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-Welcome once again to 411’s weekly live coverage of WWE Backstage.  Real quick, congrats to the Chiefs for crushing my soul on Sunday by beating my beloved 49ers.  I had so much hope after the 2nd interception, and then things fell apart quickly.  No matter as it was a great ride and not every year you go from 4-12 to the Super Bowl.  Here’s to next year.  Oh, and we have the XFL kicking off on Saturday and yes, I will be watching every week because I love sports.

-Now as for tonight’s WWE Backstage it looks like we may be delayed a bit as Big East Basketball was delayed by 15 minutes and there is still some time in the Xavier/DePaul game.  Join me for live coverage as soon as Big East action ends.

-No show tease due to the basketball running long and instead it’s right to the show opening.

-Renee Young welcomes us to WWE Backstage as she is joined by her co-host, Booker T, and on the panel by Christian and Ember Moon.  Renee hypes the road to WrestleMania and that leads to our week in review.  On SmackDown Miz and Morrison earn a Tag Title Match, Strowman wins WWE Gold for the first time, and Corbin finally gets his as he gets plastered with dog food.  On RAW Becky and Asuka agree to wrestle again, Rhea teases a Mania Match with Charlotte, Orton can’t explain his actions, and Ricochet gets to face Lesnar at Super Showdown.

-They bring up Cena’s comments that Lesnar is the greatest in ring performer of all time.  Christian backs up what Cena says and mentions that Cena was underrated throughout his career.  Christian feels Brock is Top 5 All Time in a wrestling ring and Moon agrees.  She puts Orton at #1 though and says Brock is a close second (going by the time she has been watching).  Booker talks about Brock being a no nonsense guy and how everyone backstage looks to see what he is going to do.  He calls him the most believable guy out there and Renee mentions that people forget how good Brock is.  Booker puts over how Brock made Drew at The Rumble and Christian talks about how people are elevated sharing space with Brock.

-Talk shifts to Rhea Ripley showing up on RAW last night and throwing out the idea that Charlotte should challenge her for the Women’s NXT Title at WrestleMania.  Moon says Charlotte wasn’t her pick to win The Rumble, but she is stoked to see this match.  Booker jokes that he smells money in this match.  Moon argues it may take away from NXT Portland and Bianca.  Christian thinks it adds layers to that story as well.

-Commercials!

-We are back with 2020 Royal Rumble Winner, Drew McIntyre, joining the show.  Drew talks about how the pieces have started to fall in place for him.  He isn’t sure if he was over thinking things or was holding back, but he is having fun now and the fans are having fun with him.  Renee talks about how fans always say just be yourself and how that can be hard.  Drew talks about finding himself when he was away from the WWE and how he has had a good run since he came back, but something was missing.  Now everyone is seeing the real Drew and it’s just clicking for him.  Moon asks what Drew was thinking when he won The Rumble.  He mentions everything was going through his mind and he thought he might collapse because of the emotion.  It was great to point at the WrestleMania sign and jokes that he just wants to point at every Mania sign he sees now.  Booker asks Drew if he is feeling any pressure now and Drew says he doesn’t feel it.  He is just confident and ready to be the top guy.  Christian asks when Drew felt like he figured things out and became more relaxed.  He talks about when he left the WWE and the pressure of working there was off him.  When he came back he had to be the crazy, Scottish guy, but now he gets to show more personality.  He says leaving the company was essential  and he got to help build wrestling in the UK.  It was a perfect training ground for getting back to the WWE.  He talks about his love for wrestling and he has an insane drive.  He admits that he lost his desire in the initial WWE run and found it again and it burns brighter.  He thanks his wife for being by his side and I have a quick story as I ran into Drew and his wife at an airport in Phoenix following Mania XXVI.  My cousin and I didn’t want to bother him for a picture or autograph, so we just complimented him on the MITB match he was involved in, he thanked us, and went on his way.  They bring up the match with Brock at Mania and Drew talks about seeing the graphic for the match for the first time and how he pictured that when he left the WWE.  He used that as motivation as he knew if you could be believable standing across from Brock then you made it.

-Commercials!

-WrestleMania Moment: The Streak Ends: Brock beats Taker to send shockwaves across the wrestling world.  That leads to Renee bringing up Taker’s last Mania loss being to Roman at Mania 33.  Reigns talks about being in that match and how he wasn’t prepared for the awesomeness of Taker’s entrance.  He talks about the respect for Taker and how everyone should want to have the honor of facing him at Mania.  They do a good job of making the match look epic with the video package.  Reigns talks about how he looked sad after the match and he was as he thought that was Taker’s last match.  They jump to the night after Mania and the epic show opening with the crowd just spewing all their hate at Reigns as he stood in the ring without saying a word for minutes on end before yelling “This is my yard now.”  Just awesome! Roman calls that moment the coolest moment of his career and he felt more powerful in that moment than anything else he has ever done.  They even highlight the chants of “you suck” and “go away.”  Again, awesome!

-Renee is with Booker, Drew, and Christian as they talk about being in the ring with Taker.  Drew says when he had the tag match at Extreme Rules last year it was one of the top 5 moments in his career.  Booker says he and Taker are great friends as they came up around the same time.  He talks about the Entrance and how he got caught up in the moment and had to tell himself he wasn’t a fan anymore.  He also says Taker was one of the guys that accepted him into the locker room when he came over from WCW.  Christian says the reaction from the crowd is different with guys like Taker and it shows there is a certain level only a few get to.

-Ember is with Greg Miller, co-founder of Kinda Funny, and he is asked what made him a WWE fan.  He talks about how hard it was to not be a fan in the 80s.  He watched every Saturday morning and mentions Savage, Hogan, and Dibiase.  From there he continued to watch during Monday Night RAW and he was the crazy fan that waited in lobbies to get autographs.  Last year he did a world tour and did every PPV from Survivor Series through Mania.  He mentions he was the guy that Brock Lesnar screamed out and jokes he may have peed himself.  He will be our guest on promo school when the show returns.

-Commercials!

-Next week CM Punk is back and Charlotte Flair will be joining the show.

-Promo School and Greg admits he is nervous.  The judges will be Drew, Booker, Christian, and Ember.  Drew’s advice is simple: don’t screw up.  Booker says he needs to find some catchphrases.  Christian tells him to believe in what he is saying.  Moon tells him to do something that is relatable to him.

-Greg will be cutting a promo on Xavier Woods.  Apparently they have worked a ton on YouTube content so he wants to expose him.  He refers to Woods by his real name and then calls him the worst part of New Day.  He brings up how he invited Woods on his E3 stage in 2015.  Woods took his subs and industry contacts.  Now he is getting all the credit while Greg carried him on his back like Kofi carries him every week.  He asks why Renee doesn’t cover that Woods stripped him of The Kinda Funny Title and then stole it for the UpUpDownDown Championship.  He mocks him for stubbing his toe and doing unfunny YouTube.  He challenges Woods to a single game of niddhog 2 on March 27 in Chicago.  If Greg wins he is the #1 contender for the UUDD Title and if he loses he will tweet every day for a month to his 1 million followers (more than Woods he will probably still those too) to subscribe to Woods’ channel.  He tells Woods he learned a long time ago it is better to be Greg than great.  He drops the mic and Renee is fired up for this.  He admits that he hates Xavier.  That was pretty solid and I believed everything he was saying.

-Booker loved the promo as you could feel that it was real.  He gives a B+ which is the highest grade he ever gave.  Drew says it was good and got over a personal issue.  He thinks it went a little long, but it was a believe so he gives a B-.  Christian gives a C+ because he needed to get to the point quicker. Ember feels the feud between the two of them and also thinks it went long but enjoyed it and gives a B+.

-Commercials!

-The show WWE stars showing up throughout Super Bowl Week on FOX.  HHH sends KC a Customized WWE Title and I want to puke and punch something.  I really wanted to see a 49ers Customized WWE Title.

-Hot Tag: Booker gives a shoutout to his wife as it is their anniversary.  He gives advice to Otis for his date with Mandy and he thinks they should go ice fishing.  They show Orton’s promo from last night and the crowd hates him right now.  Christian talks about the emotion of the angle and how no words needed to be said last night.  Ember gets to talk about the return of Ruby Riott who returned and turned on Liv Morgan.  Ember is happy to see her back, but wishes they would have brought her back for The Rumble.  She wishes she would have gone to SmackDown to show off what she can do, but this makes sense.

-The Satin Sheet: Ryan Satin has news that Timothy Thatcher and Killer Kross have both signed with WWE.

-Commercials.

-They hype Goldberg returning on SmackDown and then show a photo of Drew during his initial run as WWE IC Champion.  Booker than throws o a video of a rather young Renee and everyone has a great laugh.  She was still so darn cute even then.  That made me smile!

-On that note we end another episode of WWE Backstage.  Thanks for following along.