Did you guys know the Norm MacDonald Live podcast is back?
It’s great.
Might say something about me, but no podcast has me laughing alone in my car like Norm MacDonald Live.
There’s some good insight, too.
Like, Stephen Merchant asked Norm about how he does his stand-up. And he went on about how he usually just comes up with a great punchline. And then he talks and talks, throws jokes in there, and then he gets everyone at the end with the punchline.
WWE usually has solid punchlines.
But WWE isn’t Norm MacDonald.
Not that they should be, but –
The SummerSlam card looks pretty dang solid, yet this week’s offering of sports entertainment had a lot of folks just doing a lot of dumb shit. And so the punchline – SummerSlam – might be looking strong, but the journey needs some more jokes in there. Cause the talking isn’t interesting.
A lot of guys just talked themselves into feuds this week – The Miz vs. Jason Jordan, The Bar vs. The Shield, Baron Corbin vs. John Cena, Randy Orton vs. Rusev.
Miz – why keep antagonizing young Jason Jordan, why not just interview the guy and let it go? Jason – why are you getting SO incensed about some run-of-the-mill jabs about your dad you just met?
Sheamus & Cesaro – Why make fun of poor Seth Rollins? If you’re gonna play cheesy 80s bullies and make fun of a guy for literally no reason then go all the way with it. If you don’t, I have to question your motives. And Dean – I’m digging the romance with Seth, but your explanation of saving him just wasn’t up to snuff.
Big Match John and Baron Corbin – Seems like your issues are with Shinsuke Nakamura, not each other. Baron – If you want to make a name for yourself, why not cash in MITB or just straight-up attack John instead of bumbling into a fight with him? John – this Nakamura guy, new to the roster and, trying to take your spot, beats you CLEAN and you’re just gonna shake his hand and move on?
And Randy Orton – That’s it? The guy you’ve been calling a suck-ass Indian for 3 months cheats 3 times and you’re like fuck it I’m done I’m gonna wrestle Rusev. Really?
And Rusev. Actually, Rusev – you just wanted a PPV match after doing not a damn thing for a year. I’m fine with what you’re doing.
I know wrestling is usually stupid but c’mon. A little effort goes a long way. Does anyone have any real motivation here besides I Need a Match at SummerSlam? Does anybody even really want to win, or do they just want to rassle cause the stupid world they work in caused it to be so?
I dunno. Wrestling’s stupid but I like when it makes me excited more than when I’m thinking that it’s being stupid.
RAW (7/31/17)
A solid couple hours of RAW and then an absolutely DIRE last third, oh man. Good solid TV matches for a bit and RAW’s still putting more effort in than usual so have to appreciate that, but there was a lot of forced build and weird shit in the pivot to SummerSlam.
Was zoning out on the opening promo with Angle and Lesnar and then BROCK LESNAR THREATENED TO LEAVE WWE. Highly enjoy them playing with the UFC rumors – this is one of the only angles in WWE right now where anything seems possible.
Hardys vs. Gallows & Anderson was solid, nothing that ever needed to be high-end but good stuff that moved a story forward. Hardys were out there just doing classic old men babyface wrestling stuff, an absolute mainlining of nostalgia. Amazing corner dick bump by Karl Anderson too, and a sweet ramp dive by Jeff post-match.
Aaahahahaha the cruiserweights had themselves a 6-man tag and it was just any old basic-ass WWE tag match, amazing.
Jason Jordan doing the 2k17 CAW gimmick on MizTV I see. What is with WWE putting Miz with blank slate babyfaces at SummerSlam – Apollo last year, now Jordan. The Jordan thing is a journey, it’s clearly not going to be very good any time soon and I imagine they have a long game planned that doesn’t end up with JJ on Main Event 6 months from now, but ya never know. Either way, the shit music, the lame insults… it might be heeling him on purpose, but he also seems crazy unconfident for any of it to be on purpose. I just don’t know. It’s only been 2 weeks, but you’re always left wanting WWE to be better at capitalizing on sweet angles.
Regardless – The Miz, red-faced and screaming at Jason Jordan is still great, and I am loving Bo Dallas’ weekly goofy-ass fashion. The conspiracy podcast he did with Jericho makes everything about him so much better.
BURN! IT! DOOOWWWWNNNN!!! Was tonight the night of weird-ass theme choices? Jordan and Big Cass’ generic public domain WCW-sounding tunes, and then this weird thing with the whiny-ass voice… it’s a fun idea but more Hawthorne Heights than Every Time I Die. C’mon Seth.
Seth Rollins and Sheamus had themselves a fine TV match that had bits of pieces of all the solid stuff these two do here every single a week on Monday Night RAW. A nice match-up.
Had some issues with the whole Seth/Dean thing this week… love the idea of The Shield vs. The Bar, but backstage trash talk is not the most compelling way to get to it. Needed a little more effort to make Cesaro & Sheamus actually feel dastardly for me to buy in. I mean why did they keep attacking Seth? Did they want a Shield reunion as badly as everyone else too? Just weird.
Roman/Joe/BRAAAUUUNNN video promos = nice. “Nowadays, most so-called men like to settle their differences on their phone, hiding behind their keyboards, or at BEST, a sit-down discussion.” I need to know who’s writing for Braun. “At BEST, a sit-down discussion” = HILARIOUS.
Can someone get Bray Wyatt the fucking Wyatt Family back already? Loner Bray is the most pointless shit, removes a ton of credibility from a guy who’s always lacking it anyways. Not a fan of feuds where a WWE heel calls a WWE face “everybody’s hero” when the WWE face hasn’t QUITE reached that, either.
Still though, totally marked for the beginning beats of the Demon Balor theme.
Triple Threat – Roman vs. Joe vs. BRAUN – was a lot of fun, great teaser for SummerSlam. I just love a well-laid-out big WWE match. These three can do no wrong at this point… it’s an angle that’s clicking and everyone has a presence. These three Mid-South main eventers had themselves a big ass physical match… kept it moving, everything flowed well, every throw and strike had a little extra to it. Could say it could’ve been a bit better but at the same time I was absolutely transfixed throughout and it was exactly what it had to be.
Lot of fun little moments too … Joe doing his Smart Old Man shtick and switching up the Fujiwara armbar to keep Roman in, Roman running full speed into Braun’s boot, Braun just launching Roman through the second rope, Roman’s sell on the Kokina, the near fall off the Braun powerslam. Good good good.
And then the third hour happened.
Elias – Just Elias – and Kalisto had an OK match that felt pretty long. That stupid Kalisto intro was a pretty disappointing interruption to the Elias song. Liked Elias throwing Kalisto into the ropes off of the headscissors. Otherwise, completely decent but the folks were quiet and it just kept going.
Nia Jax giving herself a side ponytail to mock Bayley was great. Otherwise Nia vs. Bayley was not good. You can get by on story and character a lot but sometimes you just need to know how to fucking work, man. Nia’s missed elbow, Cole’s forced call on the Bayley apron dive… OK so Bayley got legit injured, regardless from the start to the finish this was heatless, awkward, bad.
Big Show vs. Big Cass was straight-up terrible. A lifeless squash of Cass, and then a fucking leglock on the Big Show at 10:05 PM CST. WTF WAS THIS?
SMACKDOWN (8/1/17)
This was a very good SmackDown. Felt like the actual Battleground follow-up, with clear direction and a real tight focus. Hope they continue the trend here of keeping things interesting by using the whole roster on TV. Show was clicking anyways, but giving cameos to The Usos, Aiden English, Mike Kanellis, and Breezango helped move it along in very entertaining fashion.
AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens for the US Title was a match between two fellas having a disappointing year, but this was good. AJ reminded everybody he’s still pretty dang great, KO was sporting a tremendous farmer’s tan, and they got allll their shit in. But, these two still don’t click like you’d hope. They had that sweet RAW TV match soon after AJ’s debut, otherwise… nothing special.
It’s two aging indy guys closing in on 20 years in the business each. They’re still doing the stuff that makes em fun, but part of me wishes that instead of doing an average version of all their classic matches, they worked more on implementing character into the act. And a little more energy, maybe. It just seemed off. But what do I, the mark wrestling fan, know anyways?
If the Usos weren’t twins would they be the World Champ. Great promo.
Did Breezy and Dango just completely nail a David Lynch tribute on WWE TV? Fashion Files was incredible. BLUE VELVET MCINTYRE!!!!
I wonder if Vince McMahon just looks away in disgust any time he sees Sami Zayn’s gut. Aiden English performed an AMAZING heat-seeking song pre-match, he and Sami did a couple armdrags, and then Sami got CAUGHT and LOST. Kanellis post-match cameo was perfection – that’s how you use somebody when you don’t really have time for it. God bless.
The women’s tag was not much… Becky and Charlotte and Natalya and Carmella all got their shit in. Nice legdrop by Naomi.
When did WWE stop using “#1 Contender” as a phrase? Everything now is Winner Faces Whoever at Whatever.
Jinder Mahal did a promo. OK.
Chad Gable vs. Rusev was a match I went from thinking Hey this’ll be fun to Hey I’m glad this actually is fun to Hey this is pretty good to OH MY GOD THIS IS FUCKING GREAT. These two got TIME and they used it… worked the start like a shoot – fighting for holds, going after a leg, Rusev throwing his big Rusev-plex. Gable got the crowd on his side by busting out rolling belly-to-belly suplexes on Rusev, hitting a GERMAN SUPLEX HOLD, then backflipping off the top and pulling out a perfect moonsault.
The finish had me on the edge of my damn seat, just NO idea who would win. They messed with convention a little bit – you think this will probably be an easy Rusev win and then BOOM no, then you think OK they’re pushing Chad he might actually win BOOM no. Rusev goes for the Accolade, Chad slips out and puts on an ankle lock that had me convinced he was winning (he LEANED INTO IT!!) but Rusev kicks away, and Rusev finally hits the Machka kick and IMMEDIATELY locks on the Accolade.
Rusev always has good credible work, no MOTY’s but just awesome TV wrestling. I need a lot more of it. Chad meanwhile is a good chap and needs more spots like these to find out if he’s a great chap. They popped the crowd, re-established a guy, had an incredible finish, and more impressive than anything they got the crowd going buck wild even though they’ve been MIA 75% of the year.
Always enjoy seeing a man react to something unexpected on ultra-controlled WWE TV… tonight we got Rusev expecting Randy Orton’s theme to interrupt him and instead getting his own, so he quickly moved into a taunt. What a player!
Randy Orton vs. Rusev. OK.
Freaking loved John Cena vs. Shinsuke Nakamura… they had less than 10 minutes of TV time but it was SO good, so quality, so awesome. Says something about the Nakamura run that people weren’t just FLIPPING OUT about this actually happening in real life, but Shinskay showed up and Big Match John seemed amped up to tell everyone “I can too puro too, bitches.” It started out as a fun spectacle, became very good, and by the end I was flipping out.
I mean these are stars. You forget that seeing Nakamura fumble around with Baron Corbin, or Dolph Ziggler, or Samoa Joe. These two are superstars. And seeing Nakamura goof around with Cena, Cena react, Nakamura taunting – it is INCREDIBLE. They could do the same old stuff, but everything was now SPECIAL. They ran the ROPES. Nakamura took a BUMP. Nakamura kicked around JOHN CENA. Everything about the last five was pure gold – Nakamura countering the five-knuckle shuffle and STF with cross armbreakers, the HUGE AA kickout. Loved Cena’s AA and roll-through AA, the slip-out, and then Nakamura dropped John Cena on THE BACK OF HIS SKULL. And it got REAL weird for a second, before Nak dropped the Kinshasa and beat John Cena CLEAN as everybody wondered if John Cena was dead.
Show of respect afterwards, amazing. Love the high-quality big time professional wrestling.
205 LIVE (8/1/17)
They did a post-SD angle on 205 Live and it could be argued that it was better than anything on 205 Live in six months. Corbin vs. Cena and Nakamura vs. Jinder at SummerSlam, what a world we live in.
Cool stomping finish for Jacky over Kendrick. Whatever.
TJP and Rich Swann backstage was terrible but loved Swann rattling off names of 2k17 stips they could play – Extreme Rules, Hell in a Cell – and TJP just as it cuts out says “Payback.”
Also love that the only video game that exists in wrestling is wrestling.
Gran Metalik flexing at Tony Nese was the BEST. He hit the MOST INCREDIBLE ASAI MOONSAULT MAYBE EVER. And then Nese worked a body part and ehhhh.
Perfectly fine Tozawa/Daivari match. Tozawa kicked ass, sold the shoulder, beat Daivari with no fuckery. I liked it.
NXT (8/2/17)
Johnny Gargano’s return vs. Raul Mendoza was a whole bunch of fun wrestling. Love Johnny Wrestling, and Mendoza is SO freakin’ good. What could’ve been your regular ol Returning Guy Squash turned into a total blast. Love that Mendoza is a little pudgy fella that does incredible flipping and flying, all hit very smooth – reminded me of 2010 Rey Mysterio.
The Sonya Deville deal improved a bit, but we’ve got a journey ahead of us. Might enjoy her as backup if they run with Shayna Baszler.
Asuka/Ember Moon was a thing. I like both of them, but it was a thing.
SHOW ME RESPECT. Digging Hideo Itami right now. I hope it works. I will be sad if he doesn’t make it.
Remember when people would FLIP THE FUCK OUT for an NXT debut? The initial outrage behind the name change, and then the debut where it became clear that the WWE MACHINE was behind them and it was cool as hell.
And here comes Kyle O’Reilly, same name same look… c’mon. Is this just a freelance deal or is he gonna be around? Is NXT bleeding so much money there’s no budget for a little bit of presentation?
Anyways, O’Reilly vs. Aleister Black was all shoot-style and stuff but I didn’t exactly buy it and the crowd was very very quiet. Aleister Black is not Katsuyori Shibata – doesn’t necessarily have to be, but worked Fish and O’Reilly back-to-back in similar matches so the comparison came to mind because his two were a lot less good. Crowd should’ve popped for O’Reilly countering the boot-lift with an ankle lock, but, nope. Kick of the lionsault counter was cool I guess. It was OK.
And then Mauro compared it to Funk/Brisco, Flair/Steamboat, Misawa/Kobashi, and Tanahashi/Okada.
N-X-T
MAIN EVENT (8/2/17)
Gran Metalik was in a tag match with Lince Dorado vs. Brian Kendrick and Drew Gulak and he continues to be one of the only guys on the WWE roster that hits moves that just have me flipping out. That handspring he does is SO FAST. It was a fine little tag match in the controlled environment that is WWE Main Event.
Mickie James vs. Emma was the other match and hey it was alright because these are two god damn professionals. But then somebody fucked the finish as Emma dropped Mickie into the middle turnbuckle kind of lightly and then she pinned her and just won. It was weird.
WWE TV Match of the Week: John Cena vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, c’mon
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Chad Gable, but thanks for showing up Shinskay
SmackDown had it together this week, RAW was alright until the shit third hour, and 205 Live and NXT continue to struggle.
RAW: 6/10
SmackDown: 8/10
205 Live: 4/10
NXT: 5/10
