Episode 127: NXT TakeOver: Phoenix & The Royal Rumble with Vita Ayala

Episode notes

This week Hal, Danielle and Lindsey are joined by Vita Ayala. They’re a comic book writer whose work has been published by Marvel, DC Comics and Valiant. Before getting into the news, Vita will explain how they getting into wrestling led to them to some rough sleeping arrangements growing up.

For a limited time, from Thursday, January 31st to Sunday, February 10,Tights and Fights listeners can go to Comixology and put LIVEWIRE #1 in their cart and enter the code LIVEWIREFIGHTS at checkout to access it for free!

NXT TakeOver: Phoenix

Like most of the last few TakeOvers, this show was built around the ongoing drama between Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano. Now both of these two are on the same page and are champions. What’s the future hold for Dark-DIY?

And while those two are fixtures of TakeOvers, Bianca Belair had her first showing at the event, coming up short against Shayna Baszler for the NXT Women’s championship. But no one on the panel is ready for this feud to be over any time soon.

Plus, how the War Raiders finally won us over as the top tag team on RAW, who the ashiest NXT star may be and why Matt Riddle has gotta wear some shoes (a controversial take, to be sure).

The Royal Rumble

For the second consecutive year, WWE succeeded in giving us two great Royal Rumble winners. Seth Rollins won the men’s contest and is in line to face Brock Lesnar for the Universal title and Becky Lynch was a late entrant in the women’s Rumble and will finally have her match against Ronda Rousey.

But that doesn’t mean we’re on board with everything that happened on Sunday. Was it the best move to have Asuka tap Becky out in the opening match of the night? And why didn’t WWE ever address why Finn Balor didn’t use his Demon persona in his match against Lesnar?

All of that, plus all of the fallout on RAW and Smackdown and our favorite moments from one of the most chaotic matches in all of WWE.

Hosted by Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, Lindsey Kelk and Vita Ayala.

Produced by Julian Burrell for Maximum Fun.

If you want to talk about more wrestling throughout the week be sure to join us on Facebook and @TightsFights on Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked the show, please share it with your friends and be sure to leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts.