While I am not happy with the location of these events, I am glad to see that this was, yet again, a very good card.
There was a bit of controversy with the Gunther vs Randy Orton match relating to Orton’s shoulder not being down while the referee was pinning, but according to Triple H, that the referees decision is final.
💡
Spoilers
Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill defeated Candice LeRae to retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
Liv Morgan defeated Becky Lynch to become the NEW Women’s World Championship
Sami Zayn defeated Bronson Reed and Chad Gable to retain the Intercontinental Championship
Nia Jax defeated Lyra Valkyria to become Queen of the Ring
Gunther defeated Randy Orton to become King of the Ring
Cody Rhodes defeated Logan Paul to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship
Welcome to Saudi Blood Money XI from the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia. It is WWE’s first of 2 trips to the kingdom in 2024 and today is the finals of the King of the Ring Tournament and Queen of the Ring Tournament.
How did we get to the finals?
It was a 16-man and 16-woman tournament that began on May 6th and May 10th’s RAW and SmackDown respectively.
On the Men’s side:
1st Round on RAW:
Gunther defeated Sheamus
Kofi Kingston defeated Rey Mysterio
Ilja Dragunov defeated Ricochet
Jey Uso defeated Finn Bálor
1st Round on SmackDown:
Randy Orton defeated AJ Styles
Carmelo Hayes defeated Baron Corbin
LA Knight defeated Santos Escobar
Tama Tonga defeated Angelo Dawkins
Quarter-finals on RAW
Gunther defated Kofi Kingston
Jey Uso defeated Ilja Dragunov
Quarter-finals on SmackDown
Randy Orton defeated Carmelo Hayes
Tama Tonga defeated LA Knight
Semi-finals on RAW
Gunther defeated Jey Uso
Semi-finals on SmackDown
Randy Orton defeated Tama Tonga
Which now means that Gunther (RAW) will take on Randy Orton (SmackDown) to become King of the Ring.
On the Women’s side:
1st Round on RAW
Shayna Baszler defeated Maxxine Dupri
Iyo Sky defeated Natalya
Lyra Valkyria defeated Dakota Kai
Zoey Stark defeated Ivy Nile
1st Round on SmackDown
Nia Jax defeated Naomi
Jade Cargill defeated Piper Niven
Tiffany Stratton defeated Michin
Bianca Belair defeated Candice LeRae
Quarter-finals on RAW
Iyo Sky defeated Shayna Baszler
Lyra Valkyria defeated Zoey Stark
Quarter-finals on SmackDown
Nia Jax defeated Jade Cargill via DQ
Bianca Belair defeated Tiffany Stratton.
Semi-finals on RAW
Lyra Valkyria defeated Iyo Sky
Semi-finals on SmackDown
Nia Jax defeated Bianca Belair
Which now means that Lyra Valkyria (RAW) will take on Nia Jax (SmackDown) to become Queen of the Ring!
Let’s have a look and predict the rest of this card:
Title Matches
Gunther (RAW) vs Randy Orton (SmackDown) in a singles match in the finals of the King of the Ring Tournament. Winner will receive a world title match on their respecitive brand at SummerSlam.
PREDICTION: I can see this being a match of the night and potentially having “King Gunther” at the of the night is going to be a welcome sight to see. Gunther to win and become King of the Ring.
Lyra Valkyria (RAW) vs Nia Jax (SmackDown) in a singles match in the finals of the Queen of the Ring Tournament. Winner will receive a women’s world title match on their respecitive brand at SummerSlam.
PREDICTION: Never bet against the Irish. Lyra is going to take it home to Ireland. Queen Lyra to win and become Queen of the Ring.
Becky Lynch (C) vs Liv Morgan in a singles match for the Women’s World Championship
PRECICTION: Becky is Irish. See my last point about Lyra. Becky to win and retain the Women’s World Championship
Sami Zayn (C) vs Chad Gable vs Bronson Reed in a Triple Threat match for the Intercontinental Championship
PREDICTION: This may pip Gunther/Orton as these guys can work. Expect some hard hitting wrestling, but I don’t think Sami is going to drop the title any time soon. Sami to win and retain the Intercontinental Championship
Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill (C) vs Candice LeRae vs Indi Hartwell in a tag team match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
PREDICTION: Nothing much to say here but Bianca and Jade will retain the WWE Women’s World Championship here.
Cody Rhodes (C) vs Logan Paul in a singles match for the Undisputed WWE Championship
PREDICTION: Cody ain’t losing the title any time soon. Cody to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship.
Over the last year or two, we have inundated with AI tools and slowly over time, new tools have been developed.
More specifically, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen leaps in this technology, including OpenAI’s GPT-4o that had a fairly impressive demo:
While the tech is cool, I am just not happy as to how they (and may other LLM’s (Large Language Models)) have gathered their data.
And it seems that on a daily basis, there is some company that they are adding a AI tool or are using AI to determine the user’s gender or looking at your work DM’s.
On top of that, I have read stories over the last 6 – 12 months that LLMs are apparently crawling websites to gather information and data for their LLMs.
We get to last week and Google I/O showed off a plethora of new AI tools for their existing services, including Google Search. So instead of showing links and content belonging to bloggers who spent hours or even days on writing blog posts, they are just being summarised on Google with no accreditation to the author of those posts.
This can be fixed of course by adding udm=14 to the end of the Google Search URL… or just use another search engine. While writing this blog post, I was alerted to DuckDuckGo has started to implement some sort of AI tool and changes the results similarly to what Google is doing.
So for search, I have switched to a SearXNG instance.
Then Microsoft holds an event where they showcase new Surface devices that has a new NL processor, dubbed “CoPilot+” – One “feature” is titled ‘Recall’ which would allow you to go back to a previous point in time and pick up where you left off. An old version of a document, an Excel sheet that you deleted, all back!
While Microsoft claims that none of the information leaves the computer, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did ‘phone home’ and contribute to Bing AI’s LLM in some capacity. Yes, it can be disabled, but you don’t know what it is doing on the back end.
Maybe I am just too sceptical about the claims. Maybe I need a tin foil hat.
What is clear though is that, until there is regulation on what AI can do, it’s a hellscape right now. The technology is growing quicker and quicker by the day, it seems, and there doesn’t appear to be an end.
What about me? I dislike AI. I have disliked what Microsoft, Google, Discord, DuckDuckGo, Slack and countless other companies have been shoehorning AI into products that are probably not needed. Let’s see how far down the ‘AI Rabbit Hole’ that we can dig…
I have been putting it off for the last couple of years, but I plan to use Linux going forward. I will eventually transition away from Windows. Games are the biggest hurdle in that of course, but with the leaps in progress they have been making via the Steam Deck and Proton. I will detail more about this transition in another post.
WWE Backlash from Lyon, France was a great show and the crowd were really behind everyone. I would not be surprised if they run future shows in France.
Results
The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa & Tama Tonga) w/ Tanga Loa defeated Randy Orton & Kevin Owens in a Street Fight.
Bayley defeated Naomi & Tiffany Stratton in a triple threat to retain the WWE Women’s Championship
Damian Priest (C) defeated Jey Uso in a singles match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship
Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill defeated The Kabuki Warriors (Kairi Sane & Asuka) in a tag team match to become the NEW WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions
Cody Rhodes (C) defeated AJ Styles in a singles match to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship
With Bianca’s victory, she becomes the 9th woman since 2019 to win WWE Women’s Triple Crown, winning the RAW Women’s Championship, SmackDown Women’s Championship and now the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship with Jade Cargill.
WWE heads to Lyon, France for WWE Backlash. Last year, the show was held in Puerto Rico and if it was anything like what it was last year, we’re in for a treat!
There are 5 matches on this card (unless more gets added between when this is published and the event itself) with only 1 match not involving a title.
Non-Title Match
Randy Orton & Kevin Owens vs The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa & Tama Tonga) in a tag team match.
PREDICTION: Tama Tonga appearing within WWE has already made this difficult to call. 2 evenly matched teams make it difficult to pick. Knowing how things have gone in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Bloodline cheats their way to a victory. Bloodline to win!
Title Matches
The Kabuki Warriors (Kairi Sane & Asuka) vs Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill in a tag team match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.
PREDICTIONS: With Jade Cargill on the team, you know that she ain’t losing this match. Easy prediction. Bianca & Jade to win and become new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.
Bayley (C) vs Naomi vs Tiffany Stratton in a Triple Threat for the WWE Women’s Championship.
PREDICTION: While Bayley got her WrestleMania victory defeating Iyo Sky, I don’t see her holding that title for much longer, unless they start putting her in a meaningful storyline. Given that you are going to have Bianca & Jade winning the Women’s Tag Team Championships, I would predict that their partner, Naomi, is to win and become champion. Rocket strap the three girls. Keep Bayley strong though by pinning Tiffany. It’s just not Tiffy Time yet.
Damian Priest (C) vs Jey Uso in a singles match for the World Heavyweight Championship.
PREDICTION: Jey Uso won a tournament to determine who would be next in line for the title. I don’t think Jey is going to win it, but is going to put on a classic match with Damian. Expect Judgement Day shenanigans. Damian Priest to win and retain!
Cody Rhodes (C) vs AJ Styles in a singles match for the Undisputed WWE Championship.
PREDICTION: Are you seriously going to bet against Cody? Cody is going to be holding this title until Roman is back, so unfortunately, AJ Styles is going to be the fall guy. (But given how juiced AJ is these days, it is quite unpredictable) Cody to win and retain.
Back to Japan and back to 1983 for another Jukebox from Junko Yagami and was a prominent artist in the 70s and 80s. To date, they have released over 25 albums in 4 decades.
Today, Yagami resides in Los Angeles but flies to Japan to perform live.
黄昏のBAY CITY (“Bay City” here within) was released on the A Side of the 1983 Album ‘Full Moon’ and is considered another ‘staple’ with the City pop genre.
[Chorus] Ah, ah anata wo otte Tasogare no bay city Ah, ah meguri aetara Damatte dakitomete
[Verse 1] Tabako no kaori, hiekitta kiss Nageta dake de anata wa kieta Sunao ni nareba tsudzuiteta ai Shizun ofu no umi wa warai Kaze ga kooru wa
[Chorus] Kogoekitta kamome mitai yo Tasogare no bay city Ah, ah anata no suki na Minato ga kurete yuku
[Verse 2] Wakasa wa tabun mienai naifu Motsure atte kokoro ga kireta Baka ne ima goro ai ga itai no Anata dake ga kono kizuguchi Fusageru hito yo
Uh, uh, uh (Bay City) Uh, uh, uh (Bay City)
[Bridge] Sora ga umi wo idaku mitai ni Aishi aeta kiseki wo Mou ichido dake mou ichido dake Maboroshi de ii
[Chorus] Ah, ah anata wo otte Tasogare no bay city Ah, ah meguri aetara Damatte dakitomete
[Chorus] Ah, ah anata wo otte Tasogare no bay city Ah, ah meguri aetara Damatte dakitomete
English
A~h, I follow you to The Bay city in twilight A~h, and if I see you there Just shut up and hold me
The smell of your cigarettes, and the cold kiss You blew to me, and then you disappeared If we had been honest, we’d still be in love This winter sea is laughing at me And the wind is freezing
I’m like one of the gulls, frozen to the spot The Bay city in twilight A~h, and your beloved Harbor is growing dark
Youth is like, a hidden knife We got tangled up, and my heart was cut open And I feel so silly now, with this painful love And you are the only man, who can heal this wound The only man
Like the sky, embracing the sea It was a miracle that we met Just one more time, just one more time Even just a vision of you
A~h, I follow you to The Bay city in twilight A~h, and if I see you there Just shut up and hold me
A~h, I follow you to The Bay city in twilight A~h, and if I see you there Just shut up and hold me
![[The JukeBox] #95 – Junko Yagami – 黄昏のBAY CITY](https://padraig.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/baycitycover.png)