes Gunther chooses Sami Zayn as special referee Charlotte Flair advances in Queen of the Ring Jey Uso advances in King of the Ring SmackDown gets swept out of the men's bracket Oba Femi vs Dominik Mysterio implications Trick Williams, Carmelo Hayes & Ricky Saints heat up the U.S. Title scene Rey Fenix vs Axiom frustration Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa continue to collide Love that Danhausen ❤️ SmackDown MVP RAW Preview ⸻ Quick shoutout to the family business — Zarc International. Be Prepared. Protect Yourself. Carry Vexor. ⸻ If you're a wrestling fan who cares about storytelling, character direction, and wrestling philosophy, you're in the right place. Follow Turnbuckle Talk Wrestling on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Follow Alexander the Great on X and TikTok: @Froe87