Change can be good. I like watching wrestling, but WWE has had the exact same garbage presentation for the past decade. There’s a lot of cool moments and great wrestling and weird ass backstage stuff to make it interesting enough to follow, but man – it’s usually vaguely entertaining and mostly disappointing. I still watch though – it’s the big leagues and I love this shit.
So after watching this same presentation for so long – the weird voyeur backstage segments, inability to tell any more than 1-2 actually compelling stories at a time, frustrating start-stop pushes for everybody, lame in-ring interview segments, over-scripting of everything, dumbass commentary, etc etc etc – it’s nice when they do something different. Wrestling doesn’t always have to be good, but it should be interesting. Systems get old, systems get boring – you’ve got to change things up once in a while. The WWE Network shows are changing things up, and they’re absolutely interesting.
From the big time main event hype for Balor/Nakamura, and the sportslike presentation of the Cruiserweight Classic, to the complete 180 degree change of how WWE presents guys coming in from outside the company – this stuff is a ton of fun. The main roster trudges along with a strong roster and fun moments, but the WWE Network is doing some weird shit and it’s really cool.
I could probably go into some deep trenches on how eventually, the changes being implemented now will get tiring, and will either have to change or go back to what worked before the changes, and then get into a thing on nostalgia, and then talk Pokemon GO – heck maybe bring in Trump and Clinton – but this is a blog about wrestling and I don’t want to put in the effort.
Either way, change can be good. There are a ton of times that it isn’t – but trying something new in wrestling is usually a pretty positive thing.
So the WWE Network was mostly the highlight this week, though I also have to talk for a second about The Miz, who proves a glaring exception to this whole thing on change. Formula can work too, old can be new again, blah blah blah – problem is, WWE just isn’t even that good at their own stale presentation. But certain performers can bring it up, and the MizTV segment on SmackDown was tremendous, taking a guy – one who’s barely been on TV for the last few years outside of a brief tag team run and the lame poorly produced vignettes with Bob Backlund – and making him look like a massive babyface star. Miz was such a dick here and Young stood up to him at just the right time. More on SmackDown later, because NXT and the Cruiserweight Classic were your highlights this week.
NXT was a one-match show with the much-anticipated Finn Balor/Shinsuke Nakamura match, and if you’re going to have a one-match show that’s not a bad match to do it with. I really liked it – the Too Sweet to the forehead, nasty leg work by Balor, and the wild strike exchange were highlights. This was a lot like Cena/Styles for me – a good standalone Dream Match that didn’t quite get into second gear to be the epic showdown it was sold as. The Balor vs. Nakamura match is a weird one for me. I like both guys individually, but them paired up is more cool and surreal than actually a really a great matchup. Still though, a very good match brought up a notch by the awesome presentation and build of it. Joe promo at the start of the show was great too.
Then there was the first episode of the Cruiserweight Classic. I only have an outsider’s view of the non-WWE world these days, though I saw a Cedric Alexander vs. Moose match for Ring of Honor live and a few Kota Ibushi DDT rookie matches. But most of the Cruiserweight Classic field was new to me. Outside of Alexander and Ibushi, the presentation was the star her (again, change is good) – handshakes, hand raising, sweet-ass graphics, Ranallo and Bryan treating everything seriously and introducing these guys to the world. The first two matches – Gran Metalik vs. Alejandro Saez and Ho Ho Lun vs. Ariya Daivari – were alright. Metalik’s flying and Daivari being a nondescript heel in this land of exciting fun wrestlers were highlights. Really liked the last two matches – Cedric Alexander vs. Clement Petiot and Kota Ibushi vs. Sean Maluta. Clement stayed on Cedric with some cool aggressive offense, and Cedric looked like a guy that will be a huge star – crisp offense, effective selling, likable charisma. Ibushi vs. Mulata was a great showcase for Ibushi with really fun kick combos and flying, though Maluta got some neat stuff in there. Most of the wrestling in current WWE is solid, but the presentation is so stagnant that it makes so much feel like non-important garbage. None of these Round 1 matches were amazing, but they were solid, and thanks to the new feel of everything it was a breezy, really fun hour of wrestling.
RAW again had a few cool things but was a crazy boring complete show. The Dean Ambrose promo on Seth Rollins was incredible and might have been the best thing he’s done in his entire career. Guy not only cut a money promo, guy not only finally explained to the world his character and actions – the guy willed a crowd into going absolutely apeshit for him with the power of WORDS. Rollins played his part too, but this was world class stuff from Dean-o. Rollins using the Edge and Christian fake interview shtick on Roman Reigns and the Wyatt/New Day showdown were fun attempts at something different. Wyatt/New Day in particular was like a really solid short horror film, which stood out as really neat in the same ol-same ol world of WWE. Darren Young’s win in the Battle Royal and subsequent chant for him was an awesome moment too. I liked the Zayn attack on Owens, though he looked like a complete boob leaving for commentary. Cena return was a nice surprise too. Great show of YouTube highlights.
Main Event was all solid stuff this week, with basically everyone they have no plans for right now thrown out there to do some fun things. 8-man tag with Swagger/Crews/Golden Truth vs. Ascension/Vaudevillains had some good individual performances – nice early exchange by Apollo/English, Swagger’s lariat, Viktor’s sell of the ankle lock. Becky Lynch and the returning Alicia Fox had an alright 5-minute match – Becky continues to be so good at putting together a fun match with a measly 5 minutes. Sheamus/Titus was a nice hoss fight, and the main event of Cesaro/Usos vs. Del Rio/Dudleys was your standard fun WWE 6-man tag match. Loved Tom and Otunga in pre-draft mode selling the merits of drafting Swagger and Titus really high, as well as Otunga calling Randy Orton injury prone.
SmackDown was again a decent show but clearly treading water pre-draft. SmackDown’s are now starting with ‘Earlier Today’ promos by wrestlers hyping their involvement on the show, which are so simple and brilliant (change, good). The aforementioned MizTV segment with Darren Young was great, and Ambrose/Zayn vs. Rollins/Owens was a top shelf main event. There was a bunch of decent stuff too like AJ Styles & Karl Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass and a better Sasha Banks/Dana Brooke match than the RAW match.
JASON’S MOCK WWE DRAFT
1. Seth Rollins
2. Kevin Owens
3. Rusev
4. AJ Styles
5. Roman Reigns
6. The Miz
Superstars actually had a Superstars Match Worth Watching with Sami Zayn vs. Curtis Axel. Really effective WWE formula match brought up by Zayn being Zayn and Social Outcasts shenanigans. Crowd was way into this. Becky Lynch vs. Summer Rae was also pretty solid, another 5-minute Becky masterpiece.
It was a decent week with all the usual problems. Let’s get the draft going and change some shit up.
WWE TV Match of the Week: No matter the criticisms, Balor/Nakamura was the best match this week from a build perspective and match quality perspective.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Both The Miz and Dean Ambrose had excellent showings this week – The Miz got another guy over with his obnoxious promo opening RAW and the bit with Darren Young on MizTV, while between the promo on RAW and strong main event on SmackDown, Ambrose finally started looking like a company ace.
