New Catch Republic vs. Authors of Pain: SmackDown highlights, May 3, 2024

Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne go head-to-head with Akam and Rezar after costing The Authors of Pain an opportunity to win the NXT Tag Team Titles last week on NXT. Catch WWE action on Peacock, WWE Network, FOX, USA Network, Sony India and more. #SmackDown
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[josie_foxx]

This crowd is making this so much better i swear

[IpWaddle-ybsp]

The crowd is one of the best crowd I’ve ever seen 😂🔥

[taylormoss]

This crowd is putting the USA to shame 😂

[Gone_rogue]

Love the crowd. They actually boo'd the heels as they were announced the winners instead of just sitting there like in America. Also Karrion Kross with the F5 is brutal. That should be his new finisher instead of that SvR 2011 edited looking finisher he has now.

[jaylyn]

The crowd is making this match so fun to watch I swear 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🔥🔥🔥

[Michaelz]

Last year it was Puerto Rico, this year France, these international crowds be killing it.

[FlipperWolf]

Some important context for the international crowd watching: The sentence you hear the crowd yelling after a 2 count is "simplement deux" which means "only two". It's a catch phrase that's been coined by two French commentators for more than twenty years on French TV, those very two commentators that you see at the ringside table. In fact if the French crowd is so passionate about WWE, it's in a very VERY big part thanks to those two guys, even if they don't wanna admit it. And the proof is that the whole arena knows this catchphrase... Philippe and Christophe are might in fact be the most influential "superstars" of WWE in France, and I'm not saying this lightly. Probably the majority of the crowd present tonight and tomorrow at Backlash fell in love with WWE thanks to the way these two guys always know how to convey and translate the stories to the French audience, and for the past 20+ years they've always been as loud and passionate on commentary as the crowd tonight. Add to that the fact that they also play characters while they comment the matches, Christophe is usually cheering the bad guys while Philippe cheers the good guys, and they have a whole lot of running gags and inside jokes that they've been throwing for as long as I can remember...
I could write a whole essay about those two and their importance in the French WWE universe. That's probably why Cody shook their hands before his match, I think he knows.

[joshuahutchinson]

Tyler lifting up Rezar is crazy strength.

[salmanutim]

This crowd makes every match feel important.

[chisomibezim]

Normally I wouldn't watch A match like this but the crowd makes the match so much better so I'm watching every match tonight

[JT-ihrx]

People said kross and AOP wont get any reaction....this crowd gave them a huge reaction i guess its the american fans that are just poor fans. Great fans over in europe.

[JahiemSwbay]

The crowd is lit tonight imagine tomottow 👀

[Nik_]

Why Lyon, France fans feels like The Attitude Era vibe 🔥

[Logan-sjoc]

Tyler bates strength is just unbelievable 😮🔥

[tyreepowell]

The Authors Of Pain Seriously Never Disappoint

[ulionymruknow]

I wish every crowd was this It literally made every match better ❤❤

[marcusfridh]

Never underestimate a crowd of European soccer fans, and yes that spills over to other sports and entertainments too

[LilRichh_]

Pete & Tyler leveled the elevation in this match goin out there givin 110% as usual_! 🔥

[arahaitham]

New Republic got this much reaction. Man the crowd is great!

[hpesojogladih]

This was more competitive and longer than expected. The former NXT UK champions did a lot of selling but still managed to get in enough offense to give the crowd hope. This went from feeling like it was going to be a short encounter to being one of the most hard-fought matches WWE has put on all week.

Akam and Rezar got the win with a small assist from Scarlett and some big interference from Kross 👍🏻.