Wild Card, bitches.
RAW (5/6/19)
“There’s nothing about Monday Night RAW that is fun.” – Daniel Bryan on Monday Night RAW
If you’re going to have a crap show, why open it with Vince McMahon saying it’s one we’ll never forget?
Sometimes I wonder.
The Wild Card gimmick is not a perfect remedy to dwindling ratings and the usual post-WrestleMania blues, but here we are. I guess it’s a way to get around guys not wrestling each other again and again, but when a wrestling show is boring for me the answer doesn’t feel like Seth Rollins showing up SmackDown once in a while, but god damn superstar professional wrestlers in cool-ass stories doing wild-ass promos.
This show was bad. Samoa Joe following and yelling at Dominick Mysterio, Lacey Evans staring down her prospective opposition as she covered her opponent with an elbow across the face, and some fine promos from
Vince is not the TV performer he once was, yet here he was just hanging out for 30 minutes to kick off RAW, both seemingly unaware and all-too-aware of the absurdity of this enterprise he is running.
AJ Styles & Seth Rollins took a whole lot of nice bumps for Bobby Lashley & Baron Corbin, Braun Strowman appeared to kill off Sami Zayn (until he appeared the next evening on TV), Lucha House Party had a nice squash, and Ricochet won a weird match where he put his Money in the Bank Spot on the line against Bobby Roode. The hook for the latter match leading to commercial was, “How did this match come about? We’ll explain, next!” Are you kidding me folks? I know the months after Mania are a come-down period, but what is going on around here? Bruce? Where is Bruce?
The Usos causing mischief needs to cease immediately because it’s 2 weeks into them being on RAW and I am suddenly tired of The Usos, who I am pretty confident are the still the best tag team act in the world. The Revival meanwhile is either doing some meta-burial gimmick or giving an honest shot at showing personality and I’m not sure what is worse.
Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre apparently just don’t have it against each other. Weird. Their match had some awesome collision moments here and there, but was otherwise kind of a bore. Still though – that Superman punch counter.
The Miz/Shane McMahon brawl was alright.
Did Lars Sullivan show up? I don’t remember.
Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston for the WWE Title at WrestleMania was a five-star match for a lot of factors outside of the in-ring: the atmosphere, the time they were given, the great unknown of Kofi winning. Here we had a shorter version of that match at the end of a crap show. It was good. Really good, actually. Daniel Bryan rules at beating a guy up. Kofi Kingston rules at throwing hands on a comeback. His bump over to the top rope to the outside was wild. It just came at the end at a really, really crap show.
SMACKDOWN (5/7/19)
A not-bad but also very low stakes show. Much like RAW – Generic Money in the Bank build + Wild Card gimmick + post-Mania come-down, not to mention the Stupid Saudi Show coming up soon… there’s a lot working against these wrestling shows being any good.
SmackDown opening up with WWE Champ Kofi Kingston sparring on the mic with RAW guys AJ Styles and Sami Zayn is a world we’re in.
Poor Ali and Andrade worked the majority of their match during the commercial break, a truncated match for two men with truncated names. Then Randy Orton RKO’d them. And stared at the Money in the Bank briefcase above him. Because Money in the Bank.
Could not believe my eyes watching The Usos going from Ucey Hot on RAW to cutting the amazing promo they did on this show, which not only had great rhythm and delivery and lines, but put over the SmackDown Tag Team Title legacy.
Usos vs. Daniel Bryan & Rowan for the newly vacant SmackDown Tag Team Titles was a very good match. Bryan is back and was a wonderful bastard. Rowan was suitably menacing. The Usos were selling their asses off. The finish was hot. Some incredible superkicks were thrown here, stuff that’ll pop the most reluctant of a live audience.
The Miz/Shane McMahon brawl was alright.
Matt Hardy did an all-time great campy dukes up pose opposite Lars Sullivan on this show. That was fun. I think Hardy and R-Truth against Bryan and Rowan could be fun.
The women’s division got a real raw deal here and this week in general, with a pretty quick Carmella & Ember Moon vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville match that had a brief standout performance from Ember before she got pinned. Then Paige awkwardly trotted out with Asuka & Kairi Sane to set some match up.
At least, again, the main event was fun. Kofi Kingston vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn for the WWE Title is a definite option for a TV championship match, yes. They kept things hot and strung all their big stuff together well and whatnot. I dug Kevin Owens attacking Woods on the outside being not just a distraction for Kofi but an assist for old pal Sami.
205 LIVE (5/7/19)
Akira Tozawa‘s smile after Brian Kendrick‘s promo at the start of this show cracked me up.
Tozawa main evented with Mike Kanellis in a No DQ Match and they rocked it. It was a wild dramatic match that a very reluctant crowd was pulled into, with a bunch of strikes being thrown mixed in with tables and chairs here and there. Tozawa’s tope into Mike’s boot was wild, and the frankensteiner to the floor through a table was a perfectly insane capper to the match.
Otherwise, the show sucked. Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese as the main title program is a dire situation, while Daivari vs. Noam Dar was some other level of dire. The fellas pulled off some cool counters at the end but nobody needs to be seeing this. The Singh Brothers squashed a couple guys and talked shit about Lucha House Party too.
NXT UK 42 (5/8/19)
Hey NXT UK has got stuff that actually means something again. Qualifying matches for a Fatal 4-Way to see who faces the WWE UK Champion isn’t the worst way to put guys ya still haven’t quite gotten over yet in singles matches.
Moustache Mountain vs. THE HUNT was a reliably good Mountain tag with the Hunt putting their own twist on it. I loved Wild Boar just chucking Seven at a Primate suplex as an offensive maneuver.
Flash Morgan Webster vs. Joe Coffey for a shot at that 4-Way was a little tentative but a fine flyer vs. power guy match. Coffey threw a wild spinning lariat for the finish.
I now recognize Nina Samuels‘ theme – this is a thing that has happened. Thank you, NXT UK. She squashed a gal en route to Toni Storm, though Kay Lee Ray – who impresses by the week – might get in the way of that.
The main event saw The Grizzled Young Veterans defend the NXT UK Tag Team Titles against Kenny Williams and… not Amir Jordan, who was found injured backstage. Amir’s surprise replacement is Noam Dar and I get the Scottish guy being the surprise in Scotland but yikes. It was a solid match between four guys who haven’t quite broken out yet. I can respect a double submission spot though.
NXT (5/8/19)
3/3 good matches – I see you, NXT.
Mia Yim‘s music and entrance deal is kinda silly, but her match with Bianca Belair was pretty great. These guys were trading holds, pasting each other with shots. There’s always been something about Belair where she exudes the demeanor of someone in a legit sporting contest, until there’s an opening to show off of course. Yim was game for that approach. The future of women’s wrestling in WWE is bright.
Riddick Moss returned to wrestle Raul Mendoza and I don’t know where this came from but wow. First of all, Riddick looks like more of A Guy now, though a lot of guys have looked like A Guy before. You see them trying, you sense they are on the cusp of something, and some end up Randy Orton, some Mojo Rawley. Whereever it goes, we will always have this match – it was worked like a better-than-average enhancement match, with Raul getting a few nice moments like flexing early on and throwing down Moss’ water bottle gimmick to setup a comeback. Moss did an amazing catch off a springboard crossbody that could’ve easily been a drop, which was followed by a few curls with Mendoza’s body and a fallaway slam. Then Mendoza actually got the win, which was a legitimate surprise. Very cool, great work everybody.
Same positive vibes around Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle. Riddle is an undeniable great babyface, selling all exhausted and sweaty and barefoot but also dishing out cool-ass matwork and strikes and suplexes. At one point he just German suplexed Cole’s ass to make a comeback. This had babyface Riddle carrying the first half before both guys brought what they are very good at: dramatic finishes. Sometimes Cole’s whole thing loses me, but opposite Riddle there were enough touches to make this truly awesome.
MAIN EVENT (5/8/19)
Renee Young mentioned during Cedric Alexander vs. EC3 that, “These men seem to have similar strategies. Every time either one of them is getting any momentum, they just stay on their opponent… that’s gotta be the move here.” And outside of EC3 waiting like a dummy for Cedric to feed for a bodyslam, the match was fine – Cedric’s usual shtick looked great vs. the bulkier EC3.
Nikki Cross made an appearance, which would appear to confirm her an official member of RAW, though she faced one-half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Peyton Royce, who is technically on SmackDown but able to appear on RAW due to her championship status, so… the mystery continues. I dig Cross but there wasn’t much here. Peyton threw an incredible spin kick early but also some all-time bad strikes to setup her Fisherman suplex finish, which admittedly had a spectacular bridge.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Matt Riddle vs. Adam Cole
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Welcome back, Daniel Bryan
Wrestling was mostly bad this week.
RAW: 2/10
SmackDown: 3/10
205 Live: 4/10
NXT UK: 4/10
NXT: 6/10
