Rusev was hilarious in the opening segment of RAW. Sheamus chilling on the steps on Facebook Live while Cesaro wrestled was also hilarious. Chris Jericho’s The List shtick was also hilarious. Jericho and Truth plugging Payday was kind of hilarious. New Day referencing Full House was almost hilarious. RAW sure had a couple chuckles, but I did not give one single fuck about much of the professional wrestling. It sure had some entertainment! It sure had some fun! But I am not amped for any of the Hell in a Cell matches at all, and that’s really weird. I like everyone involved, but nothing is clicking.
RAW was just a bad wrestling show. There were some fun things, and a couple bright spots in terms of direction – Jericho and Owens as top heels, Zayn and Neville as a team, Brooding Poet Bo Dallas, Braun Strowman wrecking guys – but most stuff just had a tinge of disappointment and laziness to it, especially the kickoff of the New Day/Shesaro feud, Zayn/Neville just randomly showing up as replacements for Enzo & Cass, the joy slowly being sucked out of the cruiserweight division, Ariya Daivari’s stereotypical Angry Middle Eastern guy promo, none of the three (THREE!) Hell in a Cell matches being interesting, the entire stupid main event feud and overall arc, and Goldberg announcing his return in a fucking Tweet.
The opening segment intertwining the U.S. Title and Women’s Title feuds was cute, but it was your standard stupid RAW opening segment. Blah blah theme music blah blah theme music banter banter banter catchphrase blah blah we have a main event. Cesaro and Kofi Kingston had a very fun match on Main Event a few years ago. This was not that match. This was one of those WWE matches where they have to have justification for a PPV match to happen, so instead of telling a simple straightforward rasslin’ story they feel compelled to jump through so many hoops to make the match make sense on paper that it overtakes any possible good wrestling and inexplicably any actual good story. Cesaro/Sheamus have a shot – OK. Then New Day makes fun of them – I guess that’s what they do. Then Kofi and Cesaro do some wrestling moves. Then Sheamus, who was chilling on his cell phone a minute earlier because he doesn’t like his tag partner Cesaro, grabs Xavier’s trombone. Then Xavier confronts him. Then Sheamus pushes Xavier. Then Big E attacks Sheamus. The storytelling, man. The storytelling.
The Bayley squash was a couple minutes of a wrestling match – wasn’t very effective as far as making Bayley look good or like a lovable underdog, but glad they’re giving her squash matches right now. I like the idea of a Dana Brooke/Bayley feud, and Bayley getting laid out surrounded by the Inflatible Tube Men was a great visual. The cruiserweight tag was a fun little TV match – Drew Gulak still needs to drop that fucking jacket but he is growing on me as such a competent god damn wrestler, taking all of Lince Dorado and Sin Cara’s shit beautifully. Cara as a cruiserweight is an obvious move – hope he and Lince or Metalik have a mask feud and we get a return of badass Hunico. Member the Hunico/Justin Gabriel series?? Mick Foley’s motherfucking plaid suit. Jericho and Owens are funny fellas, but them trading banter with Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon should be a lot better. I guess a Gallows/Anderson vs. Enzo/Cass feud is interesting. I guess. The only reason Samuel Zayn and Adrian Neville worked Monday Night RAW was that Enzo and Cass got laid out – brilliant. The tag against the reunited Social Outcasts was like 25 seconds. Brooding Poet Bro is an interesting thing – send him to SmackDown and put him with Bray and Harper. R-Truth vs. Titus O’Neil happened on this fucking show. I did like Truth going right at Titus – and then he danced.
TJ Perkins is quickly shifting from a Luke Skywalker-babyface to annoying motherfucker. I’m not saying put the mask back on him but let’s keep him a little quieter alright? I am liking guys from CWC just randomly having cameos on RAW, but this division is very very quickly losing its’ joy. TJ and Daivari did some cool stuff and had a short, decent match. Braun Strowman had another fine squash match. The Braun double dropkick was tremendous, and the Splash Brothers was an inspired pairing of jobbers. I’m intrigued by what the end game is for this Braun push – Roman? Rollins? Zayn!? Are they going to debut Dylan Miles (the guy with the big ass hands) this way? Is Dylan Miles still around?? The Roman/Sasha vs. Rusev/Charlotte mixed tag was alright, basically the first half of an average Roman/Rusev match and then a quick feel-good finish. Roman and Rusev going at it is always great, though the crowd not popping for the Sasha hot tag was rough.
The Paul Heyman promo was a Paul Heyman promo. Goldberg vs. Brock is an interesting match that right now is a victim of WWE’s diminishing of expectations. They’re capable of quality moments, but it’s hard to care about a lot of stuff when it goes nowhere. The use of Brock Lesnar this year has been awful: getting eliminated from the Rumble thanks to the Wyatt’s setting up a feud that never happened beyond a Luke Harper/Brock Lesnar match which was one of the most disappointing matches ever, the Ambrose match at Mania that sucked and had budding top star Ambrose just getting squashed and looking like a geek, the UFC thing which was cool for a while but didn’t really transfer any buzz to wrestling, the Randy Orton match which was not good and had a stupid pointless reckless finish that had no follow-up, and now he’s wrestling Goldberg. It could be fun, but it’s hard to care. The spectacle is fading.
Tito Santana got a shout-out on this show, and I just want to make clear that Tito Santana. Him vs. Paul Orndorff for the IC Title from 9/1/84 is one of my favorite matches ever. Rollins vs. Jericho was a match with decent action that was another victim, like Cesaro/Kofi, of a need to move a story forward, but not in a way where a good story was told through ring-work, but in a way where there’s a freezing cold basic match where they shoehorn in a couple spots to give the PPV match some kind of purpose. SmackDown can be guilty of this too, but RAW does it way more and has more time to kill. It just feels so transparent and gross. This whole main story is so weird – I know Rollins is the good guy, but I still have no idea why he is. And now he seems like Stephanie McMahon’s chosen one? Forget there being no reason for a Rollins turn – why is Stephanie working babyface now? And why is she actively backing up Seth Rollins against hilarious bros Owens and Jericho? And what’s the end game here? Is this going to get Rollins to the stratosphere? Jericho’s getting the biggest reactions every week for the List – how can The People be expected to cheer against him being in the Hell in a Cell match? Are Jericho and Owens breaking up? Jericho can’t be a face again – this thing only works if he’s a heel. Is Owens turning face? Is Rollins going to reveal he was in cahoots with the Authority all along?? WHY DID TRIPLE H HELP KEVIN OWENS!?!?!?
SmackDown was one of the weaker entries from the A show, but still had some solid stuff, mainly from the usual suspects: my boys AJ Styles and Mike the Miz. I think my favorite thing about SmackDown Live as a show right now is that no one’s really over-exposed. When AJ Styles shows up it feels like a big deal. Promos and backstage segments actually set stuff up and lead to interesting things – they aren’t just there to kill time. The Miz and Maryse showing up in mourning gear was amazing. Another great Miz/Dolph segment – Miz’ “The hero gets the gold and the girl, and I’ve already got the girl” was tremendous. They got a “You were crying!” chant going – this feud is SO great. Not putting Miz on commentary for the Dolph/Spirit Squad match so he could brood at ringside was a great call. Spirit Squad using the numbers to control Dolph in their bright green jumpsuits is what professional wrestling is made of. The handicap match was short and pretty simple, and wayyyy more effective than the mixed tag or Rollins/Jericho on RAW. Mauro Ranallo can be a little try-hard, but the “He Killed Kenny!” call was fantastic. Heath and Rhyno making the save here was awesome too – they saved Good Guy Dolph from an unfair beatdown! Way better than cutting a promo calling them hot garbage because they were granted a title shot. Good stuff all-around.
I am all in on the approach this year to Survivor Series as an All-Star show. The roster is fun enough right now for this to be a good time. Naomi vs. Carmella was okay – Carmella is possibly growing on me. Naomi wins with another roll-up – it IS a gimmick!! Alexa being SO angry in regards to the Women’s Title situation is great. I think one of my least favorite tropes of WWE is tag team singles matches when two teams are feuding – they’re always so cold and usually get like a minute-and-a-half. I love The Usos just progressively wearing more and more casual wear to the ring, and that was a sweet rollup assist for the finish. Let’s add some heat back to this feud already. The Bray/Harper vs. Orton/Kane main event wasn’t much, but man did I miss Brother Luke who looks like a total savage – one second this crazy motherfucker is upercutting you in the face, the next he’s throwing a dropkick. The Orton/Kane segment and Kane disappearing only for Harper to re-appear was kinda cute. And Bray actually pinned Randy again – good for him.
AJ Styles vs. James Ellsworth with Dean Ambrose as the special ref was an awesome segment and really fun match. This was such a great way to move a feud along and do something fun in the process. Ellsworth is so perfect for his weird-ass role; I love his range of emotions for everything – sad about getting beat up by Miz, excited about a title opportunity, understanding about it being non-title. Everybody did well here – AJ Styles was a great angry bad guy mixing viciousness with looking like a goof, and this was legitimately one of Ambrose’s best performances of the year. Him taking the ref’s shirt for himself was so Dean Ambrose. I actually liked watching the first few minutes of the match picture-in-picture with commercials (think this is the second time they’ve done that) – it was like watching a damn silent movie, with Ambrose doing his best Buster Keaton. Tons of shenanigans, but shenanigans that led to a hot-ass near fall off a Dirty Deeds. As well-documented, Ellsworth almost landing on his neck for the Styles Clash was scary. Otherwise – this hit all the notes it needed to and was what the kids call a hoot.
Talking Smack was only 15 minutes this week, which despite the show’s greatness really feels like the ideal time for a post-WWE show talk show. Loved D-Bryan hard-selling SmackDown next week with Alexa vs. Naomi, Swagger vs. Corbin, and AJ/Ellsworth for the strap. The 3 Hell in a Cell matches may end up better, I am legitimately hyped for all 3 of these matches more right now. Ellsworth rocked his best business casual. Wyatt and Harper appearing at the end in the darkness was awesome too.
NXT was a show that had Tye Dillinger flexing his ass. It also had some OK stuff as the never-ending re-building continues. The SAnitY (style straight from WWE dot com) debut and reveal of Eric Young was a fine piece of business. Roode backing off from the match was so great, and I have no idea if Alexander Wolfe and Sawyer Fulton are any good but they did a servicable job wrecking Tye. Billie Kay vs. Liv Morgan was a lot better than their last match but I still have no idea if either of them will be any good. Liv has improved a ton but she is kind of like Carmella where I’m not sure if anything she does will ever be taken seriously. And I like that Billie’s doing power spots but it’s still kind of awkward. Blake and Murphy were having themselves a little bit of a match before Joe ran-in with a sweet beatdown. That slam on the apron was brutal, and his promo was legit scary. I still have no idea why they refuse to keep them together as a team – it was working. The Joe/Nakamura brawl was pretty neat, though I’m not sure if Shinsuke tearing off the neckbrace was even in the top 10 of tearing off the neckbrace spots.
Let’s chat about TM61 vs. Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss from the Dusty Classic. NXT doing nothing with TM61 outside of feeding them to the Authors of Pain and throwing them in random matches once every few weeks makes me weep for days of NXT’s past. They’ve been around for 5 months and I still don’t know what to think about them. They’re just a couple of athletic fellas from Australia. And one of them’s named Nick Miller. Same name as Jake Johnson in New Girl. Tito Sabbatelli meanwhile in his debut came across as a ghost of OVW’s past. Tino and Riddick are two athletically gifted guys who look impressive. This can go a number of ways. I don’t know which way yet. Tino in ten years could be doing anything from carrying a Marvel movie to doing a cameo on the Edge & Christian Show season 12. And that is where my mind went during that match.
Not the strongest week for the C-shows, either. Main Event had two weak matches with two cool spots. Hype Bros vs. Vaudevillains was a quick one, like less than 5 minutes. They went right to a beatdown on Ryder, then a Mojo run. Highlight was a WILD bump from Aiden English off a Pounce from Mojo. Swagger and Breeze did some cool stuff in their match, and Swagger seemed fired up, but the match never got actually good or anything. Swagger’s counter of a sunset flip to an ankle lock for the finish was sooooo smooth and pretty though. Superstars featured a Shining Stars squash and a Darren Young vs. Jinder Mahal rematch. Those are facts.
WWE TV Match of the Week: AJ Styles vs. James Ellsworth with Dean Ambrose as Special Guest Referee – Sports By God Entertainment is alive and well.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: RAW was a blackhole of suck. SmackDown was one of the weaker SmackDown outings. But there was one beacon of hope. One shining light. And that was James Ellsworth. I’m not sure what exactly it says about WWE right now that my MVP last week was Mikey from the Spirit Squad and this week it’s James Ellsworth, but here we are.
