TakeOver: WarGames II and Survivor Series were good wrestling shows and I found myself excited about professional wrestling after all these years.
Then I watched WWE TV this week.
SmackDown is pretty good and Daniel Bryan as a heel is very exciting, but RAW continues to take a dump right in the middle of the WWE’s turkey dinner and overwhelms everything this company does.
I use this TV Week in Review as a way a fun way for myself to write about and chronicle and recall WWE’s weekly TV offerings but sometimes ya just gotta bury the trash you’re presented with. I don’t have to be polite – if my grandma makes a crap side dish I can smile through it because she’s my god damn wonderful grandma. This is WWE – I don’t owe them anything.
RAW (11/19/18)
This was bad. WWE stock hit its all-time high this year by a lot and you watch this show and it’s just like – how? This was a 180-minute program of boring, counterproductive stuff that built no foundation for the future or took advantage of the past, probably because the past had a whole lot of stuff not building a foundation for the future.
Stephanie McMahon has gone from insufferable presence to effective heel back to insufferable presence. Rollins vs. Ambrose should be special but isn’t delivering and is losing its’ buzz week after week. Sasha and Bayley are back to being geeks. Lucha House Party is now using a piñata in their matches. The tag champs are defined by literal potty humor (and I’m not anti-potty humor, I am just way more pro-scary monster tag champs than I am pro-potty humor). Tamina is regularly working wrestling matches. McIntyre and Lashley might be decent heels but they are all lumped together in a crappy story with a very cold Braun Strowman. I’d say the Universal Champ is nowhere to be found too but that might be a good thing.
The first hour of this stupid show was Baron Corbin and Stephanie McMahon and Braun Strowman and maybe some other people bantering in a dumb opening talk-a-thon and then a stupid elimination 6-man that wasn’t terrible or anything but maybe it was. Just lifeless meaningless professional wrestling from some pretty good wrestlers.
The post-match assault on Strowman by Lashley/McIntyre/Corbin probably would’ve had more impact if they didn’t cool off Braun Strowman the last few months by having him hanging with Dolph Ziggler. Idiots.
Both Rollins and Ambrose aren’t delivering on the mic for their big feud so far. I didn’t exactly have expectations for Rollins, but his promo on this show was embarrassingly bad – it felt over-scripted but there wasn’t any cool line to make that OK. He came off like a guy not just trying to be tough but trying to be angry about this. The first bit with him searching for Dean backstage was Manos: Hands of Fate level acting.
I guess my prediction last week of Sasha/Bayey vs. Nia/Tamina being a good potential match was not a good prediction.
Lucha House Party doing 3-on-2 tags with The Revival and using a piñata for the finish was the dumbest stuff. How do these conversations go backkstage?? Who is pitching this and who is laying the match out? Is anybody happy about it? Is there laughter? Is everybody just disappointed but nobody wants to speak up? What is going on over there!?
Ronda Rousey has become a solid promo that still sounds kind of fake. Her vs. Mickie James for 3 minutes wasn’t pretty but it was the best thing on this bad show as the mis-communication and hesitation made it so it didn’t seem like they were simulating a wrestling match and then Ronda got a quick dominat win.
Authors of Pain leaning into their MMA influence vs. Roode & Gable was a nice thing. Then they lost and now Drake Maverick has a guy who pisses himself gimmick and god damnit.
The Dean Ambrose stuff should be delivering, has to be delivering, and isn’t. The sad/hopeful thing about WWE is that most guys are one great promo or angle away from fixing their crappy situation, but this angle sucks and Ambrose isn’t helping. They probably would’ve been better off splicing Chronicle footage in all show.
SMACKDOWN (11/20/18)
Daniel Bryan had a great promo and Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton ruled. Beyond that, not much that was actively good but stuff had purpose and you couldn’t feel anybody’s career just dying in your bones so that’s nice.
Charlotte Flair was the entire half-hour of this show with a promo and two consecutive wins over the poor IIconics. It was a solid segment even if the matches were nothing. Charlotte has got some swagger and got some steam coming off the Ronda beating. I dunno about the IIconics. Billie Kay is a good comic actress, not wrestler. She hasn’t gotten much opportunity but I’m waiting for a good Peyton Royce performance.
New Day vs. Big Show & The Bar in a Thanksgiving Feast Fight was solid standard stuff from these guys plus pilgrim outfits and turkeys used as weapons. The certainties in life are death, taxes, and WWE doing holiday-themed street fights. Sheamus headbutted the back of Woods’ head during this and I liked that. And Show took a table bump. And Cesaro did a thing where he was trying not to slip on food while swinging and nothing. That was fun, I guess.
Asuka/Naomi vs. Sonya/Mandy was a decent short forgettable match. The slam/knee strike combo Mandy and Sonya did was kind of cool. Sonya should teach Mandy how to react to Asuka’s strikes.
The blazing highlight of this show and this entire week of WWE TV was Daniel Bryan’s promo explaining his turn as if he was doing a James Bond villain monologue if the James Bond villain was dressed like Pearl Jam. WHAT A PROMO. This is a character on WWE television with actual motivation and he’s a great wrestler and the WWE Champion and it is awesome. He’s like if the lovechild of William Regal and Terry Funk became a top heel and I’m so here for it. Using the frustration from his struggle to return only to see his return not be as good as he wanted as impetus for becoming an angry confident top heel who calls people idiots is AMAAAAZING. He said “fickle” NINE TIMES IN A ROW on global television. “And the only thing that matters is that you never, ever, give up on your dream ever, EVER again!”
The show ended with Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton and it was excellent. These guys were made for each other provided a wonderful 5 minutes of grizzled veteran greatness with a whole lot of Orton tearing at Rey’s mask. Rey doing the back springboard into a wheelbarrow catch by Orton into a bulldog by Rey was incredible stuff and the RKO counter of the baseball slide splash was an all-timer.
It might be a good use of psycho Orton’s time at some point to put over a younger babyface, but I’m into his recent stuff.
MIXED MATCH CHALLENGE (11/20/18)
I can 100% not explain how these points or playoffs work.
Team Pawz vs. Mahalicia – Jinder Mahal vs. Bobby Roode was kind of good to be honest. Otherwise, this was very much a match in which the bell rang at the start and then it rang when there was a 3-count.
The Fabulous Truth vs. Ravishing Rusev Day – Michael Cole said there was a a PLAYOFFS ATMOSPHERE here, which felt like a bit of an exaggeration. Rusev and Lana were hamming it up but this felt pretty useless. The best part of this whole show was the R-Truth and Carmella interview at the start – R-Truth’s self-confidence in his wrong statements combined with his self reflection when proven wrong is tremendous; he is the comic genius we need right now.
205 LIVE (11/21/18)
Even with Mustafa Ali around once in a while, this show is still missing a heartbeat. The Ali & Cedric vs. Buddy & Nese tag next week could be good though.
Tony Nese vs. Noam Dar was a match of the two most one-dimensional dudes going. It was just so predictable, even if they did some impressive stuff between the holds. Maybe it worked for the live crowd, but why film this same type of match week after week after week after week?
The new Kendrick & Tozawa team had a squash match and that’s nice.
TJP vs. Gran Metalik closed the show and as is the rule Metalik was awesome, but this was a very un-interesting wrestling match. Mike Kanellis attacked the Lucha House Party post-match and ffffffuuuuu…
NXT (11/21/18)
POST. TAKEOVER. NXT.
No post-match promos worth mentioning really, though Matt Riddle saying debut like “da-butt” as a way to make everybody wonder “well WTF is up with THIS guy” is very nice.
Also, how “exclusive” was that Aleister Black/Johnny Gargano footage?
Fidel Bravo was a suitably scummy looking dude for Keith Lee to beat in 90 seconds, while Keto Murray was a suitably wimpy looking dude for Lars Sullivan to beat in 30 seconds.
Then Keith and Lars had a confrontation. I can get behind Keith Lee over Lars Sullivan as Lars’ send-off to what could either be the main roster or, based on his talents for saying very gross things on the Internet, a job in the private sector.
I dig Nikki and Candice but didn’t think their match together was a great day at the office. It was like five minutes minutes with an awkward first couple and then a decent last couple with Candice kicking out of the Purge and Nikki getting out of the Gargano Escape and whatnot.
MAIN EVENT (11/21/18)
Ember Moon has been doing this thing the last couple weeks or so where she’s really really trying, even in nothing Main Event matches with Alicia Fox. She did some fun work around kip-ups here and Foxy is always good for a laugh or two per match. Not, like, “good” – but not bad either.
Apollo Crews vs. Jinder Mahal probably went exactly as you’d expect. Apollo actually won too.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Daniel Bryan
Daniel Bryan provides some hope, but god damn.
RAW: 1/10
SmackDown: 7/10
205 Live: 3/10
NXT: 5/10
