So funny how WWE treats post-WrestleMania crowds as if they need a Viewer Discretion Advised warning.
RAW (4/9/18)
A weird RAW After WrestleMania – perhaps the debut/return thing has become a crutch and what would be more attractive would be an actual hook or new direction, especially after the Lesnar/Reigns finish last night was such a wet blanket.
Still though – NEW PEOPLE. SURPRISES. CROWD REACTIONS. Just a sugar rush of fun. There might be something to be said about stacking everyone – Ember, Jose, Lashley, Authors of Pain, Joe, Jeff – together that they don’t stand out. Might be.
This was also a night of great one-liners. Among my favorites:
- “As soon as he’s done with school, we’re coming back for those.”
- “You guys lost to a frickin’ ten year old!”
- “As you can see… I got my ass kicked last night.”
- “Every time Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar get in the ring together, you get jacked up.”
- And of course: “My tag team division is full, but I hear that TNA is hiring.”
Anyways, the show.
Opening stuff with Ronda Rousey and Stephanie McMahon was fun and I’m interested to see how they move on from this in a way that isn’t unsatisfying. Steph turned in another great performance – the dickishness, the cowering. The “Ladies and gentleman, may we please have a little respect for Stephanie McMahon” bit was awesome too.
We had “bullshit” chants for Steph trying to be Ronda’s friend, “asshole” chants for Alexa Bliss – who said the Attitude Era was done!?
The King of 1053 Ridge brought up a great point at WrestleMania – where the heck do you go with a Nia Jax babyface title run? I’m honestly not sure I have the answer. Ember Moon showing up was a cool thing and she had a nice little showcase teaming with Nia against Alexa Bliss & Nia Jax.
Braun & Nicholas dropping the tag titles is a tragedy – Nicholas is more over than the entire 205 Live roster.
No Way Jose is all about having fun… UNTIL THE BELL RINGS! Ha HAAA! Will be interesting to see if Jose follows his Main Event destiny, finds a new role, flames out, or something else. The journey, man.
The Revival vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows had its’ moments – Revival legwork, Karl actually having a hot run – but these are two teams who need a serious kick in the ass. A Shake-Up, if you will.
Jeff Hardy returning to presumably enter himself in the IC Title mix was neat. The Miz was the star of this little segment: “I’m man enough to admit it – I cried” – great delivery. Seth Rollins and Finn Balor were also there.
Sasha Banks vs. Mandy Rose had a couple real ugly moments, most notably Mandy’s weak bump into the corner and the awkward whatever the heck they were trying to do on the outside. But I forgive her for that KNEE. Awesome.
Then Paige announced her retirement. This announcement coming just 4 years after her RAW After Mania (also in New Orleans!) debut and at just 25-years-old is such a bummer.
BOBBY LASHLEY JESUS CHRIST. What a newsworthy show! Elias’ bit was pretty incredible too. Nice stalling suplex.
THE AUTHORS OF PAIN TOO MY GOD!
Roman Reigns’ depressed promo was something else. “I don’t know what the story is behind this” – Roman truly is ALL OF US. Cannot believe they are building to another Brock/Roman thing when it bummed everyone out so much at Mania. Regardless, Samoa Joe is back and that is awesome. GREAT, shit-stirring promo. Joe should’ve had the Brock role this whole god damn time.
Babyface Bray Wyatt as not a guy going after The Machine but as an undercard comedy act is some stuff, man. He and Woken Matt vs. Titus Worldwide was very very OK. The WONDERFUL calls after Apollo’s handspring front flip were the good stuff.
Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, oddly enough, happened on this show and though they did all kinds of cool crazy stuff it didn’t seem like there was much to it and there’s not much new to say. Had a potential awkward moment at the start where Owens almost didn’t bump over the top when he needed to but thought he had a great recovery where he just started pounding on Sami.
Balor/Rollins/Jeff Hardy vs. Miz/Miztourage was very much a 6-man tag. Finn took a beating. Hardy did Hardy things. The shot from Jeff’s perpecive of Balor trying to avoid Miz’ sunset flip and reach for the Jeff tag was inspired, as was Miz diving for Jeff to try to prevent the later Seth tag. Good solid stuff.
Rollins is clearly making a hard run at top babyface and I am enjoying the ride. Seemed like Miz and Miztourage were being written out of the territory too. Not exactly a cliffhanger to end the show on, but hey we’ve got a Superstar Shake-Up to get to.
SMACKDOWN (4/10/18)
A legitimately entertaining episode of SmackDown Live – incredible.
Well that didn’t take long – Paige is the new SmackDown GM. No issues here – girl can work a mic.
This was just a huge show, highlighted by DANIEL BRYAN VS. AJ STYLES ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Is everybody taking the time to reflect on just how awesome this is? Daniel Bryan is not only back wrestling, he’s working TV and going 15 with AJ Styles. We are NOT worthy.
NEW DAY VS. THE USOS! Between AJ/Bryan and this happening, one half of these pairings are clearly headed to Monday nights. When New Day and Usos lock-up on TV I always think, OK we’re getting Diet New Day vs. Usos. And then we end up getting FULL TILT New Day vs. Usos. This was so good and effectively built to some serious awesome. Woods and Jey just clubbing the crap out of each other was great.
Natalya vs. Naomi in a SUMMERSLAM REMATCH!! was real solid stuff. Not sure the post-Mania crowd was eager for a Natalya control segment but Naomi’s rana and slingshot legdrop and Natalya’s wild spinning sit-out powerbomb were sweet.
Insincere Heel Shinsuke Nakamura might just be amazing. Might be. Tonight was an incredible start. The WINK. The “Sowwy… no speak Engrish.” My WORD.
THE ICONICS!!! They’re finally here! And they are READY: Peyton in the ring, Billie on the mic. “Stop talking about a match that happened in the past… especially when you’re looking at the future” was so well-written and well-delivered that you could feel the crowd falling for these gals in real-time.
Their beating of Charlotte was suitably vicious and led to what were likely the first ever CARMELLA chants, and finally the Money in the Bank cash-in which was a blast.
There was also a… Triple Threat Match. With Rusev. And Randy. And Bobby. And the action was there but I just can’t care less about any of this, especially if the god damn trigger won’t be pulled on Rusev.
Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles – seriously, Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles – was SO awesome. WrestleMania was Bryan playing all the hits while this was Bryan taking it to the mat and reminding everybody he’s the most diverse awesome pro wrestler there is. There was so much greatness here: LOCK-UPS. MATWORK. HOLD-TRADING. UPPERCUTS. ROPE-RUNNING. You could tell these two were so amped to do this.
The Bryan backflip into the Styles backflip reverse DDT, the butterfly suplex into an armbar, the armbar countered with a Calf Crusher countered with a YesLock countered into a cradle – YES, YES, YES. The Knee+ counteed with a roll-through into a Styles Clash was SO good – this MATCH, man.
And then Shinsuke Nakamura went after BOTH and it was awesome.
Such a brilliant TV match – I love that Bryan was a bit more grounded but also loved that we got to see AJ Styles pull off a match based more around matwork and counters than him just bumping his ass off to get people to care about SmackDown.
205 LIVE (4/10/18)
Aw man, looks like 205 Live might be back to being 205 Live. At least there seems to be a trend of still giving guys like 15 minutes to do what they can at the start of the show. But we really need more Drake Maverick just burying these geeks and getting them to be their best selves.
Kalisto vs. Akira Tozawa felt like a bunch of parts of a great match melded into what was ultimately just an OK match. They did some real cool stuff: sweet ducking and dodging, Tozawa bumping on his head off a basement rana, an impressive springboard Spanish Fly near fall, Tozawa baseball sliding and hitting a tope into the announce table with such wild speed, and some really neat cradle reversals. It was all really cool! But also… just… quiet.
Also might be worth noting that this wasn’t just a typical cold 205 Live crowd, but fans who had to be absolutely dead tired after WrestleMania weekend. We’ve seen guys win them back the last couple months, but this was always going to be a tough situation for anybody.
It’s kind of tragic that Drew Gulak got no Mania spot after the year he had, but I’m glad to see he’s still getting The Push. Feels like they’re not sure where to go with him – quirky PowerPoint guy, serious submission guy, a mesh of the two. All in all I trust in him to figure it out. He and Mark Andrews had a solid match that felt a little cold, classic 205 Live death slot stuff where a Beach Ball got more over. Andrews needs a bit more than guy who does some neat flying once in a while.
Babyface Tony Nese vs. Drew Gulak is… not where I’d prefer things go.
Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali and Drake Maverick and Buddy Murphy sure did not have a super exciting closer segment, nope.
NXT (4/11/18)
Hey! It’s post-TakeOver NXT!
Lacey Evans is so the type that Backstage WWE Pervert loves and I imagine she makes the main roster before Kairi, Cross, Baszler, and a bunch of others. Her match with Kairi Sane was alright – it had a long stretch of Lacey offense which won’t light any world on fire, but Kairi has a natural charisma that’ll carry her in even clunky matches.
I couldn’t remember Tucker Knight’s name for a way too long portion of the Heavy Machinery vs. Tino/Riddick match. Riddick just went full trhottle into the second turnbuckle with his shoulder at one point and Otis got the folks on their feet from time to time, but this was kind of nothing until the TREMENDOUS War Raiders run-in where they laid out both teams. Way to get all your shit in, guys. Very cool.
MAIN EVENT (4/11/18)
You know what Main Event needs? A tournament.
Two cruiserweight matches this week, both just OK.
Mark Andrews vs. Tony Nese felt like an exhibition for a sponsor or something – they did some neat stuff here or there but there was no juice to it.
Lucha House Party vs. TJP, Jack Gallagher and Ariya Daivari was probably exactly what you’d expect, though Jack and Lince did a fun little rolling cradles spot where both guys fell on top of each other. Whatevs. Let’s get some Tye Dillinger matches on this show.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Tons of people had their debut on TV this week but nobody seemed ready like THE ICONIC DUO I MEAN THE ICONICS.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan wrestled this week, man. Can you believe it?
The recovery from WrestleMania begins. A solid week of TV with some new acts injected into the show, but I imagine there won’t be much direction until everything gets SHAKEN UP!
RAW: 7/10
SmackDown: 7/10
205 Live: 6/10
NXT: 6/10
