Stew’s WWE King & Queen Of The Ring Review

Before we get into the review, a special announcement:

This Friday, May 31st, at 8:00pm EST, Stew from SWOProductions.com and the Stew World Order podcast will be joined by The Pint: A Pop Culture Podcast to participate for the third year in a row together in the LiveStream For The Cure.

You can join the LiveStream on Twitch HERE!

This is the eighth year running for the LiveStream For The Cure, and in that time, it has raised over $90,000 for the Cancer Research Institute! In year 8, they are going to top the six figure mark, and their goal this year is to raise $25,000 or more in the four day span of streams!

The festivities start Wednesday the 29th and carry through Saturday the 1st, and not only will we and The Pint be there, but so will dozens of other entertaining streamers and podcasters and creators! Be sure to tune in any time during those days to enjoy what we all have to offer and possibly, if you are able, donate to an incredibly good cause!

For our end, Stew and The Pint will be playing a modified version of the pop culture party game Geek Out, a game which the viewers of the stream can participate in! All you need to do is bring something to write with and something to write on! Join us to see who has the most pop culture soaked brain!

In addition to that, you will have the chance to torture Stew with your donations, as he will be eating actual crickets with each donation that exceeds $20!

Again, the LiveStream for the cure can be found on Twitch HERE!

Please join us to help make a future immune to cancer!

And now onto your regularly scheduled wrestling review!

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1:02pm: Well, we are back in Saudi Arabia for another vaguely uncomfortable show where we watch WWE talk about how “progressive” and “forward-thinking” the country is becoming. And when that doesn’t quite work, we at least get talk about how beautiful and spectacular it is. Buckle in for a three hour tourism informercial with some scattered professional wrestling!

1:05pm: Do we think whoever wins King and Queen of the Ring will make more of it than poor Xavier Woods and Zelina Vega ever got to? Man, Woods pitched so hard to get the King Of The Ring crown, and they did NOTHING with him as the king. Poor guy.

1:07pm: We open the show with Becky Lynch not dressed for competition; she is wearing some kind of… one-piece, spandex-looking faux-tuxedo. That’s a lot of hyphens for one outfit, Becky. Maybe that IS a wrestling outfit because here comes Liv Morgan for her World Title match. It’s certainly a strange get-up (more hyphens!). But hey, Becky gonna Becky.

1:15pm: This is a really great match for the opening few minutes. The two are wrestling a hard-hitting competition, and everything looks solid and impressive. For whatever reason, a lot of women’s matches in WWE start off slow, and you can see the match shift gears upward. These two are starting off hot right away.

1:23pm: Liv is getting the full-on heel treatment from commentary this whole match. Cole and Graves are really playing up her bad attitude and her inability to focus. Every facial expression she makes during the match is being scrutinized and insulted. She can’t focus, she is hitting despair, etc.

1:25pm: Dirty Dom Mysterio is here! Commentary tells us it’s because he is here to make sure Liv loses, but… we shall see. And we do right away, as Dom throws Becky a steel chair, but a confused Becky gets countered by Morgan. DDT onto the chair from Liv, then ObLivion, and Liv Morgan wins the championship!

1:28pm: Good camera work shows a “distraught” Dom watching Liv head up the ramp with the title while Becky is in the background bad-mouthing him. But the deed is done, and Liv Morgan is the new champion.

1:35pm: The Intercontinental Title match is next. Chad Gable is introduced first. He kicks Maxine Dupri back to the backstage area, but he keeps Otis with him. As he approaches the ring, he tells Otis to stick to the plan when the time is right.

1:38pm: We get a Wyatt 6 / Uncle Howdy break in for a split second during Bronson Reed’s entrance, but I did not see it, as I was typing. Oh well.

1:48pm: Bronson Reed attempts a moonsault! But he misses and is immediately then moonsaulted onto by Chad Gable. Sami breaks up the pin. For the second or third time this match, Sami tries a Blue Thunder Bomb on Reed but can’t lift him. Are we building to Sami hitting that move on Big Bronson?

1:50pm: Gable with an ankle lock on Reed, then Sami puts Gable in his own ankle lock. It’s a Human Anklepede! But that breaks up shortly thereafter, then SAMI HITS THE BLUE THUNDER BOMB ON BRONSON REED. As predicted! I’m very good at this.

1:53pm: Chad Gable German Suplexes Bronson Reed, who is also thereby German Suplexing Sami Zayn. This match has some fun spots.

1:54pm: Gable tells Otis it is time, and Otis is clotheslines Reed. Then Gable throws Sami out and orders Otis to do the same. Otis refuses to attack Sami. After Gable slaps and shoves Otis, an infuriated Otis goes for the clothesline, but hits Gable! Sami rolls in the ring, Helluva Kick to Reed, and Sami retains!

1:57pm: More good camerawork as we see Gable staring down Otis while Zayn celebrates in the ring. They are on-point with these spots of capturing multiple emotions in these moments.

1:59pm: We get a HHH commercial where he tells us starting in 2026–in Minneapolis–SummerSlam will join WrestleMania as a two-night event. We don’t even know where SummerSlam in 2025 is going to be yet!

2:02pm: Next up, we get the Queen Of The Ring finals: Lyra Valkyria vs Nia Jax. After a commercial break because I have cheap Peacock. Tell me more about this new Pizza Hut combo meal, Peacock!

2:07pm: Michael Cole says the last Queen Of The Ring was 2021. Has it been that long since we had a King/Queen Of The Ring? I would have guessed 2022 if I had to. Xavier Woods could have been playing it up as King for three years by now! Justice For Woods!

2:11pm: Either of these women could win based on the fact that the winner gets a title shot later on. Valkyria vs Liv and Jax vs Bayley both make sense.

2:17pm: Nia misses an ANiaLator onto the apron, and we almost get another “MY HOLE!” moment. She just says “That hurt!” this time.

2:20pm: Nia counters a sunset flip power bomb attempt into the ANiaLator for the win. She is Queen Of The Ring! Nia is clearly emotional as HHH comes out to crown her. Then we get Kayla Braxton, making me 100% happier with my television. Her Instagram this week from Jeddah has been absolutely glorious. Anyway, Nia regains her composure enough to deliver a heel promo.

My capitalization of A-Nia-Lator can’t possibly be correct, can it?

2:25pm: UFC is coming to Saudia Arabia next, I guess. I know nothing about UFC. I’m told that it isn’t as exciting as the movie Warrior. Great movie!

2:27pm: Byron Saxton interviews a perturbed Becky Lynch who says she is going to get a rematch on Raw and get her title back.

2:29pm: The final of the King Of The Ring is up next: GUNTHER vs Randy Orton!

2:39pm: Did Michael Cole just say that only once in history has the winner of King Of The Ring been given a world title match, and that was Brock Lesnar in 2002? That simply can’t be accurate. Maybe they mean specifically as a condition of winning King Of The Ring? Because I attended the 1995 SummerSlam where Mabel got a world title shot against Diesel, so I know it has happened.

2:41pm: Hey, Xavier Woods gets a shout-out as the reigning King Of The Ring, for at least a few more minutes. NOT THAT HE WAS TREATED LIKE IT, MICHAEL COLE.

2:48pm: Shades of old school Randy Orton, as we just wrapped up an extended headlock sequence. Then we get the first GUNTHER chops of the match. Here we go!

2:51pm: It still seems really early, but this is a very… methodical match. It’s pretty slow, that is to say. Not wildly exciting. Let’s see if they pick up the pace. It’s possible that these two just don’t mesh particularly well.

3:00pm: Randy hits THREE of his back suplexes onto the announce table! Great bit, as it makes GUNTHER look like a monster for tanking them, but it shows Randy as awesome for hitting all three.

3:03pm: OOF what an awful ending. First, the good: GUNTHER kicks out of the second RKO he was hit with for the match. Then, the bad: GUNTHER rolled through the pinfall into a crucifix pin and got the three. Why was this bad? Orton’s shoulder was about a foot off the mat, and the referee OPENLY saw it and ignored it. Think back to Becky Lynch pinning Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania, but somehow even more exaggerated. It was THAT bad.

All told… not a great match! Substantially disappointing. It never QUITE felt like those two were on the same page, and then the ending stunk, too.

3:06pm: Triple-H is back out to crown GUNTHER, then we get a Byron Saxton interview segment for GUNTHER to heel it up on the crowd for daring to chant that he deserves it.

Remember when they renamed WALTER, and the wrestling fan community went into a tailspin that he was dead in the water before he even got started? Guess WWE knew something that others did not.

3:12pm: An interview with HHH psychs out the crowd when he announces that Drew McIntyre is healthy enough to compete and will challenge for Damien Priest’s world title at Clash At The Castle. The crowd really bit that he was going to announce it for tonight, haha

3:19pm: Time for the Undisputed Title match, Cody Rhodes vs Logan Paul!

3:35pm: As Corey Graves notes there its no Prime Hydration Station at the show tonight, I realize there is no Prime logo on the mat, either.

3:37pm: Paul gets some brass knuckles from a crony of his. He nails Cody in the ribs with them, but he can’t capitalize because he gets busy threatening the life of Michael Cole. Cole is taking this usage of the knucks as personal affront! This will not stand! All of the jaw-jacking allows Cody to get the upper hand back with a dive to the outside.

3:43pm: Paul announces “The Logan Paul Levesque Era!”, then tries a Pedigree, but Cody counters it.

3:44pm: After a Cody Cutter onto the announce table, Cody is about to win by countout, but he stops the ref from hitting ten and says that Logan needs to learn! It doesn’t work out super well, as Paul hits Cody in the face with a strong right, then frog splashes Cody through the commentary table!

3:48pm: We have a ref bump! Low blow from Paul, and he goes back to the brass knuckles. The Saudi special guest ring announcer, Ibraheem Al Hajjaj, stops him, though! Three Cross Rhodes later, and Cody wins! Is his finisher officially Three Cross Rhodes now? I think he could have gotten away with just one here, but what do I know?

This was a really good match, likely topping Becky/Liv as the Match Of The Night. Logan Paul continues to be just so damn good at all of this, and Cody is Cody and just knows what he can do.

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And that’s King & Queen Of The Ring 2024! A show that had a brilliant opener and main event, but kind of was all over the place in the middle. The Intercontinental Title match delivered, but I thought both tournament finals were a letdown, personally.

But what did YOU think? Let me know in the comments! And don’t forget to check out the LiveStream For The Cure this Friday!

Until next time… take care!