Earlier today I was at the grocery store searching for an open line when I found one with just one cart in front of us: an elderly couple, both using walkers. I leaned on the cart, bantered with my wife, and played with my son, as we all waited for our turn to get the groceries rung up. I picked up quick that they were causing a bit of a fuss for the young checkout fella, arguing over the price of this and that, having him explain over and over why he did this or why he did that. We watched this obstacle in front of us, realizing they were going full price check on half their items.
Even after that realization, a halt remained in the supply chain, and after an uncomfortable amount of time the young checkout fella had to get on the phone and call a manager. The situation relentlessly continued, and for a bit I couldn’t quite make out what was happening, until I was both frustrated and genuinely interested enough to pay more attention and found out what was: the young checkout fella spoke only English, this old couple spoke only Spanish, and they were both at an impasse over a coupon for Depend Adult Diapers not going through.
The system wasn’t accepting it because they didn’t have the right type or amount of diapers, something like that. The young checkout fella tried to explain it, but the old couple stood their ground. My family and I watched as co-worker after co-worker came by to see what the commotion was, until the manager that was called finally came by and explained everything to the couple in Spanish, a conversation I’m not positive resulted in a satisfying conclusion for anybody.
The young checkout fella had already changed his line to “CLOSED” in the middle of all this, though he assured us he’d take care of us and apologized for the wait – not out of some fake need for customer service, but via a general understanding between us both, a feeling of both sadness and disappointment at the entire situation, but an optimistic hopefulness that we could all smile about it.
We finally got to the front of the line and I looked at the poor guy, who’s shift was done in 10 minutes, and remarked:
“You know, at some point… you just want to see how it ends.”
RAW (6/10/19)
An absolute clusterfuck of a show that had the impossible task of building up excitement for a pay-per-view named Stomping Grounds, like some dumbass named it or something.
Shane McMahon as a direct replacement for The Authority and Seth Rollins as The Ace battling everybody not an ideal situation. And I like both guys in certain situations. Not this one. Not this one with them all over the show and everything about them. It’s not good and doesn’t do them any favors.
The opening promo with Rollins, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn and SmackDown’s Kevin Owens jumped through SO MANY HOOPS: Rollins comes out to talk about how he’s waiting for Brock Lesnar, Corbin interrupts and says there’s a rematch at Stomping Grounds with him able to pick the referee, Sami Zayn enters and explains why he thinks it’d be better for him if Corbin was champ and offers to be the referee, then Rollins inexplicably asks Zayn if he has anyone backing him up and because of the Wild Card rule Kevin Owens appears and confirms that he is indeed backing Zayn up. THERE DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE A REASON – JUST BOOK THE MATCH AND THEN DO AN ANGLE!!!
I am broken.
Just like poor Kalisto, who took a back drop onto the stairs for Lars Sullivan in a 3-on-1 Handicap Elimination Match that seemed to confuse the crowd more than anything. That Kalisto bump was nasty, but Lince Dorado‘s neck bump on the floor after Lars chucked him into the post was legit scary.
The 24/7 Title elevator bit with no referee was fine until it wasn’t, and while it gave Drake Maverick and EC3 a few lines it only really stood out because it was a different thing on a bad show. Becky Lynch and Lacey Evans had some legitimately great lines written out that they delivered well for their split-screen sit-down but because it was all set in the awkward Michael Cole live via satellite interview format everything came off like garbage. Samoa Joe continued to bring the all-time promos, this time on MizTV which included a nice Joe/Miz showdown when Joe, who is just such an amazing old confident prick, brought up Maryse and Monroe Sky. Then a bunch of guys came out and said they wanted Joe’s U.S. Title, and it led to a 6-man. It was dumb.
The 6-man – Braun Strowman, Miz & Ricochet vs. Joe, Bobby Lashley & Cesaro – was pretty forgettable, folks. Braun doing kip-ups is a good time and Ricochet did a crazy thing or two but a rhyme or reason to any of this is missing. Same deal with the next match – Becky Lynch & Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss & Lacey Evans could’ve been fun but just wasn’t. I will say though, The IIconics‘ promo and squash might’ve been their best work yet. Too bad it was 90 seconds in the middle of a bad show.
Drew McIntyre and Shane McMahon‘s celebration thing where Shane drank champagne and beer out of his Best in the World Cup was either an attempt at establishing Drew and Shane further as cocks OR it was a troll job of the highest order on every dumb idiot who still watches this show, in which case it reminds me of some of the deeper nastier troll jobs where you sometimes forget the content and just have to ask the person doing it, “Why?”
The Triple Threat RAW Tag Team Titles match between Ryder & Hawkins, The Usos and The Revival was a decent match with a whole lot of super-kicking going on. It was a pretty sad way to end the Ryder/Hawkins reign though – Hawkins’ losing streak is broken with his best friend at WrestleMania by beating The Revival, and now The Revival just wins the titles back in a match announced on a whim. AAAAAHHHHHHHH
If I can be serious for a minute, the death of Ramblin’ Rabbit and subsequent jam gag might have been the most fucked up thing on WWE TV ever. Firefly Fun House was again something other-worldly. There’s definitely not going to be any good payoff, but the weirdness is appreciated on this bland-ass show.
God, Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens was the main event. It sucked. How did we get here?
They did their STUFF – dives, chinlocks, superkicks – but the match was more about the Sami Zayn outside referee dumbassery. It was a boring end to a bad show.
SMACKDOWN (6/11/19)
Another dire show, though the Yolo County Tag Team Championships were a good bit. Otherwise – DIRE. It used to be that SmackDown ruled and RAW sucked and then RAW ruled and SmackDown sucked and now everything just sucks. Is that the Wild Card?
RAW’s very own The Miz as an anti-authority rulebreaker doing Jericho comedy was a rough start to the show, as was Shane just randomly booking him to face Elias and McIntyre to get to him when it didn’t really seem like anyone even wanted to be there, nor did Miz seem that interested in another match with Shane. Just what in the world is going on with this company!?
Miz running into the Elias knee was nice, Elias being enhancement talent not so much. Then Drew worked over Miz with the picture-in-picture commercial gimmick before Shane helped him win, then called for his match with Miz to start which resulted in a quick 3-count. On paper this might sound fine, but I promise you it was terrible. Shane on Drew’s shoulders is the only thing good about any of this.
Why does being blue collar have to mean being anti-environment!? Get bent, McMahon. Otis is a raw funny guy that WWE has quickly made into an annoying buffoon. REGARDLESS – the whole Yolo County Tag Titles angle with Daniel Bryan announcing a Tag Titles Unification Match before Heavy Machinery actually won the Yolo County titles was a fun angle and the type of outside-the-box yet basic wrestling stuff that should be encouraged. Good for AJ Kirsch too!
Bayley vs. Nikki Cross should’ve been cool but wasn’t, which is a bummer. Speaking of bummers, Alexa Bliss trying to rile up Nikki by saying Bayley liked a negative comment about her sure was one.
Why was Chad Gable introduced with the new G.A.B.L.E. gimmick on SmackDown, only to appear that same night for the first time on 205 Live under his current white meat babyface gimmick? Is this on purpose? WHAT IS GOING ON? I KNOW IT’S IN THE SAME ARENA AND TAPED RIGHT AFTER. WE ALL KNOW.
The New Day vs. Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn & Dolph Ziggler main event was about as generic as it sounds. Owens, Zayn and Ziggler working over Woods was… not great. The finish had its moments, but outside of R-Truth and maybe Lacey Evans there isn’t much inspired work happening anywhere on the main roster, much less to close this crap episode of SmackDown.
205 LIVE (6/11/19)
There still isn’t much forward momentum on 205 Live but I will tell you what the wrestling tonight was fun.
“Whoa! Is this for real!?” Chad Gable made a surprise debut here and got to have a little fun with Jack Gallagher, and by fun I mean what might’ve been his first singles match over 10 minutes in two years. And as so happens every time he gets a little time, it was good. There was matwork! And a Dragon suplex hold! And a tope by Gallagher that was caught and turned into a German suplex, which was just wild enough to lead to a countout victory. Gable still needs a hook, but he showed here that he’s still pretty good. He gives me kind of a Sam Houston vibe and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad in 2019 WWE.
205 Live has both Noam Dar and Mike and Maria Kanellis doing complainers who want to leave gimmicks. The absolute state of WWE right now, man.
The Singh Brothers beat a couple of fellas in masks named Dos Locales lol.
Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Akira Tozawa was tremendous, and stood out from what sometimes seems like endless 205 Live Fatal 4-Way’s and 5-Way’s. Outside of Humberto no one here is known for their flying, but they still went for the non-stop craziness that is expected with a 4-Way Dance, so it was just non-stop smash mouth stuff. Gulak and Oney might be a lost great tag team, and if they weren’t chopping each other they were taking Humberto and Tozawa’s stuff like magicians. The one-two punch of Tozawa’s rapid-speed somersault plancha off the apron and Carrillo’s twisting tope was incredible too.
NXT UK 47 (6/12/19)
Hour 47. It’s June. It’s warm outside. The slow, slow crawl to TakeOver: Cardiff Continues.
Whoever decided to have Jazzy Gabert (teaming with Jinny) work an armbar on XIA BROOKSIDE (teaming with Isla Dawn) in her return match should be ashamed of themselves. Her fumbling around selling missed clotheslines and crap was silly and quickly took away any mystique the Mae Young Classic built up. Isla Dawn felt like the same height as her too. Booooo, NXT UK. BOOOOOO
Ligero got a little love from the machine in the form of a video package interview, as did Travis Banks who’s defining trait seems to be that he’s even more boring than his boring on-screen character. The title match with WALTER should be alright though. Toni Storm did a weird promo where she called her title “shiny shiny” that was a little off-putting, to be honest. The title match with Kay Lee Ray should be alright though.
Ilja Dragunov vs. Joseph Conners was a match made to showcase Dragunov, so it was probably Conners’ best match yet as everything else has been the most boring squashes in the world. Regardless, I swear this guy is doing a WWE house rules parody gimmick, as within 10 seconds of finding an escape from an absolute ass-kicking by Ilja, he slapped on a chinlock.
British Strong Style vs. Imperium had a whole lot of beef slapping and stretching the crap out of each other, but overall the lads had a pretty generic match that didn’t meet what its’ on-paper potential would suggest. Would it shock you if I told you Trent Seven spent a large portion of this match being cornered and worked over by the bad guys? Dunne and WALTER still brought the heat when they got in together and everybody got things bumping for the finish before Alexander Wolfe made his NXT UK debut and joined Imperium. COOL! I like Alexander Wolfe.
NXT (6/12/19)
A show with a pair of very good matches, as well as Marina Shafir & Jessamyn Duke vs. Io Shirai & Candice LeRae which wasn’t bad but just a basic TV match to setup a decent finish where Io hit a gorgeous moonsault to the floor and started brawling with Shayna. Shafir and Duke are both making what seems like completely expected progress, especially in the unique position of being Mixed Martial Artists trained to wrestle primarily by at the WWE Performance Center. They play your basic WWE heels, but will also throw a random weird submission in there or something and I’m like, “I see you.”
KUSHIDA vs. Drew Gulak was a very cool very unique match for WWE, and maybe just a solid match in a Best of the Super Junior or something. A BOSJ however cannot match the craziness of WWE being like, “Hey, KUSHIDA – just be yourself and here’s a few guys that know how to work your style.” Well, a part of his style, at least. This was almost entirely on the mat, with a lot of cool countering and hold-wrenching, plus the odd nasty strike from time to time. You don’t see a match as straightforward as this in WWE often.
The Undisputed Era vs. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch was all about Roderick Strong teaming with Kyle O’Reilly instead of Bobby Fish, and all apologies to Bobby Fish. I like Bobby Fish. I just think Strong & O’Reilly are an all-time great tag team, and Fish & O’Reilly matches are now only defined by the question, “What if Roddy Strong was here?” These teams had a great match at TakeOver: Chicago II where the crowd was a bit too into Undisputed Era to care about Oney and Burch as possible tag champs – this was a much shorter TV version that had its own charm, with less stakes but the crowd at least into both teams.
In general everybody just beat the crap out of each other in the confines of a hot tag team match. O’Reilly and Oney in particular really teared into each other. Oney did that thing again where he seems like the best wrestler in the world when he gets going, and his big chaos dive pops me every time. He took a legit beating here before Danny threw down a fine hot tag. The car crash pinfall break Era likes to do is a little overdone as is the double dukes up spot, but otherwise this was a good time.
And then, Jaxson Ryker showed up? And distracted Undisputed Era, which led to their loss. It was not something I’d call a cliffhanger.
MAIN EVENT (6/12/19)
Hey! The Viking Raiders! They squashed No Way Jose & Titus O’Neil!
And Sarah Logan! She got a match on TV! Where she lost to Natalya!
Main Event, folks!
WWE TV Match of the Week: Like last week, matches from the WWE Network-exclusive brands stood out over the awful run the main roster is having both in and out of the ring – Akira Tozawa vs. Oney Lorcan vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Drew Gulak, British Strong Style vs. Imperium, and Lorcan/Burch vs. Undisputed Era were all a good time.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Oney Lorcan
205 and NXT aren’t exactly buzz-worthy but at least had some fun wrestling. The main shows are having what’s becoming an all-time bad stretch, and I know there’s been some all-time bad stretches but this one feels not just bad but… off. There’s too many eyes on this for it to be… this.
RAW: 2/10
SmackDown: 2/10
205 Live: 7/10
NXT UK: 5/10
NXT: 7/10
