AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THE SHIELD
IT’S THE SHIELD!!!
Now I know how Beliebers feel.
EDIT: This was written before the TLC card fucking BLEW UP.
RAW (10/16/17)
A pretty wonderful (TM Paul Roma and Paul Orndorff) edition of Monday Night RAW, highlighted by everything that is The Shield – great angle (who’s the fifth man!?), great wrestling matches.
I’m tellin’ ya – these Shield boys are gonna be STARS in this business. Everything about the opening promo with them and Kurty Angle was the good stuff – the entrance, the vests, DEAN AMBROSE’S HAIRCUT. So much fun.
Was Jason Jordan over tonight? The fuck? The 6-man with he and… uhh… oh yeah Titus Brand vs. Gallows & Anderson and ELIAS was a fine 3-minutes. The “fire up” sequence early on was AWESOME, with guys flying and bumping all over the place. The pre-match Elias song with Gallows & Anderson was fun too. Kind of amazing that Gallows could be most over guy in WWE if they let him loose.
Jack Gallagher vs. Cedric Alexander was an alright but unfulfilling 5-minute cruiserweight match. Jacky did some fun fumbling around and took a great bump off the lung blower.
MizTV with Cesaro, Sheamus and BRAUN was more fun stuff from this whole Shield vs. Miz & Friends storyline. A solid Miz promo to set up a stip for the main and establish the show-long “who’s the fifth man?” angle. The INTRIGUE~!
Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox was another fine 3-minutes – they put over the Bank Statement and Alicia hit a hell of an elbow. Fox’s attack backstage afterwards was AWESOME too – if Sasha vs. Nia Jax was the original plan for TLC Kickoff versus this, then they did a heck of a job using like 5 minutes to make me amped for this match.
Enzo and his cruiserweight buddies beating up Kalisto and Mustafa Ali sure wasn’t terrible. These WWE folks might just get Mustafa Ali over. And if they do it, the cruiserweight Survivor Series match might be cool. Might be.
Rollins/Ambrose vs. Sheamus/Cesaro for the RAW Tag Titles was an awesome abbreviated Southern tag. It didn’t quite reach the epic levels of their previous two (SummerSlam and No Mercy) but I also might have enjoyed it more overall. The Seth beatdown was all that is good about tag wrestling… the spot with him desperately fighting out of Cesaro holding him back, Cesaro milking the crowd response, Seth’s fired up chop comeback. Just an awesome build to a hot tag that had the crowd exploding when Dean got it. The double team on Dean-O towards the end was a little ugly, otherwise this was a freakin’ blast.
Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor remains the lone stain on RAW lately. A feud between two A/V geeks. Are there 8-year-olds freaking out for this shit? I dunno.
Mickie James/Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss/Emma was a fine TV tag. Mickie’s getting the classic babyface build en route to Alexa, love it.
Curtis Axel wants to be the fifth man –> Curtis Axel goes looking for Roman Reigns to prove himself –> Curtis Axel ends up hanging upside down from a forklift, and was never even the fifth man in the first place. LOVE IT.
Is Braun Strowman the best cage match wrestler ever? The matches are definitely laid out with extra care and he’s had some great opponents, but MAN what an awesome one-two punch the Big Show and this Roman match have been. Just big time, physical stuff inside a CAGE. Every movement has an extra FUCK YEAH to it. Braun’s smash into Roman and the cage was amazing, as was Roman’s “awwww fuck” reaction. Then Braun ran FULL FORCE into the cage, I mean oh my god. There was Roman’s awesome struggle to hit the Samoan drop, then Braun’s big kickout that left Roman STANDING. Then they did a fucking SUPERPLEX from the top of the cage. The Shield and Cesaro/Sheamus brawling on the outside and backstage while Miz was shouting on commentary added to all the chaos. Loved Miz running backstage and closing the garage door with his shit-eating grin to set up…
KANE? Fucking KANE!? Oh my GOD. Such an amazing WHAT THE FUCK moment and also – like, WHAT!?!?! A guy in the midst of running for MAYOR of Knox County, Tennessee is coming in for a pay-per-view payday! This is SO the right move angle-wise (revenge on Roman for Taker, Kane was in the first Shield match at TLC) at the absolute turdiest possible time. THE SHIELD REUNION, the coolest thing WWE could possibly do, is now a gimmicky 5-on-3 match. It’s kind of lame but fuck it, embrace the chaos.
SMACKDOWN (10/17/17)
Not much here at all. No fun angles, no good wrestling.
Ugh. Stupid wrestling.
The opening promo with Owens, Zayn and Dan Bryan was pretty neat for the participants involved but I want compelling in my wrestling over neat. The “We’re both very gifted performers… Well, I still am” line by Zayn was pretty good, pretty pretty good.
The women’s 6-man was fine but crazy forgettable. The Charlotte Flair babyface hard sell continues and I’m not sure if there are more than ten people on earth actually enjoying it.
Continue to love the Fashion Files, including this week’s “Pulp Fashion” entry. FASHION FOUR… ASSEMBLE!
BUT – at some point I hope it actually gets integrated into the show. Breezango continuing to either not wrestle or be jobber fodder is going to have some receipts at some point. I love its’ niche as WWE’s own SNL Digital Shorts, but with SmackDown sucking so much ass lately, these guys getting some in-ring love might be nice.
The Sin Cara vs. Baron Corbin match was an angle and it was OK. Sin Cara rules.
The Usos interview backstage was good stuff until it was interrupted by a couple of weeks (Shelton & Chad). Shelton not being mic’d well sure didn’t help.
Hey look, Harper & Rowan are War Machine now.
Jinder Mahal vs. Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series is just the weirdest match. I don’t even know what to say about it right now. AJ Styles going after Jinder is great, but it being used as a bridge to Brock is LAAAAAAME.
Dolph Ziggler vs. Bobby Roode was such a waste of life. Who cares
Rusev/Aiden English vs. The New Day is honestly a perfect wrestling feud idea. It won’t be any good, but the idea is.
Orton/Nakamura vs. Owens/Zayn was basic and lifeless as all hell. The only match I want out of any of this is Zayn vs. Orton. The Owens and Zayn celebration at the end of the show was funny, mostly because it felt different for micro-managed WWE – did someone mis-time it and send them out to kill time? I dunno.
SmackDown sucks.
205 LIVE (10/17/17)
At some point this portion of the review is going to just get left blank.
Rich Swann vs. Jack Gallagher was acceptable but not anywhere close to what 205 Live needs to be anywhere close to interesting again.
Drew Gulak, though, might be the greatest heel in all of WWE.
Kalisto & Mustafa Ali vs. Ariya Daivari & Enzo – didn’t I watch this same shite last week?
NXT (10/18/17)
I don’t think there was anything must-see here but it was a solid easily digestible hour of wrestling TV.
The Ember Moon vs. Sonya Deville vs. Ruby Riot 3-way NXT Women’s Title qualifier was a fun match – fast-paced, and a couple sweet spots with gals jumping into straight death: Moon springboarding into the Deville spear, and Deville jumping into the Ember Moon kick. Ruby’s ankle getting hurt gave the finish a nice hook (get it!?), and WHATTA ECLIPSE to finish it.
Love Raul Mendoza. So spectacular. So good. Aleister Black hit him with a great Black Mass too.
The Drew sit-down interview interruption by Zelina Vega was a neat enough way to get to Drew/Almas, though that screams of time-killing until Drew/Cole.
Kassius Ohno vs. Cezar Bononi might have been my favorite Ohno match since the return, but mostly because it was short and to the point and Bononi did a cool dropkick.
Undisputed Era vs. SAnitY was a real basic-ass tag match with nobody really THAT over. Young took a beatdown. Yep. Yup. I dug the Killian Dain hot tag, at least.
HEY! The Authors of Pain are back!
MAIN EVENT (10/18/17)
The Dash Wilder vs. Rhyno or Heath Slater Never-Ending Series continued this week, and as per usual it was a fine wrestling match. Dash went after Rhyno’s neck for the majority of this thing as Heath played cheerleader outside. Dash bumbling around when Rhyno caught a top rope move with a boot was the good stuff. As was Rhyno’s impassioned look to the crowd as he set up the Gore – what a WRESTLER.
Mustafa Ali vs. Drew Gulak was a 5-minute blast, totally a Main Event Match Worth Watching. Gulak working and working and working headlocks, Ali flying around and making funny faces, the crowd actually buying their story. The reverse 450 remains great too.
WWE TV Match of the Week: The Roman vs. Braun Steel Cage Match and Ambrose/Rollins vs. Cesaro/Sheamus Tag Titles match were SO neck-and-neck for me that I am calling it a tie. One was a great spectacle, the other was just great old-fashioned tag team wrestling.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: THE SHIELD
Pretty dire week of WWE TV overall, but the flagship remains a sugar rush of World Shield Entertainment.
RAW: 9/10
SmackDown: 4/10
205 Live: 3/10
NXT: 5/10
